Facebook is certainly a news heavyweight as of late; first Fouad Mourtada, now this? Well, technically this happened first – last August, a Saudi woman was beaten and shot by her own father for chatting with a man on Facebook. The story was untouched by Western media and only truly emerged this week after preacher Ali Al-Maliki condemned Facebook as a corrupting force in the Kingdom.
Many Saudi Facebook groups (such as this one) contain a plethora of graphic images, the existence of which lead to Al-Maliki’s condemnation of the site. Even still, the aforementioned group shows up ninth using the search term “Saudi.” The first eight are far tamer, from People Who Love King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to Saudi Women Petitioning Govt for Driving Rights.
Despite the controversy, Saudi Arabia has yet to ban the site – were it to do so, it would follow in the footsteps of Yemen, Syria, and Iran (by no means a comprehensive list – plenty of other countries block portions of the site).
3 replies on “Saudi woman murdered for using Facebook”
Jillian, great new site. Congrats!
I can’t tell you how depressed this little snippet made me. Sigh. What happened to the father?
I will update my link for your asap.
Jill, woah, shocking. I spoke with a Saudi man who came to visit my office last week. He told me “we respect our women. Some people say “but they can’t drive…” I say it’s not the most important thing. We respect them.”
Then there’s this. When I lived in France there was a big social movement called “Ni putes, ni soumises” (Neither whores nor submissive little women) that was going around the country to do social awareness projects after several girls had been brutalized either by family or exceptionally in retaliation for their boyfriend’s fighting with rivals in the banlieu. Probably the Saudi looked at as a honor killing. I had to explain what that meant to my husband…I can’t say I’m surprised that W media didn’t pick up on it; high oil prices going into summer isn’t the best time to piss off our Saudi amigos with news coverage of something so horrifying…