Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff | Hacker News Reader

Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff

theguardian.com

110 pointsonei64 comments

For context see the report on the recent bans of Arabic Wikipedia admins by the Wikimedia Foundation in Wikipedia's community newspaper, the Signpost:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

Note that the people jailed since 2020 are unpaid volunteers – not paid staff, as the headline implies.

Another report, by DAWN (the org mentioned in the Guardian article):

https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltra...

Be ready to see big large banners on Wikipedia begging for donation to help free these people.

Not surprising for a dictatorship regime. I doubt they are the first country to do this.

Add this to the long list of actions by the Saudis demonstrating that they are probably the most unambiguously evil government in the world. But they seldom get any criticism from mainstream US media and politicians because of the Saudis' vast oil resources. Imagine how much better off the world would be today had the US government chosen to topple the Saudis after 9/11 (for which everyone knows they were actually responsible) instead of pursuing irrelevant boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Funding for Sunni terrorists would have been disrupted which probably would have had a far greater impact to reduce global terrorism than anything else the US did. Hell, even the neocons just in it for oil would have been happy with that.

I’d agree that the Saudi Arabia does many bad things, but “probably the most unambiguously evil government in the world” is quite a stretch. Russia is currently throwing conscripts into an unprovoked war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China has millions of people in ‘re-education’ camps, and supports North Korea, which is itself basically a slave-state. There are also a number of very troubling states throughout central Africa and Asia, such as Afghanistan, which is descending further into government-led disaster.

If you think Saudi Arabia doesn't rely on modern slave labor I would urge you to learn more about their treatment of immigrants.

And there is simply no comparing the status of women in China or Russia to Saudi Arabia.

Combine that with Saudi Arabia's barbaric public beheadings and you're talking about a modern dystopia that many in the US would rather ignore out of convenience. Another common response is to distract from their crimes by hyping up other bogeymen in more direct competition with the US.

Qualifying state-level evil at these scales is invitation for bickering and reductionism. Saudi Arabia is indistinguishable enough from the most evil regimes in power today that one can have a reasonable argument about whether it belongs there. That sets it apart in degree from America and, I would argue, China, and in kind from Iceland or Canada.

Public beheadings have to my knowledge stopped ... Should be on the level of USA now, with executions behind doors!

Your comment is a textbook example of the asymmetry of media coverage and framing around Saudi Arabia vs US foes.

See: - saudis treatment of immigrant labor. - saudis treatment of women. - saudis war in Yemen. - extrajudicial killings and imprisonment of journalists. - etc.

For every criticism you cite against a US enemy/competitor, one can find an analogy in Saudi.

You can be a woman and own land, drive vehicles, have a job, etc in those countries. You cannot do this in Saudi Arabia. You are under religious zealots whom will imprison and kill for saying anything against their beliefs/God. While Russia and china are somewhat along these lines, it's not to the same level.

Yes, you can ...

The information regarding laws regarding women is out of date- the driving ban ended in 2018 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44576795) and the government is explicitly trying to increase the female labor force participation rate (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/04/21...). I couldn't quickly find a good source on property ownership, which is obviously still problematic, but Wikipedia indicates that at least some individual ownership is permitted now (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights_in_Saudi_Arab...).

One of the contradictions of Mohammed Bin Salman (the current Crown Prince of Saudi, known as MBS) is that while he is violent authoritarian that has been cracking down on civil rights/dissent he has been affording women more rights.

Driving ban ending doesn't mean the culture has. Saudis are not progressive, they spend a lot of money ensuring they look progressive. In reality we rarely if ever get to see what it's truly like.

Sure, thats why more than half the cars on the roads there are driven by women now, and CUV sales have skyrocketed.

Visit the saudi reddit and you will see

Russia and China absolutely are not 'somewhat' comparable to Saudi Arabia, which did not even attempt to develop a legal system (almost all crimes were punished arbitrarily) until recently.

I don't like it but without SA, what allies does the US even have in the area?

I wish Iraq would have turned out differently.

Israel and Kuwait are both considered allies to the US within the region. Maybe others, but those come to mind.

Saudi Arabia's GDP is worth double and quadruple those, respectively. However, that number isn't so far ahead as to be irreplaceable.

Relationships change, too. The movement in Iran now has the West's popular interest and support.

So, do we agree that personal interests are more important than human rights for the US government? I don't agree with that view but at least it's honest to admit it.

> we agree that personal interests are more important than human rights for the US government

Yes? Is this in question? Obviously. That doesn’t make human rights irrelevant.

Basically every country sans Iran… (with some other small exceptions)

Wish that Iraq had turned out differently? The outcome was extremely predictable. But that didn’t stop us from trying again in Libya and Syria!

> without SA, what allies does the US even have in the area?

Egypt, Israel, Kuwait and Qatar. Less reliably: Jordan, the U.A.E. and Turkey. Not great, but not untenable.

> I don't like it but without SA, what allies does the US even have in the area?

> I wish Iraq would have turned out differently.

US doesn't have allies, like every empire it has interests. Sometimes this interests overlap with other entities (be it countries, or not). This interests can be long term, but sooner or later interests change and suddenly entities no longer have any support ( or become enemies). And US have no qualms doing so.

Since when did the USA count as an empire?

https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/American_imperialism

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/American_Empire

https://warontherocks.com/2015/08/is-america-an-empire/

There's lots of things pointing towards USA being considered an empire. It is of course open to debate.

So is the claim that countries like the KSA are American vassals rather than its allies? I mean, as I understand it, an empire consists of multiple countries.

America does consist of multiple countries. Please consider that the United States acquired most of it’s territory at the expense of Native Americans¹ which are officially “domestic dependent nations”².

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_Unit...

Then by that definition most countries in the top twenty for size can be considered empires.

Only if you use a very generous definition of it ...

For me empire is a country that can easily project their ideology, political/economic will and military streanght outside of its boarders. And does it. For example selling cheap clothes or taxing tea and when people disagree they find their face on the reciving end of a rifle butt.

In general I agree, but Israel seems to be US ally regardless of interest

Better don't read why evangelicals support Israel so much. Or what evangelicals think will happen to Israel after their interest are meet. This interests are deranged and will never happen but people believe in them and act to fulfill them.

I was wondering if five eyes could be counted as allies, but...

> Imagine how much better off the world would be today had the US government chosen to topple the Saudis after 9/11…

I think you’ve learned the wrong lessons from the Iraq and Afghan wars.

And pretty much every coup in Latin America

And Syria

If you think Saudi the most evil government you should consider US itself somewhere on the same line for all the things it has been doing on lots of foreign soils.

I think any non-Muslim force invading Saudi Arabia would quickly find they are fighting most of the Muslim world, including parts of their own Muslim populations. Because Mecca is in Saudi Arabia and it would be very easy to spin an invasion into an attack on the religion itself.

Would the USD and by extension the USA even be possible (in their current powerful form) without SA creating a world wide artificial demand for the USD by selling oil denoted in USD?

Isn't that the essence of why Saudi Arabia gets to do whatever they want without the world police interfering?

> they are probably the most unambiguously evil government in the world.

Compared to the many US invasions and their support of the occupation in Plaestine or Russia and what they are doing in Syria, Libya and many other countries or China's brain washing Muslims, they are nothing.

Thats without talking about North Korea of course, which are on a whole new level.

Saudi Arabia being attacked by the west would be a disaster that would ignite the whole Muslim world. Al-Qaeda portrayed almost every western action, even the Red Cross being in the middle east, as an action by an invading 'crusader' force that wanted to destroy Islam.

Could you imagine the credibility this would give them, considering the location of Mecca?

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