The C.R.I.M.E. Report

ISSUE #73 CONTENTS:


SPOTLIGHT CASES:

“We Are Fed Up”: Students Campaign for Free Sudan

After decades of dictatorship, civil war, and ethnic cleansing, a growing network of young Sudanese are declaring that they are fed up. To make sure their message is clear, the activists have named their campaign “Girifna” - literally, “we are fed up”. Their mission: to achieve free and fair elections in Sudan so citizens can “vote for peaceful change.” With 18,000 followers across the country, Girifna has emerged as a prominent social force - all the more so that most opposition parties chose to boycott the recent national elections.

“We don’t want change through war - we want change through elections,” says Nagi Musa, one of the group’s founders. “In the past, there was a wall of fear, but we want to break it. We don’t work in secret - we’re loud, and we’re telling the truth. A lot of people were giving up on politics, but now they feel they can do something if they work together.” Girifna created a popular toolkit that explains the electoral process and guides people how to organize activities in their local community. The campaign actively uses social media to promote its cause, including YouTube videos exposing the arrest of activists encouraging people to vote.

Throughout the election voters were able to send Girifna text messages reporting electoral fraud, a pioneering use of mobile technology to monitor elections. The network also recruited local election monitors across the country. Some, not surprisingly, have been arrested and beaten - a sign that regime of General Omar al-Bashir, currently wanted by the Hague for war crimes, is feeling the heat. The response from Girifna: a clever ad suggesting the need to clean the country’s dirty laundry.



Wanted to Be Free of Her Guardian: Maliha Alshehab

Maliha Alshehab is a young Saudi writer who has made a name for herself as an outspoken advocate of women’s emancipation in Saudi society. From 2007 to 2010 she was a columnist for Al Watan, a leading Saudi newspaper. Due to the controversial nature of her articles, particularly exposing the issue of child marriage, her column was terminated and she could not find another Saudi media outlet to publish her work. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Kuwaiti paper Al Rai and earlier this year published her debut book, “Saudi Woman: Image and Voice.” The CRIME Report spoke with Alshehab about her work.

What sparked your writing?
I have always wanted to write since I was a little girl. But in my city, it was hard for a young woman to simply go buy books at the bookstore. When you are prevented from doing something, that’s what you want to do it the most. So I had to ask my brothers to get books for me. I thought maybe I should have been born a boy. It would have made my life much easier. Males can do what they want – they even have legal power over their own mothers. But for me, I felt like a slave in my own home. Only when I started writing did I feel like an independent human being for the first time in my life. After all, I didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission to write.

What are the civil rights challenges your writing addresses?
It all comes down to the so-called “Guardianship.” This holds a woman from the first day of her life until the last day of her life. (1) She cannot do anything without the consent of her male guardian, even to leave her home and exercise the basic right to education. (2) There is no law that protects a woman who faces abuse from her guardian. (3) There is no solution for a woman who lacks a guardian in her life – for example, if a woman’s father dies, she has no brothers, and she is not married. Saudi women are not different from other women in the world. We have dreams and can achieve great things. We have many doctors, scientists, even pilots – women lucky to have male guardians who allow them to be successful. But most Saudi women are deprived of the freedom to pursue their dreams as independent individuals.

Can your writing actually spark change?
In the short term I am not optimistic. The power of the Wahhabi radicals depends on social institutions based around guardianship. They fight even small changes - and look, I am no longer writing for a Saudi paper. But in ten years, I hope, we will succeed. And that’s why I write, because if we do not try the problem will never be solved. The first mission of my writing is to educate people about their rights. My new book is aimed at young Saudi girls, who in general like to read. This young generation is our hope, they can make the change. I hope my book will spark them to take their destiny into their own hands and not to rely on male relatives to define themselves and their lives.
Alshehab will speak this Thursday, April 29, at George Washington University in downtown DC. To attend her 7pm talk, please RSVP to PNevents@aicongress.org.



Opening a Net Cafe in Mashhad

Surveillance cameras? Check. Transparent glass? Check. Segregated seating? Check. If you want to open an Internet cafe in Mashhad - the hometown of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei - you had better keep up with the new regulations. The CRIME Report’s Iran correspondents point to the bizarre new requirements governing Mashhadi Net cafes:

Our correspondents note: “The requirements for opening a Net cafe are not much different in other Iranian cities. Their main function is to act as constraints to the undesirable growth of the new technology in the country. Laying the grounds for arbitrary crackdowns on the existing IT businesses is another goal they intend to pursue. So you see, these requirements are not as stupid as they seem.”

 

QUIZ: What kind of metal should you avoid in Syria?

ANSWER: Heavy Metal. Young Syrians are interrogated by police if they listen to metal music, writes Polish journalist Romuald Stankiewicz in a report from Syria. Mohammed, a young metalhead, claims that police detained him for his look. “They took me to a police station. I was told to stand at attention for five hours. They would beat me whenever I moved my head... If the police find [heavy metal] CDs in my place, I will go straight to jail.” Bands like Metallica are strictly prohibited in Syria. By contrast, in Morocco - where back in 2003 fourteen metalheads were sent to jail - the huge alternative music festival Tremplin (“Springboard”) recently attracted thousands of fans and even received a grant from the King. Rock on!


BECOME A PARTNER IN CRIME:
Here are quick ways to contribute to the Middle East civil rights movement: