From CDHR
December 18, 2007
Apartheid Bordering on Modern Slavery
By Ali Alyami
The recent Saudi royal religious court’s cruel ruling against a 19-year-old gang raped victim and the revoking of her courageous lawyer, Mr. Abdurrahman Al-Latham’s license, generated global condemnation. The blatant unjustness of this system should convince the West that the Saudi government (royal family) is operating an Apartheid system of the lowest order.
Segregating women and denying them legal protection against institutionalized rampant injustices, as well as the right to full employment and independence from their male relatives, who control their lives and movements, could be considered modern slavery. The Saudi government’s institutionalized discriminatory and segregationist policies against women are similar, if not identical, to those practiced under the former repulsive Apartheid system against black people in South Africa.
The steadfastness of Western democracies and human rights groups against the Apartheid system brought it down; the same actions should be employed to remind the Saudi royal family that ostracizing and denying Saudi women their full rights as human beings and as citizens is not only immoral and in stark disregard to basic respect for human rights, but a direct support for religious extremists that train and send young Saudi men to slaughter innocent people all over the world.
Acquiescing to the Saudi institutionalized offense against women is not only depraved, but indirectly supports the institutions that created and perpetuate an Apartheid system that should have been abolished long ago. The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, located in Washington D.C., calls upon the U.S. government, NGOs, and the international community to label the Saudi system for what it is: An Apartheid system of governance. The transformation of Saudi institutions by peaceful means is not only necessary, but long overdue.