Alternatives International

Shia in Saudi Arabia: A History of Discrimination, Oppression

Samia Constantin — 2016-08-01T17:12:21Z

The relationship between Saudi Sunni and Shia has always been characterized by conflict. Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia are a minority group that account for 10 to 15 percent of the population in a mainly Sunni country. The Shia communities in Saudi Arabia are mostly concentrated in the Eastern Province, where the population is estimated at 33 per cent.

Since the 1980s, the nature of the conflict transition from military confrontation to the Saudi Shia's movement for equal rights and affirmation of their culture. (Al Rasheed 1998). Saudi Shias are working establish their community in a Sunni society that punishes their religious expression, limits their political participation and civil liberties, and deprives them of economically prosperity (Al Rasheed 1998).

Discrimination embedded in Saudi domestic policy

The Sunni government has imposed multiple constraints on the Shia community. It is very difficult to obtain a license for a Shia mosque, and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs does not fund Shia clerics. Various Shia religious practices are often forbidden and punished, such as the celebration of Maulid Al-Nabi or Ashura. Shia religious expression has to fall within the limits of Sunni interpretation of Islam, and must be celebrated accordingly.

Saudi Shias are underrepresented in court rulings, government departments and agencies, administrations, public universities and schools, police departments, and in most Saudi industries. A glass ceiling exists for Shias in every sector of Saudi Arabia.

The Sunni and Shia conflict is embedded in Saudi Arabia's social and religious norms. The Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom analyzed multiple textbooks from the Saudi Ministry of Education used in Islamic studies for elementary and secondary students. The report concludes that the textbooks “promote an ideology of hatred toward people, including Muslims, who do not subscribe to the Wahhabi sect of Islam,” the foundation of the state's political and social ideology.

The Saudi government denies the validity of this report. Abdel al-Jubeir, a Saudi Embassy spokesman, told The Freedom House that “we have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths.”

Ironically, Saudi Arabia calls on the international community to criminalize any act or symbolic discrimination against Islam. The government has called upon various Western Head of States, cartoonists, and journalists to curb any representation and mockery of Islam while continuing to systematically discriminate against fellow Muslims and other non-Muslims.

Shia denied Hajj pilgrimage

Both Sunni and Shia Muslims share the same five pillars of Islam, the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, Ramadan, the prayer, Chahada, and Zakat. However, Saudia Arabia has forbidden Shia Muslims to perform the sacred Hajj pilgrimage. Starting in 2015, Shia had to complete an application to perform the Hajj and identify themselves as Sunni or Shia. If individuals refused to identify, they were not allowed in Mecca. In 2016 and following the tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, both countries have failed to negotiate an agreement regarding the pilgrimage of Shia Iranians to the Hajj in Mecca. The tension between Sunni and Shia has led to the politicization of the holiest cities for Muslims.

The 2016 Islamic pilgrimage was the target of a suicide bomber, killing four security officer in Medina. This attack took place after two other suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia; one near the US embassy in Jeddah, the other outside a Shia mosque in Qatif. Earlier that year, another attack targeted a Shia mosque in Al-Ahsa and killed four people, injuring 18 others. ISIL claimed responsibility for these attacks and has continued to target Shia communities across the Middle East.

Shia Crescent threatens Sunni power

Violence towards Shia Muslims across the Middle East has intensified since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 — where 66 per cent of the population is Shia — and the 2010 Arab Spring.

The Iranian Revolution led to the creation of a strong Shia nation, influencing other Shia communities across the Middle East. In Iraq, the State of Law Coalition, a Shia political party, came to power and won a parliamentary majority in the face of Sunni political and military power. The Arab Spring further intensified conflicts between Sunni and Shia in countries like Syria, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. These victories have reinforced the Shia Crescent between Iran, Iraq, Alawite-dominated Syria, and the Shia group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and have also emphasized the presence of Shia minorities in Kuwait, Yemen, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

The Shia Crescent and Iran's growing political influence, however, threatened the statute of Saudi Arabia as the great power in the region and multiplied religious clashes within Saudi Arabia.

In 2009, the tension between Sunni and Shia communities intensified. The year was marked by conflict between Shia pilgrims and Saudi religious police in Medina, by arbitrary arrests of Shia protesters, arrests of religious leaders in Ahsa', and the closing of Shia communal space for payers in Khobar.

The Journal Global Security affirms that, from 2010 to 2015, around 27 Saudi Shia were killed and 200 were injured as a result of sectarian clashes. 2016 already witnessed multiple terrorist attacks on Shia communities around the Middle East, and the intensification of a Cold War between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Violence continues into 2016

In the first half of 2016, four Shia worshippers have been killed suicide bomb and gun attacks in eastern Saudi Arabia. Attacks the Imam Rida mosque wounded 18 people. Saudi Arabia has already executed 47 people, including Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Al-Nimr was the main figure of the opposition movement in the Saudi Easter Province and allied himself with Iran. In 2011, inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, Al-Nimr encouraged Shia protest in Saudi Arabia and demanded equal rights for Shia communities. Saudi security forces retaliated by shooting and killing over 25 young Shia protesters. His execution led to protests in Tehran, and harsher diplomatic tensions between the two countries after the Saudi Embassy was set on fire in Iran.

Shia communities are the first targets of attacks across the Middle East, and dozens are killed every month in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia has created a dangerous situation for Shia Muslim within its territory. But ISIL's recent attacks on Shia mosques is new territory for Saudi Arabia: whither the security measures protect Shia communities within the Saudi territory against foreign attacks? Amnesty International calls upon Saudi Arabia for the protection of their Shia minority: “the Saudi Arabian authorities must take immediate steps to protect the country's Shia Muslim minority from sectarian violence and put an end to decades of systematic discrimination”.

The Deputy Director at Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme reported to Amnesty International that “unless the Saudi Arabian authorities are transparent about the investigations they are carrying out into these atrocities, and unless they take serious and effective steps to end discrimination and advocacy of hatred against the Shia, it will fuel perceptions that they are looking the other way while sectarian tensions and violence against Shia intensify”.

Additional Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/05/sunni-shia-why-conflict-more-political-than-religious-sectarian-middle-east

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/04/sunni-shia-sectarianism-middle-east-islam

http://www.jstor.org/stable/195850?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/sa-shia.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/02/suadi-arabia-cleric-execution-unrest-predicted-shia-areas

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/07/saudi-official-calls-on-international-community-to-criminalize-criticism-of-islam

“I Am a Victim of Injustice”: Dilma Rousseff and Sexism in Brazilian Politics

Samia Constantin — 2016-07-04T17:12:31Z

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff faces an impeachment trial after accusations of burying an important budget deficit to guarantee her re-election in 2014 sparked massive public outrage. The Senate voted 55-22 to suspend her for 180 days, ending the thirteen-year rule of the Worker's Party.

Brazil's first female president denounced this decision as a “coup,” declaring that “when an elected president is suspended as a result of a crime she hasn't committed, the name we give is not impeachment but a coup.”

Rousseff refuses to take responsibility for any wrong-doings during her presidency, although during her impeachment trial, she admitted that she regrets the coalition she created with her Vice President Michel Temer, since he turned against her during the trials.

Conveniently, Temer took over Rousseff's responsibilities as interim president, with a cabinet made up of an all white, male ministers. Temer's white male cabinet highlights the systemic issue of sexism in Brazilian politics, and leads to the speculation that Rousseff payed the price of being a woman in the Brazilian political realm.

In fact, Temer appointed various ministers implicated in corruption scandals. AlJazeera reported that at least sixty percent of politicians in Brazil are “under investigation or indictment for crimes ranging from attempted murder to massive corruption, including the president of the senate who will be overseeing Rousseff's impeachment trial.” Yet, it seems like only Rousseff is being punished for the culture of corruption in Brazil.

Gender-based arguments

Rousseff is the first female president in Latin America. The Brazilian Senate is 16 percent female, while the Lower House is comprised just about 10 percent women. Still, Temer's government is the first all-male cabinet Brazil has had since 1979.

The gender bias against Rousseff started before her first election in 2010. Media coverage insisted on her lack of femininity and “sex appeal” while underlining the fact that she was divorced and never remarried. She was qualified as “aggressive,” “strict,” and “too serious,” in comparison to the charismatic President Lula.

At the time, Rousseff was already listed by Forbes as the 16th most powerful person internationally, but was still considered by many Brazilians as unfit for the political sphere. These reactions and comments effectively pressured her into getting plastic surgery during the presidential campaign, in order to fit the standard of beauty socially imposed on her. Rousseff had to change drastically to appeal to the Brazilian expectations of a woman. Following her transformation, media outlets rushed to discuss her physical changes, the color of her lipstick, her outfits, or her different hairstyles.

“Tchau querida !” (Bye, darling!)

Rousseff's gender is not the only reason for her impeachment, but it has undeniably worked against her. Rousseff's womanhood was politicized to guarantee her impeachment. Multiple congressmen held up signs reading “Tchau querida” as they voted to suspend her in the lower house. Magazines argued that Rousseff did not possess “the emotional control to run the country”. The first female President claimed “there are attitudes towards me that wouldn't exist toward a male president.”

Rousseff's impeachment raises the spectre of sexism in Brazilian politics and society. Does the reaction against Rousseff point to the comeback of a conservative Brazil attached to traditional family values where women are unfit for politics? Or perhaps Brazilian sexism has never really gone away.

Despite comprising 51 percent of Brazil's population, women are still treated as a minority group by the new government. Interim president Temer merged the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality, Youth, and Human Rights with the Ministry of Justice to form a new Ministry of Justice and Citizenship.

To justify the lack of women in his cabinet, Temer argued that no political party suggested he nominate a woman. Instead, the executive branch includes multiple sons of political officials who do not have any formal political experience. Temer has emphasized the fact that his Chief of Staff was a woman but used the term “secretary” to refer to her position.

Temer has also promised that his wife, Marcela Temer, will have a function in the social sector of the government, but felt it necessary to describe her as “beautiful, reserved, and domesticated.” Rousseff reacted to Temer's cabinet saying that “Black people and women are fundamental if you truly want to construct an inclusive country”

Over the past few weeks, new information has surfaced that links the Temer's government to the Petrobras corruption scandals. Transparency Minister Fabiano Silveira and Senate President Renan Calheiros made a plea bargain with Petrobras. Temer himself was accused of corruption, but not put on trial. This latest scandal is symbolic: the female leader of one of the world's biggest countries is singled out in ways that her male counterparts never are or will be.

The Legacy of LuxLeaks: Whistleblowers, Privacy and European Law

Samia Constantin — 2016-06-02T16:58:30Z

Antoine Deltour, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) employee, attracted international attention on illegal tax agreements between Luxembourg authorities and multinational corporations by leaking 28,000 pages worth of information on tax agreements between governments and businesses.

The leak, dubbed Luxleaks, shed light on systematic and illegal practices undertaken by various multinational corporations, as states such as the Netherlands and Ireland. Deltour was praised by multiple European deputies, and named the European citizen of the year.

In October 2010, Deltour was working late and found tax rulings in the employee database. The rulings described secret fiscal agreements between governments and multinational corporations. Deltour realized the content of the documents and copied them.

During the summer of 2011, Deltour was contacted by a journalist Edouard Perrin. He sent Perrin the documents. In May 2012, “Cash Investigation”, a French TV program, covered the story, entitled “Tax Havens: the small secrets of big businesses”, which focused on the documents provided by Deltour. Following this media coverage, PwC pressed charges anonymously.

By November 2014, journalists under the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published long investigations based on Deltour's documents. The revelations made by these documents allowed the European Commission to undertake various investigations on the fiscal practices highlighted by the LuxLeaks.

“I'm neither a righter of wrongs, nor a martyr”

Deltour claims not to be a political activist, or to have any malicious intentions to undermine PwC. He does not consider himself a vigilant, or martyr.

“I did not want to stigmatize a country or my employer”, asserts Deltour. Deltour does not consider himself being a whistleblower, but part of a greater movement that tackles neoliberal fiscal practices by providing information about offshore finance centers and financial justice.

“Acquittal or shame”

However, Deltour may face hard consequences, as he is branded as an anti-capitalist by Roger Hayard, the Luxembourg police commissioner, and may be charged for theft, and the violation of state secrecy laws. His trial began on May 26. Deltour risks jail time and a fine of 1.25 million euros. After the eight-day trial, Deltour managed to prove he acted in view of the public interest. His judgement will be announced on May 29.

Multiple citizen groups, or non-governmental organizations describe the absurdity of this situation. The LuxLeaks allowed Luxembourg's authorities to expose 350 multinational corporations and the illegal tax practices, and allowed them to save billions of dollars by escaping tax levy.

Following the leak of documents, Deltour was applauded by European deputies, and invited to the European Parliament to discuss the importance of whistleblowers and how states have a duty to protect whistleblowers.

As a result of the Panama Papers, LuxLeaks, and SwissLeaks, The European Commision decided to adopt a new Directive on the Protection of Trade Secrets, to guarantee business secrecy. The Directive is meant to protect companies from “economic and industrial espionage.” As per the Directive, businesses are guaranteed the right to press charges in case of theft or the leak of confidential information. The European People's Party have urged the adoption of the directive after one out of four european businesses had confidential information leaked in 2013. This Directive is said to be subordinate to freedom of information and the duty of whistleblowers to expose “an error, an inappropriate behaviour or an illegal activity” in order to “protect the public interest.”

Journalists, investigators, and whistleblowers are worried about the impact this directive will have on their duty to inform citizens. The Directive's primary goal is to protect the flow of information between businesses and governments, but might pose a danger for whistleblowers as they seek to expose illegal agreements by stealing corporate information. European deputies have urged the adoption of two exceptions under this directive. The first exception guarantees the respect for the liberty and plurality of the media. The second exception requires whistleblowers to prove they leaked information to “protect the public interest.”

The European Federation of Journalists urges the European Commission to reconsider the Directive by arguing that it limits journalists' “ability to investigate and report about businesses” whilst putting them at risk to be convicted for a crime. “The newly adopted Directive still raises doubt as to whether journalists and in particular their sources, in particular whistleblowers are appropriately protected,” asserts Reporters Without Borders.

The Directive creates a high level of uncertainty when it comes to the repercussion they might face. It is not clear how the distinction can or will be made between an illegal leak of information, and a whistleblower who desires to protect the general public interest. Journalists and whistleblowers are left to face the arbitrary judgement of states, corporations, and criminal law.

Whistleblowers need to have a formal and legal protection which requires the Directive to clearly state that they cannot be convicted. Their protection depends today on watchdog organizations such as the European Federation of Journalists, or Reporters Without Borders, to monitor how and when European states misuse the Directive, so as to safeguard journalists' and whistleblowers' rights.