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Ten percent women in Saudi parliament
For the first
time, women will represent 10 percent of the 150 seats of the
Saudi Shura, or consultative council, in the coming legislative
term, Xinhua reported. »
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Dubai:
A controversial Saudi cleric used Twitter to publicly insult the
recently-appointed female members of the Shura Council. He however
received strong backlash from Saudi nationals who called for
action against him terming the statement as 'moral crime' and
un-Islamic.
Derogatory terms such as "prostitutes" and "the filth of society"
were used to describe the female academics and
technocrats who were sworn into the Council a few days after
a highly-acclaimed Royal Decree was issued by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz,
Al Arabiya reported Sunday.
The tweets quickly became widely-spread through the social media
network and rapidly developed their own hash-tags; however, many
Saudi tweeps condemned the attack on the female Shura members,
especially since they came from figures who are supposed to preach
tolerance, compassion and respect, the report added.
Among the clerics who resorted to insults was member of the
Islamic Ministry for Da’wah, Guidance and Endowments, Ahmed Al-Abedul-Qader
expressed his discontent of women partaking a role in the Shura
Council over his Tweeter account, “They thought they can mock the
mufti by giving these 'prostitutes' legitimacy to be in power. I
am not an imposter, and imposters do not fool me. For how long
will the forts of virtues be torn down?”, according to Al Arabiya.
Following angry reactions by Twitter users, Qader said: “We have
heard and read many insults against (God) as well as mockery
against the prophet, prayer be upon him, and none of those
defending (these female) members was angered.”
For his part, Dr. Saleh al-Sugair, a former teaching assistant at
King Saud University slammed the assignment of female members at
the council and tweeted: “The insolent (women) wearing make-up at
the Shura Council represent the society? God, no. They are the
filth of society.”
His tweet reads: “The fools of the Shura council, these immodest
women represent the society? I swear by God’s name they do not.
They are society’s scum, garbage.”
This wasn't the first controversial statement al-Sugair، who is
not a cleric but a medical doctor known for extreme religious
views.
Last year, he called for a complete separation in medical colleges
between male students and female students.
He spoke on what appeared to be a religious program saying “ why
do you need to employ females when we have unemployed males who
are providing for their families” and he added “what is the point
of having a male doctor with a female secretary?”
He insisted that there is no need to have female receptionists in
hospitals and especially in male sections.
Sugair has over 40 thousand followers on twitter and is known for
advocating against women employment, women driving, and women
treating male patients.
However, the backlash to the recent statements regarding the Shura
Council appointees was severe.
Author Maha al-Shahri tweeted: “(These statements) are a moral
crime. The government has to set laws to (teach) them and their
likes (morals).”
Doctor Abdelrahman al-Sobeyhi tweeted: “Every disease has a
medicine to heal it except stupidity.”
Another user, Ali Abdelrahman, wrote: “This is ignorance that does
not belong to Islam.”
“The problem is that they think they have immunity from God!”
another twitter user said.
A royal decree last month amended two articles in the council’s
statute introducing a 20 percent quota for women in the country’s
Shura Council, and the king appointed 30 women to join the
consultative assembly.
The council was sworn in last week.
The assembly, whose members are appointed by the king - and until
recently were exclusively male - works as the formal advisory body
of Saudi Arabia. It can propose draft laws which would be
presented to the king, who, in turn, would either pass or reject
them.
Previously, the European Union has welcomed Saudi King Abdullah’s
recent decree allowing women to be members of in the kingdom’s
Shura Council for the first time as a major development in the
direction of women empowerment.
“We welcome the announcement made by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
on Friday Jan. 11 to appoint 30 women to the country's previously
all-male Shura Council,” according to statement by Nabila Massrali,
a spokesperson for the European Commission.
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