Saudi Arabia Implements Electronic Tracking System For Women

dsinc writes "Denied the right to travel without consent from their male guardians and banned from driving, women in Saudi Arabia are now monitored by an electronic system that tracks any cross-border movements. Since last week, Saudi women's male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together. 'The authorities are using technology to monitor women,' said columnist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the 'state of slavery under which women are held' in the ultra-conservative kingdom. Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the 'yellow sheet' at the airport or border."

Comments

Apartheid

[Richard_J_N]

When South Africa did this (to black people, rather than women), under Apartheid, the civilised world rightly condemned it, and imposed trade sanctions.
Where are the trade embargoes on Saudi Arabia? They're in contravention of the UN declaration of Human Rights.

Re:Apartheid

[Mashiki]

Won't happen, and remember this is in accordance with sharia law too. Which is supposed to elevate women above western standards, or so flappy headed groups keep telling us.

Re:Apartheid

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't happen, and remember this is in accordance with sharia law too. Which is supposed to elevate women above western standards, or so flappy headed groups keep telling us.

Sure, just like Islam is the "religion of peace" even though, of the 120 or so active shooting wars happening today, Muslims are involved in over 100 of them.

At least during the Crusades and the Inquisition, nobody went around talking about how the Catholic Church was the "institution of peace". It's like the farther back in time you go, the more sense the average person had.

Re:Apartheid

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, but we need their oil. Oil is more important that women's rights, obviously.

Re:Apartheid

[OzPeter]

To leave China, you need an exit visa. This is also in contravention of UN declaration of human rights. Would you expect a trade embargo against the Chinese too?

Its even worse in Saudi Arabia .. according to the great and powerful wikepedia Exit Visas are required by foreign workers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar

.. Hence at the end of a foreign worker's employment period, the worker must secure clearance from his/her employer stating that the worker has satisfactorily fulfilled the terms of his/her employment contract or that the worker's services are no longer needed ..

Re:Apartheid

[ilguido]

The sanctions against South Africa had positive effects like devaluing the rand 17 times and so making diamonds much cheaper. Sanctions against Saudi Arabia on the other hand could rise the oil price.

Re:Apartheid

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

this is in accordance with sharia law too. Which is supposed to elevate women above western standards, or so flappy headed groups keep telling us.

It is suppossed to. The problem is that men are in charge of the implementation and that's a common problem across the entire world. Regardless of the laws on the books, if the people interpreting them are not representative of the people they are applied to, the end result is going to be biased like health insurance paying for viagra but not birth control pills.

Re:Apartheid

[causality]

Sorry but ALL religion is insidious and evil. It is a means of control for the unintelligent and mentally lazy.

With organized religion there is some truth to that.

When an individual is seeking a way to express the more abstract parts of his or her nature, what is called spirituality, and finds that some of the best real teachers had one "persuasion" or another but tend to all say very similar things, as though they all saw the same things and put them in different terms according to different frameworks ... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Ignoring the progress made by those who came before means you are doomed to constantly reinvent the wheel.

The trick any real individual understands is to not get caught up with any particular language or framework, to instead focus on what truly advanced people have seen or done. It's the difference between looking at the finger that points, versus seeing the heavenly constellation it tries to point out.

Obviously individuals who really grok this tend not to herd together in large congregations with bylaws and conventions and someone to take the meeting minutes. For the most part, that is for the insecure who need to be surrounded by the like-minded to feel validated. Thus anyone who seriously questions or objects is a sort of threat. I for one say fuck that.

Re:Apartheid

[iluvcapra]

You make it too complicated. The international boycotts against South Africa were justified because they were effective. An embargo against Saudi Arabia would be ineffective, even if it were possible.

In short, South Africa was a small country that could be pushed around; Saudi Arabia makes too much oil for that to be possible. Any such demonstrations would be pointless and would cause more harm than the original insult.

Re:Apartheid

[mjwx]

Won't happen, and remember this is in accordance with sharia law too. Which is supposed to elevate women above western standards, or so flappy headed groups keep telling us.

The only idiot who has said Sharia law will elevate women above western standards is you.

The reason this wont be condemned like Apartheid in South Africa is that Saudi Arabia has oil and South Africa didn't.

Re:Apartheid

[Samantha Wright]

I would more classify it as the central component of religion—into which mythology and theology and laws can be plugged to create a full structured belief system—rather than a 'version' of it. It's the sense that there must be something greater out there, a result of human curiosity and imaginativeness untempered by the agnosticism of science.

(In computing, we call this a security vulnerability.)

That being said, spirituality doesn't make you go out and start wars or subjugate others. That takes someone with ambition. Ideally with a beard, narcissism, and/or early signs of schizophrenia (read: a Messiah complex or pathological liar claiming to have a Messiah complex.) In the absence of such god-kings, religions with destructive practices tend to limit themselves to the occasional virgin sacrifice. No one had to invent a religious motive to attack Carthage.

Re:Apartheid

[Chuck Chunder]

Because it goes against Political Correctness.

I think it's fair to say that this specific situation has bugger all to to with "political correctness" in the sense you mean it.
It's about oil, "stability in the middle east" (ie oil), an "ally to the west" (ie oil).

It is not "political correctness". It is diplomacy in the worst sense of the word. The sense that allows countries to "smooth over" inconvenient realities and buddy up to the extent that dependency increases to the point becomes practically impossible to say "no". The "bleeding hearts" didn't get us here, the cold pragmatists did.

Political expediency is the problem not political correctness. The solution? Frankly I don't see an easy one.

Re:Apartheid

[Tagged_84]

Yeah, because a website like muslim.org isn't at all bias. Just look at their tagline: "presenting Islam as peaceful, tolerant, rational, inspiring"

Re:Apartheid

[Mashiki]

It is suppossed to. The problem is that men are in charge of the implementation and that's a common problem across the entire world. Regardless of the laws on the books, if the people interpreting them are not representative of the people they are applied to, the end result is going to be biased like health insurance paying for viagra but not birth control pills.

Really? So I now have two people within a mere 40mins of each other, one saying it does. Another saying it doesn't. Odd. Oh, as for your idea that it does? I take it that you've read that good book, and the various legal documents surrounding sharia. Especially the parts where a women's testimony is worth less than a man's, where rape is the women's fault and so on.

Don't be naive. It has nothing to do with "men who institute it." The entire system of sharia, is built around oppression, for the sake of oppression.

Re:Apartheid

[VendettaMF]

>> back then the average life expectancy was about 35. So if you didn't have kids young, you wouldn't be around to raise them for long.

Slight side note there. The average life expectancy may have been 35, but remove all the infant deaths (those dying aged 0-2 years old) and the average bounces way up into the mid-60's, not so massively different to today's.

Re:Apartheid

[ganjadude]

no, the problem is that saudis have oil,. if they didnt, MOST places around the world would not give a fuck about them, and as such they would disappear into the ages. But until their oil runs out, or we get off oil, we are stuck dealing with savages

We need to frack

[Snotnose]

We need to get our fracking industry going full bore, convert all semi's to use it, and get to where we import 0% oil from anywhere. Let China and Russia keep the straights of Hormuz clear. Let the Saudies fall back into the decrepit 3rd world pit it deserves to be.
 

Re:We need to frack

[camperdave]

We need to get our fracking industry going full bore, convert all semi's to use it, and get to where we import 0% oil from anywhere. Let China and Russia keep the straights of Hormuz clear. Let the Saudies fall back into the decrepit 3rd world pit it deserves to be.

No... We need to get our bio-diesel industry going full bore, convert all vehicles to use it, and get to where we import 0% oil from anywhere. Fracking is simply the equivalent to swirling the straw around the bottom of the cup, trying to suck up the last dribbles of milkshake. If you have to frack, the well is dry.

Re:We need to frack

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, it's just not conveniently located at all the right places.

But give me 10 nuclear power plants and I can make all the fresh water you want.

Re:We need to frack

[Nostromo21]

We KNOW wind, solar, wave & geothermal work. We know a number of alternate bio-fuels work. We know natural gas works. We know hydrogen & electrical power sources work, the ultimate power source notwithstanding. We know nuclear fission reactors work, are relatively safe (I don't want to argue the point) & produce far less pollution & environmental damage per Gigawatt than fossil fuels. We know that nuclear fusion works, we just haven't invested seriously enough into it to make it practical, which we could have done 20-25 years ago. We know a number of other fuel sources & methods that could work, if adapted to varying degrees.

However, we also know that oil works far, far more easily & cheaply than any of those right now & into the foreseeable future & is far more profitable, both in a monetary and geo-political sense. Not to mention the very deep pockets half the world's politicians & corporate heads have that touches on the oil industry in one way or another. It would perhaps be easier to get rid of electricity & copper wire as the main delivery method that powers all our devices, than oil as a primary fuel source right now. And that's saying something...

Re:Newsflash!

[approachingZero]

So there's this ugly realization that if you embrace the concept that all cultures are equal you must stand by and helplessly watch as little girls have their clitoris mutilated and homosexuals hung. It's like giving people democracy only to find out they want to elect people from the seventh century. Crap. Now what?

Fail.

[VAElynx]

I'm no feminist, but this is unjust and stupid
It's also hilarious how the USA are all over supposed human rights in Russia and Belarus where people live with dignity, and overlook insane places like the Saudi Arabia is.

They're just one step from...

[fyngyrz]

...taking them to the vet and "chipping" them.

Re:Newsflash!

[Xarvh]

That's retarded.
You don't "give" people democracy.
They have to take it for themselves.
You can nudge, encourage, provide education, but ultimately "democracy from above" will never work, because it's a matter of culture and you can't have democracy if first you don't change the culture.

Dear Muslim world:

[circletimessquare]

as long as you treat half of your society like cattle, you are never going to have a happy, prosperous, or just culture.

Yes, I know: "honor," "dignity." Well why don't you let your women take care of that for themselves on their own.

The Chinese, the Indians, the Americans, the Europeans, they will advance. And you will fester. Because of your poor choices.

Regards,
the rest of the world