Rai [Archives:2003/674/Press Review]

30 September 2003
Man headlines:
– Yemenis in Vietnam War
– America arrests al-A'moudi on charge of terror
– Attempted assassination against MP Nabeel al-Basha
– Women Forum holds a symposium on “Education for democratic citizenship''

Columnist Faisal Sultan al-Soufi discusses in his article that what should a conference scheduled to be held in Saudi Arabia in the mid of this month on human rights do. He says it is the first conference of its kind to be held in this neighbouring country and will and should be an opportunity for clarifying the facts about many issues that have remained unclear especially in that Islamic country, i.e. that of human rights and Islam's attitude towards them. The human rights conference at the time of peace and war should be for us as Muslims to change into a venue to discuss the issues of human rights bravely and to clarify the genuine stand towards human rights it is of special importance to clarify the Saudi attitude of human rights as it is the country frequently mentioned a in regional and international reports n human rights.
For years it is noted that most recorded violations of human rights are focused on this part of the Arab and Islamic world and many times those violations are connected to Islam, this means that the Arab and Islamic countries that are ruled according to Islam and that their commitment to teachings and laws of Islam leads to some of those violations.
For instance some practices are considered violations of human rights and examples of such practices are non-equality among citizens in general, non-equality between man and woman before the law, the freedom of ideology, deprivation or restraining of political rights such as elections and political pluralism, restrictions on the freedom of expression or gathering in Saudi Arabia or any other Islamic country are attributed to that the Islam and its applications with which these countries are ruling necessarily lead to those violations.
Teachings and rules of Islam have no problem with human rights, whether the civil or political or others but the question problematic is with the opinions and rules decides by legal scholars and have been applied though they are nor correct. Such problems should be dealt with the in the coming conference in Riyadh and in other similar conferences.
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