Two Saudi women activists jailed for helping starving mother locked in home

Nathalie Morin, a Canadian woman married and living in Saudi Arabia, was locked in her house along with the whole family by her “loving” husband who then went for a week-long visit to see relatives in another town. As their supplies of food and water started to run out, she sent a text message to two human rights workers Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Oyouni, asking for help.

RT news reports …

“I cannot help myself and I have no rights in Saudi Arabia. My children are hungry and I cannot do anything to feed them. I’m fighting to get freedom, justice and fairness for my family including myself,”Morin wrote on her blog. The two bought food and came to Morin’s house

The police also because involved, so what happened then … did they help to release Ms Morin? Hell no, this is Saudi, the two bringing food and help were arrested and put on trial …

presiding judge Fahad al-Gda’a issued a ruling sentencing the two human rights workers to ten months in prison, imposing an additional two-year travel ban on top of the jail time. The charges were “inciting a woman to flee with her children” and “attempting to turn a woman against her husband.” The women were acquitted of charges that they had attempted to smuggle the wife and her three children to the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh.

So lets replay this utter lunacy …

• A complete shit of a husband locks his wife and kids in the house and leaves them with no food or water, then goes off on a jolly for a week … the claim that the two human rights activists were “attempting to turn a woman against her husband” is utterly outrageous, no external encouragement is needed, the husband managed that all by himself.
• The two human rights activists are then arrested and sentenced to jail on trumped up and completely meaningless charges … “crimes” that would in fact identify you are a compassionate and decent human being anywhere else.

This of course has nothing to do with these supposed “crimes”, but is instead a desperate attempt to keep women in check and under the thumb of men within Saudi society …

Al-Huwaider said that during her interrogations, investigators did not ask her about Morin’s case but rather about her involvement in the Saudi women’s rights movement, including questions about the Women2Drive campaign and her relationship with Saudi women’s rights activist Manal al-Sharif. Al-Huwaider filmed the latter driving a car, which is illegal in the Kingdom, and posted the video on YouTube. Al-Sharif said later in a lecture in Scotland that followed the publication of that video, she received threats of being raped and killed.

However you spin this – jailing people for simply coming to the aid of a woman in distress is barbaric and that fact alone reveals the utter moral bankruptcy that is rampant within the Saudi religious theocratic dictatorship.

Background Context

The form of Islam within Saudi Arabia is known as Wahhabism, named as such because it was founded in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It is a branch of Sunni Islam, but with a strong emphasis on the Athari school of thought (least you wonder, that is all about maintaining the theology of the early Muslims known as the Salaf). Why is it like this, why have they dominated and gained power? Basically because of the alliance between Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the House of Muhammad ibn Saud – that provided political and financial power for the religious revival represented by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

To be frank, they are nuts, and that is not just my opinion, it is also the opinion of about 99% of the Muslims on the planet. In fact, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s own father and also his brother thought he was crazy and opposed his insane beliefs when he started promoting them.

Anyway, the context of this story is that Saudi Arabia has a “guardianship system” and rather strict gender segregation rules motivated by an embrace of Wahhabism. It greatly limits a women’s abilities to make decisions and participate in public life. Under this system girls and women are strictly forbidden from travelling, conducting official business, or undergoing medical procedures without the permission of a male guardian. The true motivation behind this story is the desire to preserve and protect this insanity – or to put that another way, they wish to imprison humans for the crime of being female.