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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (35389)	3/18/2004 5:03:41 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793671

Post editorial Saudis for Human Rights Thursday, March 18, 2004; Page A30 THOUGH IT HAS barely begun, President Bush's effort to promote political liberalization in the Middle East has already created a stir: Numerous governments in the region have been scrambling to demonstrate their interest -- sincere or not -- in democratic reforms, while dissidents and independent civic activists of all kinds have been encouraged to press their own agendas. This is happening not only in relatively liberal countries such as Morocco, Jordan and the Gulf emirates but in the region's conservative bastion, Saudi Arabia. For the past year the kingdom's ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, has been edging toward some cautious innovations such as free elections for municipal posts while fielding an unprecedented series of public petitions from intellectuals, businessmen and other would-be reformers, who have grown steadily bolder in their demands for change. The very voicing of the manifestos has been a breakthrough in the Saudi context, but now the government may be moving to stifle them. That gives the Bush administration, which has watched this drama from the sidelines, a chance to demonstrate that it will back indigenous reform movements in the region. The Saudi crackdown began Monday with the arrest of at least five prominent intellectuals, including professors Abdullah Hamed, Matrouk Faleh and Mohammed Said Tayeb; by yesterday the number of detained was reported to be as high as 10, though several were said to have been released. Those arrested include several leading political liberals as well as moderate Islamists. Most signed a petition in December calling on Crown Prince Abdullah to lay out a timetable for making Saudi Arabia a constitutional monarchy -- a demand that sounds far-fetched now but sets a reasonable goal for the long run. That, it seems, was not their offense. What prompted the arrests, Saudi sources say, was a plan by the reformers to establish an independent human rights organization. The professors first asked permission to set up the group, only to be told that the government planned to establish its own human rights organization. Predictably, the official group rolled out last week excluded the dissidents as well as other notable government critics. So the reformers revived their plan for an independent organization -- only to be dragged from their classrooms by Interior Ministry officials, purportedly for "questioning." The point was obvious: to stifle what would have been a genuinely independent movement to advocate for political freedom, women's rights and other reforms. Bush administration officials often say their intention is not to impose democratic change in the Middle East but to support those seeking change from inside. The Saudi intellectuals are doing just that. While the White House and State Department have expressed concern to the Saudi government, more could be done. Senior officials should publicly support the Saudi dissidents and press the government to allow their independent human rights movement. It wouldn't make Saudi Arabia a constitutional monarchy, but it would be a start.