It is the second victory in the past five years for Saudi writers and the Saudi media in general. In a fair, bold and honorable decision by Crown Prince Abdullah, the sentence imposed on Saudi writer Dr. Hamza Al-Mizeini was annulled. Besides putting the writer in jail for four months, Al-Mizeini’s sentence would have banned him from writing in the media and given him two hundred lashes. The crown prince, however, set aside the sentence handed down by the judge in the Shariah Court on the grounds that it ran counter to a royal decree which directs that all matters concerning publications or the media must be dealt with through the Ministry of Information. As Dr. Al-Mizeini himself said, had it not been for the royal decree, “Harm would have come to many Saudi writers and intellectuals.”
The decision by the crown prince was solid in that it emphasized the importance of obeying the law. It also served notice very clearly that no judge or sheikh should feel that he has powers above and beyond the law.
Looking at the case from a wider perspective, it has relieved Saudi journalists as a whole. Every Saudi who works as a journalist knows the risks that come with the job. As one said, “There are no guarantees.”
What further complicates the matter is that in Saudi Arabia the profession of journalism has no protective laws. In other words, a Saudi journalist who is thrown into a police patrol car for taking pictures or interviewing someone at the scene of an incident cannot say to the police, “I know my rights. You cannot do this.”
To begin with, there are no rights.
Even the founding last year of the Saudi Journalists Association did not help clarify the matter. The association, supposedly formed to protect and defend the rights of Saudi journalists — some 400 — is simply sitting in its chair, doing nothing. Instead of having clear laws and rights which will aid them, Saudi journalists in the field have to play it all by ear, taking their fate in their own hands and very often putting their jobs at risk. Any policeman can arrest him; any law enforcement officer can break his camera and anyone, thinking that what the journalist is doing is “inappropriate”, can question him. Saudi journalists who sometimes land in jail when working on a story often have to call their editors and rely on the editors’ connections and influence to get them out.
It was simultaneously funny and sad that a reporter for Arab News who rushed to the scene of a fire to take photographs was stopped by a fireman who wanted to seize the reporter’s camera. When the reporter refused, the fireman began to struggle with the reporter, forgetting his job was to put out the fire and not preventing the reporter from doing his job. This is a clear example of someone taking matters into his own hands, exploiting an ambiguous situation in which no law exists — at least in the case of journalists.
People who have been observing the Saudi media for the past six years admit that it has come a long way. It no longer shies away from topics of great public interest and concern. Everything — from the need for increased public participation to improved education, from extremism to more rights for women — has been candidly discussed.
Though the amount of freedom given to Saudi writers and journalists today is much greater than in the past, they still admit to feeling fear when they write certain reports or articles.
Struggling between writing what is truthful and accurate and yet trying at the same time not to upset those who feel the article is too controversial or too blunt has always been one of a writer’s dilemmas. And in the absence of clear laws and clear policies, Saudi writers tend to censor themselves when writing an article.
One of the phantoms almost all writers in the Kingdom fear is the backlash from Islamists, or ultraconservatives, who tend to label any writers “liberal” or “corrupt” when they discuss sensitive issues. One reporter on a Saudi newspaper filed a story about a terror suspect being arrested in Qassim. He was then charged by the suspect’s family in a Shariah Court for running a photo and detailing the man’s arrest in the paper. The judge presiding at the hearing told the reporter to shut up when he tried to defend himself. In fact, the judge said, “How dare you speak when you work for a secular newspaper?”
Thanks to the crown prince’s fair and just decision, commended by the whole nation, Saudi journalists can now breathe a sigh of relief, certain they will not be tried in a Shariah Court. The royal decree has been reaffirmed and upheld. At the same time, the day when journalists can say proudly, “I know my rights” and can cite laws which are clearly written and observed by all government sectors will be a day of absolute rejoicing. In the end, people working in the media are the public’s voice. And that voice should feel free to speak openly, without fear.
