Activists At Centre of feud with Saudi Arabia
A LOOK AT THE TWO ACTIVISTS AT THE CENTRE OF THE CANADA-SAUDI DIPLOMATIC SPAT
Until recently, if Samar Badawi was known in Canada at all, it was because of her brother Raif — a Saudi Arabian blogger who was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for criticizing Islam.
His family fled to Canada a few years later, where they have continued to push for Raif ’s release.
But Samar and fellow women’s rights campaigner Nassima alSadah were also arrested last week, part of what human rights organizations have called an “unprecedented” crackdown on civil activists in the Gulf kingdom.
That prompted Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to openly criticize the Saudis, who retaliated for Canada’s “interference” by expelling the Canadian ambassador and freezing all new trade between the countries.
Women have been gaining some freedoms in Saudi — in June, they were granted the right to drive — but they still need the approval of male guardians to travel or study outside the country, or even get a passport.
That male control was what prompted Badawi’s first act of defiance in March 2008, when she left her father’s home for a women’s shelter and launched a case to strip him of guardian status. She claims her father had physically abused her since she was a teenager and refused to allow her to marry.
But when she appeared in court in April 2010, Samar not her father was the one arrested — for “parental disobedience” — and jailed until October of that year.
Her case sparked an online campaign to release her. Eventually all charges were dropped and her guardianship was transferred to her maternal uncle. “I went in a broken woman,” Badawi later told CNN. “But I came out victorious and was very proud of myself that I was able to handle those seven months. It wasn’t easy.”
Badawi went on to become a prominent advocate for all women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. In 2011, according to Human Rights Watch, she became the first woman to file a lawsuit against the government demanding women’s right to vote. She argued that nothing in the law barred women from registering as voters or candidates.
Though her suit was unsuccessful, King Abdullah announced that women would be allowed to vote, and even run as candidates, in the 2015 municipal elections. Badawi also joined the campaign to end the driving ban for women in Saudi Arabia.
In 2012, she received an International Women of Courage Award from the U.S. State Department, which called her “a powerful voice for two of the most significant issues facing Saudi women: women’s suffrage and the guardianship system.”
For all that, she has faced what human rights organizations call repeated targeting and harassment. In 2014, Saudi authorities barred her from travelling outside the country.
In 2016, she was briefly arrested for allegedly managing a Twitter account campaigning for the release of her former husband, Waleed Abu al-Khair, who is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for his work as a human rights lawyer.
Nassima Al-Sadah, who hails from Qatif, a coastal city in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, has campaigned for many of the same causes. In 2015, the first year women were allowed to run in local elections, she was also one of about 900 female candidates across the country.
“I believe that this is our change, a big chance for us to prove ourselves, and to advertise our intelligence,” she told National Geographic at the time. “Everything is new. All of us try to teach each other, and read the rules and articles about the elections.”
But a day before her campaign launch, al-Sadah was informed by officials that her name had been removed from the list, apparently with no explanation.
Badawi and al-Sadah are now among more than a dozen women’s rights activists arrested in Saudi Arabia since May. Some of them may be tried in the country’s specialized criminal court, established for terrorism cases, and could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
The decision to arrest women who campaigned for their right to drive, even after lifting the ban, is “as surprising as it is self-defeating,” said Irwin Cotler, a former MP and international human rights lawyer who has advocated for the release of Raif Badawi.
He adds that Saudi Arabia should not be surprised by Freeland’s comments. “She has been espousing, ever since she became foreign minister, what some have called a feminist human rights foreign policy,” he said. “Naturally, she would be responsive to any attempt to breach international women’s rights.”
Last week, Freeland tweeted her concern about Badawi’s arrest, saying she was “very alarmed” by the situation.
On Monday, she told reporters, “When it comes to the Badawi family, Ensaf Haidar (Raif Badawi’s wife) is a Canadian citizen and she and her family therefore merit special attention from the government of Canada.”