Gay rights in Saudi Arabia

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Gay rights are not recognized in Saudi Arabia and homosexuality is a serious crime punishable by death. However, there exists an underground gay community [1]. The treatment of homosexuals has prompted criticism from international human rights organizations, but the government defends its actions as being mandated by Islam and not by a secular institution.

Contents 1 Criminal Code 2 Right To Privacy 3 Censorship 4 Civil Rights Laws 5 Saudi Citizens & AIDS/HIV 6 Foreigners Living in Saudi and AIDS/HIV 7 Saudi Gay and Lesbian Community 8 See also 9 References

[edit] Criminal Code

All criminal and civil law is based on an interpretation of Wahabi Islam. Foreigners should not expect their nationality to grant them immunity from the local law. Furthermore with the exception of commercial law, most of the legal code is unwritten and left up to the discretion of the Islamic judges.

All sexual activity outside of a traditional heterosexual marriage is a crime, some of these crimes carry a maximum penalty of execution. As none of the criminal code is written down, the precise punishments for being convicted of homosexuality or sodomy varies but will likely include imprisonment.

People accused of homosexuality may be sent to a mental institution for treatment. The government still beheads a handful of people each year for engaging in homosexual relations between consenting adults in private.

Criminal trials may occur in secret, and defendants may not have access to a translator or a lawyer. Prisoners are sometimes subject to cruel treatment.

See also:

• Guardian: Saudi Arabia's tough line on gays

[edit] Right To Privacy

No right to privacy exists. The government can, without a court order, search homes, vehicles, places of business and intercept private communications. People living in the kingdom should assume that communications can be seized by the government for evidence in a criminal trial.

[edit] Censorship

Since the 1990s, Saudi newspapers have been permitted to make occasional reference to homosexuals, often in terms of criminal law or the number of people infected with AIDS in the kingdom. A publication, television station, film, song, internet website that endorses gay rights would be banned or blocked for its "un-Islamic" themes. The Saudi government has blocked access to numerous online websites with gay-themed content, including those websites that do not feature pornographic images.

Movie theaters and nightclubs are prohibited, but theaters are allowed on the Aramco compounds albeit any films shown are censored and available long after they have been released in America or Western Europe.

Satellite television is illegal, but the rule is generally ignored and thus members of the lower- and middle-class can gain access to less censored Arabic and English news and entertainment.

In 2001 a Saudi teacher and playwright named Muhammad Al-Suhaimi, was charged with promoting homosexuality and after a trial was sentenced to prison. In 2006 he was given a pardon and allowed to resume teaching [2].

[edit] Civil Rights Laws

Saudi Arabia has no laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. An employer is certainly free to discriminate against a gay employee or subject them to blackmail. The exit and entry paperwork does not ask people about their sexual orientation, as it does their nationality, religion and marital status. No same-sex marriage, domestic partnership or civil union has any legal standing in the nation and may be used as evidence to initiate criminal proceedings.

[edit] Saudi Citizens & AIDS/HIV

By law, every Saudi citizen that is infected with HIV or AIDS is entitled to free medical care, protection of their privacy and employment opportunities. The government has produced Arabic language educational material on how the disease is spread and since the 1980s Abdullah al-Hokail, a Saudi doctor who specializes in the pandemic, has been allowed to air Arabic language public service announcements on television about the disease and how it is spread.

Yet, most hospitals will not treat patients who are infected, and many schools and hospitals are relutent to distribute government information about the disease, because of the strong taboos and stigma that are attached to how the virus can be spread [3].

In the late 1990s the Saudi government began to slowly step up a public education campaign about AIDS-HIV. It started to recognize World AIDS Day, and the Arabic and English daily newspapers were permitted to run articles and opinions that expressed the need for more education about the disease and more compassion for those people infected. The number of people living in the kingdom who were infected was a closely guarded secret, as the offical policy was often that the disease was not a serious problem in a kingdom because Saudis followed the principles of traditional Islamic morality.

In 2003 the government announced that it knew of 6,787 cases, and in 2004 the official number rose to 7,808. The government statistics claim that most of the registered cases are foreign males who contracted the disease through "forbidden" sexual relations[4].

In June of 2006, the Ministry of Health publically admitted that more then 10,000 Saudi citizens were either infected with HIV or had full blown AIDS [5]. Yet some public health experts feel that the government is still hiding the true stastics, which may be as high as 80,000 people, witho about a fourth of them people expatriates.

In December of 2006 the Arab News ran an editoral that called for greated public awarness of how the virus is spread and more compassion for those people infected [6].

It was this same year that a Saudi citizen named Rami al-Harithi revealed that he had become infected with HIV while having surgery and has become an official proponent of education and showing compassion to those people infected [7].

Saudi Princess Alia bint Abdullah has been involved in the Saudi AIDS Society, which was permitted in December of 2006 to hold a public charity art auction followed by a discussion on how the disease was impacting the kingdom that included two Saudis living with HIV. The event was organzied with the help of the Saudi National Program for Combating AIDS which is chaired by Dr. Sana Filimban.

In Janurary of 2007 a Saudi economics professor at King Abdul Aziz University was permitted to conduct of survey of a handful of Saudi University students on their level of education about the pandemic [8].

While, much of the work on AIDS-HIV education has been supported by members of the Saudi royal family or medical doctors, their is an attempt to gain permission to create some independent AIDS societies, one of which is called Al-Husna Society, that would work on helping people infected with the disease find employment, education families and work to fight the prejudice that faces people infected [9].

[edit] Foreigners Living in Saudi and AIDS/HIV

Foreigners are required to demonstrate that they are not infected with the virus before they can enter the country, and are required to get a test to renew the residency permit. Any foreigner that is discovered to be infected will be deported to the country of origin as soon as they are deemed fit to travel.

Foreigners are not given access to any AIDS medications and while awaiting deportation may be segregated (or imprisoned) from the rest of society [10].

[edit] Saudi Gay and Lesbian Community

Officially, there are no LGBT Saudi citizens because all citzens are Muslim and homosexuality and cross-dressing are judged to be against the teachings of Islam. Instead there are only criminals, mostly foreigners, who engage in such activities and thus the only public acknowledgment of LGBT people in the kingdom are new reports about people being punished for specific acts.

Only the underground Green Party of Saudi Arabia has endorsed the LGBT human rights movement and called for greater public openness about sexual orientation and gender identityissues. No public organization, club or society would be allowed to endorse LGBT human rights or even act as a social network for LGBT people in the kingdom.

In 2000 the government reported that it had sentenced nine Saudi men to extensive prison terms with lashing for engaging in cross-dressing and homosexual relations. [11]. That same year the government executed three Yemeni male workers for homosexuality and child molestation [12].

International protests from human rights organizations, prompted some Saudi officials within the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington D.C. to imply that their kingdom will only death when found to be convicted of child molestation, murder or engaging in anything deemed to be a form of political advocacy [13].

In April of 2005, the government convicted over a hundred men of homosexuality, but none were sentenced to be executed. All those men were given prison sentences with flogging because they were at a private party that was either a same-sex wedding ceremony or a birthday party [14]. Yet, not long after a gay foreign couple was sentenced to death for homosexuality and allegedly killing a man who was blackmailing them for homosexuality.

Instead, their are some scattered and unoffical news reports about certain areas in Saudi Arabia where Saudi gay men cruise for casual sexual encounters with other men [15]. Several Saudi gay men have come forward to speak with the gay press and said that the western media has been exaggerating the homophobia of the Saudi government [16].

[edit] See also

• Human rights in Saudi Arabia
• Homosexuality and Islam

[edit] References

• Reports, stories and information for gay men in Saudi Arabia
• SodomyLaws Report on Saudi Arabia
• ArabNews 2005
• The Guardian UK "Tough Line on Gays"