After Saudi authorities had last month arrested and intimidated protestors calling for Islamic reform in the desert kingdom, the local press took up the campaign and called the protestors “deviant”.
Using language reminiscent of that employed in the press of the now-defunct USSR, the Riyadh-based al-Watan newspaper said of the protestors that they are a “deviant group” that has “abandoned their country only to become toys in the hands of certain parties....”
Echoing the press of North Korea, Stalinist USSR, Cuba, or pre-war Iraq, the Saudi editorial declared, “Our country is based on the principles of a religion that preaches obedience to the leaders. It calls for using sound means to give leaders advice, not demagoguery and suspicious gatherings that do more harm than reform, destroy instead of build.”
The al-Watan editors end on a note of confidence, beside a plea belying that confidence: “Hence, this group of people who have taken London or other Western capitals as a center from which to spread their poisons will never succeed. They will never find anyone to listen to them for a simple reason: The vast majority of people will not heed their claims. The reform they are calling for cannot be achieved by stirring incitement, insecurity, instability and evil. This deviant group will not undermine the will of the people, nor will their calls succeed.... What this biased group of people is doing merely serves the numerous enemies of Islam, who are relentlessly spreading lies and rumors here and there. They will never succeed. We urge our young people to avoid this lot and not to listen to them, so as not to be dragged into the abyss.”
Using language reminiscent of that employed in the press of the now-defunct USSR, the Riyadh-based al-Watan newspaper said of the protestors that they are a “deviant group” that has “abandoned their country only to become toys in the hands of certain parties....”
Echoing the press of North Korea, Stalinist USSR, Cuba, or pre-war Iraq, the Saudi editorial declared, “Our country is based on the principles of a religion that preaches obedience to the leaders. It calls for using sound means to give leaders advice, not demagoguery and suspicious gatherings that do more harm than reform, destroy instead of build.”
The al-Watan editors end on a note of confidence, beside a plea belying that confidence: “Hence, this group of people who have taken London or other Western capitals as a center from which to spread their poisons will never succeed. They will never find anyone to listen to them for a simple reason: The vast majority of people will not heed their claims. The reform they are calling for cannot be achieved by stirring incitement, insecurity, instability and evil. This deviant group will not undermine the will of the people, nor will their calls succeed.... What this biased group of people is doing merely serves the numerous enemies of Islam, who are relentlessly spreading lies and rumors here and there. They will never succeed. We urge our young people to avoid this lot and not to listen to them, so as not to be dragged into the abyss.”