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CAIROâJamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan and longtime irritant of crotchety Saudi clerics, resigned his post May 16, ostensibly âto focus on his personal projects.â Some observers suspect, though, that Khashoggiâs withdrawal was forced.
Khashoggi tendered his parting papers after Al-Watan came under fire for an article questioning the often unbendingly conservative nature of Saudi Islam. Khashoggi will remain on the paperâs editorial board, according to the BBCâperhaps a small plum for vacating his post quietly.
Al-Watan is Saudi Arabiaâs leading daily newspaper and one of the more progressive outlets in the country. Like many dailies in the kingdom, though, Al-Watan is owned by a Saudi royal, Prince Khalid al-Faisal, and the paperâs offices were erected on land donated by another prince. Like all other Saudi news outlets, Al-Watan is regularly subjected to merciless government oversight.
Khashoggi was removed from the same newspaper in 2003 for running a cartoon picturing a suicide bomber whose waist-lining sticks of dynamite were each labeled with the word âFATWAââreligious orders Saudi clerics demand of their followers, and which are occasionally violent.
He was reappointed as editor in 2007, only to be called onto the clerical carpet last week for questioning Salafism, unflinching literalism which enforces a seventh-century-style application of Islamic texts, according to veteran New York Times Mideast correspondent Neil MacFarquhar. The catalytic article in Khashoggiâs case defended the practice of visiting shrines and graves of revered Muslims, according to Agence France Presse, which Salafis vehemently oppose as a form of idol worship.
Speculations that Khashoggi was again fired abound in Arab newspapers, not at all an unreasonable assumptionânot only because Khashoggiâs been pinkslipped before, but also because Saudi Arabia hasnât exactly cultivated a reputation as a country that lets newsmakers frolic in free will.
Organizations like Freedom House, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders usually save some of their gloomiest language for describing Saudi Arabiaâs journalistic environment. Reporters Without Borders brands Saudi Arabia one of the worldâs âenemies of the Internet,â noting that the regime installs hidden cameras in Internet cafes, hounds dissident bloggers, and has blocked around 400,000 Web sites not to its liking. (Interesting aside: Saudi Arabia has used software called SmartFilter to keep information from its subjects, a product produced under American company McAfee, and formerly under Secure Computing).
While Saudi Arabia is a hot nightmare for candid communicators, the climate suffocating the kingdomâs speech is not all the doing of the regime or privileged Saudi religious leaders. BBCâs Arabic podcast recently profiled a group of lay volunteers calling itself âSaudi Flaggers,â conservative Saudis that scour YouTube for âoffensiveâ content they subsequently petition YouTube administrators to remove. Saudi Flaggersâ Web site says in Arabic, âYouTube is a success story; donât corrupt it, Arabs.â Outspoken Saudi journalists donât just have the government to worry about; conservative citizens call for their careers, too.
Saudi Arabiaâs religious police also features patrolling volunteers who harass and punish civilians for such hell-summoning acts as reading a newspaper during prayer time, or kissing oneâs husband in public. The religious police force, whose nickname in Arabic is literally âvolunteerâ but whose official title is The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, is likely thrilled that Khashoggi surrendered his post.
Unlike Saudi Flaggers or those who donate their free hours to force religion on their neighbors, itâs unlikely that Jamal Khashoggi volunteered to relinquish his editorship to the delight of petulant Saudi clerics. But in the end it doesnât matter whether Khashoggi was forced out, for the result is the same: The voice of another outspoken Saudi thinker has been de-amplified.
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