SAUDI UNIVERSITY
| YESTER DAY
Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. A lady was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man.
"It seems that the sentence was influenced by the fact that the woman escalated the issue with her lawyer and also with the supreme judicial authorities," he said.
"This is astonishing because justice is supposed to be independent from all pressures as well as personal considerations, be it a feeling towards the lawyer or defendant herself," he added.
The Arab News quoted an official as saying the judges had decided to punish the girl for trying to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.
DENIED RIGHTS:
The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being. Saudi women are similarly denied the legal right to make even trivial decisions for their children. Women cannot open bank accounts for children, enroll them in school, obtain school files, or travel with their children without written permission from the child's father.
Saudi women are prevented from accessing government agencies that have not established female sections unless they have a male representative. The need to establish separate office spaces for women is a disincentive to hiring female employees, and female students are often relegated to unequal facilities with unequal academic opportunities.
Fatima A., a 40-year-old Saudi woman living in Riyadh, cannot board a plane without written permission from her son, her legal guardian. “My son is 23 years old and has to come all the way from the Eastern Province to give me permission to leave the country,” she told Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch calls on Saudi Arabia to take immediate action to address the human rights abuses resulting from male guardianship policies. The Saudi government should abide by its international obligations and dismantle this grossly discriminatory system. The king should establish an oversight mechanism to ensure that government agencies no longer request permission from a guardian to allow adult women to work, travel, study, marry, receive health care, or access any public service. The authorities should establish female sections or other accommodations in every government office and courtroom in order to ensure women have equal access to every level of government. < More details in Arabic > < English > |
TO DAY
Riyadh sets up first co-ed University: 24 Sep 2009
In Saudi Arabia, breaking centuries- old social barriers. It has inaugurated its first ever co educational university allowing girls to attend classes without veil, a multi bilion dollar intiative aimed at producing future scientists, engineers and technologists.
The most advanced search and technology institute in West Asia, which has sprung up on the Red Sea coast at a cost of $10 billion, was launched by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, with promises of ushering in scientific freedom in a region where consevative interpretation of Islam has been blamed for stifling innovation. House of Wisom:
Descrbed as the Bait Al Hikmah or the "House of Wisom", the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is the brainchild of the forwardlooking Saudi monarch, who unveiled it amidst tight security on the Kingdom's National Day recently. The KAUST, which came into being with coffers opened up by the largest Saudi oil company, ARAMCO, will have the world's fastest supercomputrs, top scientists, state of art labs and initially 400 students including a sizeable number form India.
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TOMORROW |
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