They have demanded that hardline mosques that preach hate be cracked
They have demanded that hardline mosques that preach hate be cracked down on, but this isn’t enough. What about Saudi lives?Some optimists see Crown Prince Abdullah – deputising for his incapacitated brother – as a reformist, and his announcement of limited local elections this week does seem promising. He seems to understand that reform is in the long-term interests of the House of Saud, as British monarchs have since Magna Carta. Yet there have been moments of hope before, and they came to nothing: the 1991 announcement of a shurah (advisory council) produced a puppet.There are many things we can do to embolden Abdullah against the conservative forces around him. Democracy in Iraq – which will be built in the coming years, and has already existed in the north for a decade – will, I hope, be contagious. This is in our interests too: Middle Eastern democracy (even the pallid IMF-backed version advocated by the neo-cons) is the best balm we have for anti-Western hatred. It provides legitimate outlets for Arab anger, and it focuses their energy on the management of their own societies.Democratising the region and hoping that this strengthens Saudi reformers seems the best choice from a series of bad options.
If in a decade or so Abdullah has clearly not fulfilled his promise, then anyone serious about Saudi human rights should advocate forced regime change. It is not an acceptable choice simply to write off the Saudi people.Either way, as the debate about Saudi Arabia intensifies, we must change the habits of the past 50 years. We once held the racist belief that the best Arabs could hope for was a “stern hand”. We now know that a Saudi life is as valuable as that of, say, somebody in an American prison camp – don’t we?jhari independent.co.uk
More from Johann Hari.
Considering that he is a policemen, Norman Brennan does not appear to have much respect for the law. Here he is, speaking under the auspices of his pressure group, the Victims of Crime Trust, about the imminent release of Winston Silcott, who has served 18 years for the murder of an amateur boxer, Anthony Smith. “The name Winston Silcott is synonymous with the murder of one of our colleagues. His reputation is tarnished and he doesn’t deserve to be welcomed back into the community.”
Constable Brennan knows perfectly well that Mr Silcott’s conviction for the murder of Constable Keith Blakelock was overturned more than a decade ago. But that doesn’t stop him from continuing to talk as if the Blakelock killing is the crime Mr Silcott is in prison for.On other occasions, Constable Brennan has been even more outspoken. “Any time Winston Silcott’s name is mentioned it makes police officers’ hair stand on end,” he told one newspaper last year. “We in the police service don’t believe that justice has been done.
Many of my colleagues, including myself, are convinced that the right people were convicted at the time.”The people Constable Brennan refers to are Mr Silcott himself, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite. The three were all convicted of Constable Blakelock’s murder in 1987, and all had their convictions overturned when it was proved in the Court of Appeal that the only evidence presented against them at the trial had been false confessions fabricated by two officers.Certainly, it must have been an appalling blow to the entire police force when their attempts to find justice for Constable Blakelock fell apart so spectacularly. The murder of the father-of-three was one of the most savage mob killings ever to have happened in Britain. Constable Blakelock lost his life when he and other officers were protecting firemen as they tried to control a fire that had been set alight during a riot at the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, north London. The riot had itself been ignited when 49-year-old Cynthia Jarrett had died of a heart attack during a police raid on her home.Constable Blakelock was attacked by a baying mob of at least 30 people, and received 42 wounds to his body, including eight machete wounds to his head. There were around 200 witnesses to this obscene act of barbarism, none of whom would give evidence in open court. Among the 1,000 photographs taken of the scene that night, no identification of Mr Silcott could be made.No one in the police force makes any secret of the fact that they still wish to find justice for Constable Blakelock, and it is right that they should do so.
