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Template:Allegations of apartheid Allegations of Saudi Arabian apartheid draw a controversial analogy from the policies of apartheid era South Africa to those of Saudi Arabia. Those who use the analogy point to Saudi treatment of women and religious minorities, policies of physical separation between the two groups, and/or allege second-class treatment of these groups in Saudi Arabia.

Treatment of women

Saudi Arabia's practices with respect to women have been referred to as "gender apartheid". Andrea Dworkin refers to these practices simply as "apartheid":

Seductive mirages of progress notwithstanding, nowhere in the world is apartheid practiced with more cruelty and finality than in Saudi Arabia. Of course, it is women who are locked in and kept out, exiled to invisibility and abject powerlessness within their own country. It is women who are degraded systematically from birth to early death, utterly and totally and without exception deprived of freedom. It is women who are sold into marriage or concubinage, often before puberty; killed if their hymens are not intact on the wedding night; kept confined, ignorant, pregnant, poor, without choice or recourse. It is women who are raped and beaten with full sanction of the law. It is women who cannot own property or work for a living or determine in any way the circumstances of their own lives. It is women who are subject to a despotism that knows no restraint. Women locked out and locked in.

Saudi Arabia's treatment of women has also been described as "sexual apartheid". Colbert I. King quotes an American official who accuses Western companies of complicity in Saudi Arabia's sexual apartheid:

One of the (still) untold stories, however, is the cooperation of U.S. and other Western companies in enforcing sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms, for instance, maintain strictly segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The men's sections are typically lavish, comfortable and up to Western standards, whereas the women's or families' sections are often run-down, neglected and, in the case of Starbucks, have no seats. Worse, these firms will bar entrance to Western women who show up without their husbands. My wife and other women were regularly forbidden entrance to the local McDonald's unless there was a man with them."

Azar Majedi, of the Centre for Women and Socialism, attributes sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia to political Islam:

Women are the first victims of political Islam and Islamic terrorist gangs. Sexual apartheid, stoning, compulsory Islamic veil and covering and stripping women of all rights are the fruits of this reactionary and fascistic movement. Political Islam has committed countless crimes both where they are in power, like the Islamic Republic in Iran, the Mujahedin and the Taliban in Afghanistan, in the Sudan and in Saudi Arabia, and where they are in opposition, as in Algeria, Pakistan and Egypt. Terrorising the population is the policy and strategy of this force for seizing power.

According to The Guardian, "n the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, sexual apartheid rules", and this sexual apartheid is enforced by mutawa, religious police, though not as strongly in some areas:

The kingdom's sexual apartheid is enforced, in a crude fashion, by the religious police, the mutawa. Thuggish, bigoted and with little real training in Islamic law, they are much feared in some areas but also increasingly ridiculed. In Jeddah - a more laid-back city than Riyadh - they are rarely seen nowadays.

Treatment of religious minorities

Saudi Arabia's treatment of religious minorities has also been described by both Saudis and non-Saudis as "apartheid" and "religious apartheid". Testifying before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Ali Al-Ahmed, Director of the Saudi Institute, stated:

Saudi Arabia is a glaring example of religious apartheid. The religious institutions from government clerics to judges, to religious curricula, and all religious instructions in media are restricted to the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, adhered to by less than 40% of the population. The Saudi government communized Islam, through its monopoly of both religious thoughts and practice. Wahhabi Islam is imposed and enforced on all Saudis regardless of their religious orientations. The Wahhabi sect does not tolerate other religious or ideological beliefs, Muslim or not. Religious symbols by Muslims, Christians, Jewish and other believers are all banned. The Saudi embassy in Washington is a living example of religious apartheid. In its 50 years, there has not been a single non-Sunni Muslim diplomat in the embassy. The branch of Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University in Fairfax, Virginia instructs its students that Shia Islam is a Jewish conspiracy.

Amir Taheri quotes a Shi'ite businessman from Dhahran as saying "It is not normal that there are no Shi'ite army officers, ministers, governors, mayors and ambassadors in this kingdom. This form of religious apartheid is as intolerable as was apartheid based on race." ==Non-Muslims and Mecca==

Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca. According to Alan Dershowitz, "in Saudi Arabia apartheid is practiced against non-Muslims, with signs indicating that Muslims must go to certain areas and non-Muslims to others." On December 14, 2005, Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Democrat Representative Shelley Berkley introduced a bill in Congress urging American divestiture from Saudi Arabia, and giving as its rationale (among other things) "Saudi Arabia is a country that practices religious apartheid and continuously subjugates its citizenry, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to a specific interpretation of Islam." Freedom House shows, as an example of "religious apartheid in Saudi Arabia", a picture of a sign showing Muslim-only and non-Muslim roads. Until March 1, 2004, the official government website stated that Jews were forbidden from entering the country.

See also

• Crime of Apartheid

Notes

1. Jensen, Rita Henley. Taking the Gender Apartheid Tour in Saudi Arabia, Women's eNews, 03/07/2005.
2. Handrahan, L.M. Gender Apartheid and Cultural Absolution: Saudi Arabia and the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Internet, Human Rights Tribune, Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring 2001.
3. Dworkin, Andrea. A Feminist Looks at Saudi Arabia, 1978. In "Letters from a War Zone: Writings 1976-1989", Lawrence Hill Books, Reprint edition (May 28, 1993). ISBN 1-55652-185-5
4. http://www.rationalist.org.uk/newhumanist/5thColumn/WomenandIslamicLaw.shtml
5. King, Colbert I. Saudi Arabia's Apartheid, The Washington Post, December 22, 2001.
6. Majedi, Azar. Sexual Apartheid is a Product of Political Islam, Medusa - the Journal of the Centre for Women and Socialism.
7. Whitaker, Brian. Veil power, "Special Report: Saudi Arabia", The Guardian, February 21, 2006.
8. http://www.shianews.com/hi/americas/news_id/0000232.php
9. Human Rights in Saudi Arabia: The Role of Women, Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Testimony of Ali Al-Ahmed, Director of the Saudi Institute, June 4, 2002.
10. Taheri, Amir. Apartheid, Saudi Style, New York Post, May 22, 2003.
11. "Information for the Traveller". Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia London. Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia London. Retrieved 2007-2-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
12. Dershowitz, Alan. Treatment of Israel strikes an Alien Note, National Post, November 5, 2002.
13. To express the policy of the United States to ensure the divestiture... 109th CONGRESS, 1st Session, H. R. 4543.
14. Religious Apartheid in Saudi Arabia, Freedom House website. Retrieved July 11, 2006.
15. United States Department of State. Saudi Arabia, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2004, February 28, 2005.

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• Saudi Arabia
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