| (no subject) |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|02:38 pm] |
i'm not going to be writing in this journal anymore. i'll still be on here to watch communities but that'll be it. if you want toooo you should add me as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) over_stated.
i know it's a pain in the ass when people do this, but it's time to move on. i'm going to try to write more as well. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 23rd, 2008|02:30 pm] |
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i just found my old old OLD livejournal. i haven't changed all that much. it's a bit sad. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 2nd, 2007|06:01 am] |
Saudi religious police face backlash By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jul 1, 1:58 PM ET
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - As the car stopped outside a Riyadh amusement park, two bearded men dragged the driver from the wheel and took the three women on a wild ride of more than an hour, bouncing over sidewalks and finally abandoning them on a darkened street.
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The women at first thought they had been kidnapped by terrorists. The two men however, said they were religious police.
It might have gone down as just one more excess of zealousness by the forces charged with upholding Islamic modesty, except that Umm Faisal, the senior of three women, did something that is believed unprecedented in Saudi Arabia: She went to court.
On Monday, four years after the incident, the latest chapter of the legal battle being waged by this 50-year-old mother of five reopens before Riyadh's Grievances Court, which handles damages suits for abuses by government and public figures.
The unusual publicity surrounding Umm Faisal's story comes on top of two cases involving the death in religious police custody of two Saudi men — one arrested for allegedly consuming alcohol, another for being alone with a woman not of his family.
A trial opened Monday against three religious police officers and a fourth man in the death of Ahmed al-Bulaiwi, the man detained for being alone with a woman. Relatives demanded the death penalty against the defendants.
Taken together, the cases threaten to undermine the authority of the force's employer, the powerful, independent body called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Since the commission's creation more than six decades ago, there has been no known public legal action taken against its members despite complaints they occasionally overstep their boundaries. The public view has tended to be that whatever their faults, they are acting in Islam's name to defend morality.
But things may be changing.
The National Society for Human Rights, a nongovernment body, has issued a report which, according to the daily Arab News, levels a string of allegations at the religious police: abusive language, unsubstantiated accusations, humiliation of people during interrogation, beatings, unnecessary body searches, forced entry into private homes and coerced confessions.
The report, as well as the extensive coverage the cases have received and editorials calling for the commission's reform, suggest the government may act to regulate the force.
Another setback for the commission came in the appointed Consultative Council, the nearest thing to a parliament in Saudi Arabia. It rejected proposals to build more commission centers and give its members a 20 percent salary raise. While the council's actions are not binding, they reflect a general desire to curb the religious police's power.
"Society has developed and the relationship of other governmental bodies with the people has developed and become more human," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi journalist. "Yet the commission has not changed."
"Society in principle doesn't reject the commission," he added. "But the commission's problem is that it doesn't have a proper job description."
Several media outlets have conducted informal surveys asking Saudis whether the commission should be dissolved. Some have said yes. While the polls may be unscientific, simply asking the question is significant.
Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the commission's head, dismissed the polls, saying the commission is "one of the oldest governmental agencies ... and not a cooperative that can be eliminated because of individual mistakes," according to the Al-Jazira newspaper.
The Saudi government is reluctant to tamper with its religious establishments for fear of angering conservatives and weakening its credentials as custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines. The conservative impulse has lately been illustrated by a request from 14 faculty members of King Saud University's medical school to ban male students from treating women and vice versa, on the grounds that handling bodies of the other sex is un-Islamic.
But there are signs the commission is acting to limit the damage to the religious police's reputation. It now has a spokesman and a legal department to guide its members.
Umm Faisal — her full name is withheld in reports on the case — says she, her 21-year-old daughter and her Indonesian maid went to pick up her two teenage sons from the amusement park in the family's new Chevrolet Caprice.
"I kept asking the men, 'Are you terrorists?' They finally said they were members of the commission," she said. "When I asked what they wanted, they called me names, including adulteress."
Umm Faisal said the men drove so fast and badly that smoke came out of the car.
The men stopped the car, called their friends and asked them to pick them up. The women, who don't know how to drive (and can't anyway, under Saudi law), were left to the mercies of passers-by.
Umm Faisal headed to the police to lodge a complaint. "When questioned, the commission members claimed we were indecently covered," because her daughter's veil didn't cover her eyes, she said.
In early 2004 she filed suit at Riyadh's General Court, but says several judges pressed her to drop it and late last year the case was dismissed.
She then turned to the Grievances Court, which fined one official $540 for mistreating the women and acquitted the other.
Umm Faisal isn't satisfied, and her appeal opens before the court on Monday. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 25th, 2007|03:04 pm] |
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i just saw a lady pulling her two children in a wagon. i miss those days. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 8th, 2007|02:43 pm] |
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my roommates are fucking idiots. well, except one. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 6th, 2007|11:01 am] |
warning: emo post
why do bad things ALWAYS happen at once. why do people i trust ALWAYS happen to betray that simultaneously. i wanna go home. saudi how i miss thee. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 4th, 2007|08:50 am] |
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the cure has this wonderful ability to piss me off, no matter HOW happy i am |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 2nd, 2007|04:45 pm] |
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oh and i wish "the history boys" movie was better. i guess it's just something that needs to be live. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 5th, 2007|08:02 pm] |
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someone get me the fuck out of here |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 16th, 2007|08:39 pm] |
no one is around so i am drinking alone! no i do not have a problem. if drinking with people was an option, i would be pursuing it.
drinking alone does suck. i should do something worthwhile in my current state. i'll do laundry. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|07:20 am] |
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i can't go to the u because i'm not a resident of minnesota. damn it. according to the u, to be considered a resident in their eyes (meaning paying 9,000 a year instead of 21,000) you have to have lived in the state for over a year WITHOUT being enrolled in school. and i know i wouldn't get a scholarship from there so it's going to be much cheaper to stay at hamline. i am not happy about this. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|06:43 am] |
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i spelled write "right" underneath. what lack of sleep will do. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 6th, 2007|10:02 pm] |
i just deleted my other entry. it made me sound like i was on drugs. really, it's just me trying to make sense on three hours of sleep. saw THE reverend horton heat last night. with murder by death. oh god. murder by death blew me away. i had to leave about 5 songs in the reverend's set because i felt so sick....i later learned he played for 2 hours and 15 min! fuck! but he opened with big sky. and now i can die happy. speaking of death, i've been thinking about it a lot lately. not as in OMG i'm gonna kill myself come save me. as in really thinking about the permanency (at least in my beliefs)of what it is. yeah i know obvious statement of the century right? but i feel like the actual meaning of death is just sinking in for me. took me 19 years but hey, i think i've got it. and it just makes me so upset to think about. i could articulate this in a much better way but right now i'm doing my best just to stay somewhat coherent. but yeah. back to the show. the one day i'm sick. grrrr. at least i got to see him at all. i swear me and tony were the only people under 21 at that show thought which really shocked me. where are all the 18-20 yr old reverend fans??? this guy is a legend! ridiculous i say!
i'm not going to right about the gynecologist again. i'm not sure why i felt the need to write about my yearly exam hahaha. i need sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 26th, 2007|11:27 am] |
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my mom went on a trip last week to a place in saudi called madain saleh. it's basically some ancient ruins that tourists are sometimes granted permission to see (it's right next to the holy city of medina so it's not the easiest place to get access to). so i call my dad up to ask about my u of m application and he's all "i bet i can guess why you're calling..you've been watching the news haven't you". apparently terrorists attacked a group of french people that were touring the same place my mom was. she got back sat. night and this happened today. she SAW this group of people...she remembers them because there were only a few people there when she was...they were touring the same spots. it's horrible that this happened. i am so grateful my mom came back when she did. this is fucked up. she could've been there. that could've been her group. oh well i'm done with "what ifs". just kind of a rude awakening. if anyone's interested...it hasn't really been on the news.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6398395.stm |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 26th, 2007|09:03 am] |
something i just can't stand.
i smoke cigarettes. i have two packs left out of the carton and these are my last ones. i'm not scared either. i know i can do it. so there. but recently i have noticed a little something about smokers....
i love the no smoking rules that minneapolis has decided on. i love that people can't smoke in airplanes. or in bars. or in restaurants. i remember so clearly all those times my family would be flying when i was about 4 and we'd be stuck in the smoking section of the plane. all 8 hours would consist of me with a wet napkin over my face just to try and filter out the smell so i could breathe. i am ALL for strict smoking laws. i'm choosing to pollute my own body and NO ONE else should be subject to breathing that simply because they want to hang out at a bar. now. why is it that every other smoker i talk to is so up in arms about these laws??? are you really that selfish? i know this doesn't apply to everyone that smokes but most people i talk to (when the topic comes up for one reason or another) immediately state that "i mean you can't smoke anywhere these days!" or "smoking and drinking just go together!". my ass you selfish bastard. good job minnesota and i hope the rest of the country follows suit. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|12:02 pm] |
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i want to go on an adventure today. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 14th, 2007|10:52 pm] |
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valentine's day: i have my period AND pink eye. at least my color scheme is right...ewwww hahaha |
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