Gulf Daily News
By ANITA THOMAS, Posted on » Monday, May 04, 2009
A SERIES of public service announcements by women's groups could soon be aired on national television.
It follows a three-week workshop in which they were taught how to use computer technology to write, film and edit video messages.
The scheme was organised by the New York-based Barefoot Workshop, along with the Bahrain-based Smart Coaching and Research Centre.
Representatives of seven Bahraini women's organisations have written, directed and filmed a series of 30-second public service announcements, which were first screened last night at the Gulf Hotel.
The announcements aim to raise awareness of women's issues such as access to technology, participation in next year's national elections, domestic abuse, illiteracy and youth development.
Organisers hope they will also be broadcast on national television, posted on the Internet and even distributed to mobile phones.
Awareness
"We hope to support societies in Bahrain, particularly women's societies, to raise awareness about various issues faced by them," said programme director Alison Fast.
"We hope that this will be the first of a series of movements that will create awareness about the issues present within the society.
"Each women's society we have worked with has its own agenda for moving forward and has been equipped to spread public service announcements through the channels they choose and to the audience that they are aimed at."
The societies hope their messages will reach wider audience as possible thanks to advanced technology.
"We are hoping to be able to air the announcements on television where the majority of people can have access to them," said Ms Fast.
"Even illiterate people will be able to view them because nearly everyone watches television these days.
"Also sending them to people as messages on their mobile phones and posting them on the Net will definitely help reach more people."
Participating organisations included the Bahrain Young Ladies Association, Bahraini Society for Women's Development, Bahrain Women's Association - Human Development, Al Reef Young Lady Society, Hamad Town Women's Society, Awal Women's Society, Smart Coaching and Research Centre and the Batelco Care Centre for Family Violence Cases.
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Saudi Arabia: Rape scene on TV stirs debate
Najah Alosaimi | Arab News
RAISING THE BAR: Lamia’a Tareq, left, and Rana Abu Ghali who played raped sisters. (AN photo)
RIYADH: On a recent Friday night, thousands of television viewers across the Kingdom were shocked to see an explicit portrayal of a violent rape of two Saudi women.
Unprecedented for a Saudi TV, the three-minute scene showed two sisters being kidnapped by two men they met online, taken to a weekend home outside Jeddah, beaten and then violently raped.
While one girl is shown tearfully pleading for help, the other is seen having her abaya stripped away. The scene ends when one rapist threatens to circulate picture of the rapes via Bluetooth if they dare go to police.
The scene was a part of “Asakinat fe Qolubena,” (Dwellers in our Hearts) a new television series drama being aired on MBC1. It illustrates how Saudi drama has become more bold and sophisticated in exposing social problems.
“Yes, we expected the program to be controversial,” said Hassan Assiri, executive director of the producing company Al-Sadaf for Audio and Visual Production. “Until recently, Saudi drama tended to tackle taboos only implicitly.”
This program aims to move these taboos into the public eye in order to make people realize on their own that such violence is unacceptable.
“There have been some women who had similar shocking incidents inside the Kingdom recently... so we are not making up stories!” he said.
Indeed, technology was the tool that revealed scandals that shocked society, such as the Panda girl incident where a black man rapes a teenage Saudi girl, followed by Al-Nahdah pedestrian bridge incident, in which four Saudi boys filmed themselves sexually harassing girls.
The rape episode, entitled “Eqab,” was one of many other bold ones shown at that ongoing weekly series, which discussed many topics that have never been openly talked about, such as, rape, AIDS and marital abuse. The overall series topics revolve around forms of problems facing women in Saudi Arabia.
The program has been revealed as the top-rated program on all of television since January, according to a ratings survey carried out by Ipsos-Stat.
Assiri justified choosing women to be the core of his drama.
“Some men still think that decent women should never leave their homes and if they do, then they deserve any danger that might happen,” he said.
Assiri, who is an actor as well, refused to describe his series as “provoking.” “I think the Turkish soap operas, which are popular among Saudis, are bolder,” he said, adding that many people blame him for discussing social problems in his series.
“Violence against women persists in every country; why we are ashamed to admit it in our country?”
The series has its share of attacks and criticisms from critics and the public as well. Drama critic Mamdooh Al-Mehainy, encourages programs that bring social problems into the open, but he thinks the way such topics are addressed to viewers particularly in “Asakinat fe Qolubena” is onedimensional.
Talking specifically about “Eqab” episode, he said it conveyed the wrong message to me as viewer.
“Instead of putting emphasis on the new e-crimes law that specifies a range of offenses and penalties, including fines and imprisonment for computer hacking or harassment, the episode shows that men could kidnap and rape girls they meet online without any control,” he said, adding it also gives the impression that women who use the Internet invite scandal, which implies women should not use the Internet.
“I believe the episode has frightened people instead of educating them,” he said.
He added that Saudis are emotional and such topics probably would make them to reject technology or prevent their women from using Internet.
However, viewers received the drama message differently. “It freaked me out,” said Maha Sa’ad, a mother of four teenage girls.
“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep that night because I was thinking if these girls were my daughters.”
She hopes this could be a wake up call for the girls who believe in relationships before marriage.
Likewise, Abdullah Al-Hamrani, a father in his late 40s, thinks that such dramas distort the image of Saudi society especially that million of viewers around the Middle East have watched the program.
“Regardless whether this incident has ever occurred in our society or not, don’t we have other bright stories to tell our Islamic society? These incidents are not happening every day,” he said.
Asakinat fe Qolubena was filmed in Riyadh, Jeddah, Manama and Damascus. The program featured Gulf stars such as Lamia’a Tareq, Badriyah Ahmed, Turky Al-Yousif and Jasim Al-Nabhan.
RAISING THE BAR: Lamia’a Tareq, left, and Rana Abu Ghali who played raped sisters. (AN photo)
RIYADH: On a recent Friday night, thousands of television viewers across the Kingdom were shocked to see an explicit portrayal of a violent rape of two Saudi women.
Unprecedented for a Saudi TV, the three-minute scene showed two sisters being kidnapped by two men they met online, taken to a weekend home outside Jeddah, beaten and then violently raped.
While one girl is shown tearfully pleading for help, the other is seen having her abaya stripped away. The scene ends when one rapist threatens to circulate picture of the rapes via Bluetooth if they dare go to police.
The scene was a part of “Asakinat fe Qolubena,” (Dwellers in our Hearts) a new television series drama being aired on MBC1. It illustrates how Saudi drama has become more bold and sophisticated in exposing social problems.
“Yes, we expected the program to be controversial,” said Hassan Assiri, executive director of the producing company Al-Sadaf for Audio and Visual Production. “Until recently, Saudi drama tended to tackle taboos only implicitly.”
This program aims to move these taboos into the public eye in order to make people realize on their own that such violence is unacceptable.
“There have been some women who had similar shocking incidents inside the Kingdom recently... so we are not making up stories!” he said.
Indeed, technology was the tool that revealed scandals that shocked society, such as the Panda girl incident where a black man rapes a teenage Saudi girl, followed by Al-Nahdah pedestrian bridge incident, in which four Saudi boys filmed themselves sexually harassing girls.
The rape episode, entitled “Eqab,” was one of many other bold ones shown at that ongoing weekly series, which discussed many topics that have never been openly talked about, such as, rape, AIDS and marital abuse. The overall series topics revolve around forms of problems facing women in Saudi Arabia.
The program has been revealed as the top-rated program on all of television since January, according to a ratings survey carried out by Ipsos-Stat.
Assiri justified choosing women to be the core of his drama.
“Some men still think that decent women should never leave their homes and if they do, then they deserve any danger that might happen,” he said.
Assiri, who is an actor as well, refused to describe his series as “provoking.” “I think the Turkish soap operas, which are popular among Saudis, are bolder,” he said, adding that many people blame him for discussing social problems in his series.
“Violence against women persists in every country; why we are ashamed to admit it in our country?”
The series has its share of attacks and criticisms from critics and the public as well. Drama critic Mamdooh Al-Mehainy, encourages programs that bring social problems into the open, but he thinks the way such topics are addressed to viewers particularly in “Asakinat fe Qolubena” is onedimensional.
Talking specifically about “Eqab” episode, he said it conveyed the wrong message to me as viewer.
“Instead of putting emphasis on the new e-crimes law that specifies a range of offenses and penalties, including fines and imprisonment for computer hacking or harassment, the episode shows that men could kidnap and rape girls they meet online without any control,” he said, adding it also gives the impression that women who use the Internet invite scandal, which implies women should not use the Internet.
“I believe the episode has frightened people instead of educating them,” he said.
He added that Saudis are emotional and such topics probably would make them to reject technology or prevent their women from using Internet.
However, viewers received the drama message differently. “It freaked me out,” said Maha Sa’ad, a mother of four teenage girls.
“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep that night because I was thinking if these girls were my daughters.”
She hopes this could be a wake up call for the girls who believe in relationships before marriage.
Likewise, Abdullah Al-Hamrani, a father in his late 40s, thinks that such dramas distort the image of Saudi society especially that million of viewers around the Middle East have watched the program.
“Regardless whether this incident has ever occurred in our society or not, don’t we have other bright stories to tell our Islamic society? These incidents are not happening every day,” he said.
Asakinat fe Qolubena was filmed in Riyadh, Jeddah, Manama and Damascus. The program featured Gulf stars such as Lamia’a Tareq, Badriyah Ahmed, Turky Al-Yousif and Jasim Al-Nabhan.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Saudi Arabia: Women in Saudi media under fire
By Abdul Rahman Shaheen, Correspondent
Published: March 30, 2009, 23:52
Riyadh: Thirty-five prominent Saudi figures including scholars, university professors, judges, imams, researchers and government officials have warned the minister of culture and information against the prominence being given to women in the media. They described the projection of women in the media as a "phenomenon exceeding proper bounds of Sharia".
In a letter addressed to Dr Abdul Aziz Khoja, a copy of which was placed on the website Nurul Islam, the hardliners underlined the need for strictly adhering into the Kingdom's media policy, which prohibits women, including singers and artists, from appearing in the media. The statement, which was also carried by Al Madinah Arabic daily, urged scholars and reformers to examine the matter and come out with their proposals.
The 35 signatories of the statement included Shaikh Abdul Rahman Al Barak, Shaikh Abdul Rahman Al Mahmoud, member of the faculty of Usooluddin at Imam Mohammad Bin Saud University of Riyadh, and Shaikh Abdullah Al Sulaiman, judicial supervisor at the Ministry of Justice. They urged the minister to establish a supervisory Sharia committee at the ministry in cooperation with the Ifta Department, in line with Article 15 of the Media Policy of the Ministry of Culture and Information.
The signatories hoped the minister would undertake media reforms after rooting out "deviation" as far as radio, television, press, literary clubs and book fairs are concerned.
The statement, which was also carried by the Saudi news website Al Masdar, heavily criticised "plans to Westernise Saudi women and deprive them of their legal rights while travelling, as well as gender-mixing, opening doors for clashes with liberal ideologies, giving prominence for staging songs and playing musical instruments by women, publishing women's pictures, allowing women singers and broadcasters to mix with men at the ministry building, allowing entry of obscene newspapers and magazines with sexy pictures of women inside the pages and folders into the Kingdom", and described that all these are "no doubt, prohibited by Sharia".
According to the hardliners, all these phenomena are contrary to the laws of the country, royal decrees and the media policy of the Kingdom.
"This also involves violation of Article 7 in Item 2 of the Basic Governing System, which says that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shall be governed by the Book of God and the Tradition of the Prophet (PBUH).
The statement also drew attention to the fact these trends were also in violation of the Royal Decree No 2/4185, which prevents the staging of any dance programme involving women or appearance of female singers or news readers on television.
The decree also prevents the appearance of any types of pictures of women on newspapers or magazines for any reasons. The statement urged the minister to grant permission for a meeting with a delegation of 10 of the signatories to discuss the matter.
Published: March 30, 2009, 23:52
Riyadh: Thirty-five prominent Saudi figures including scholars, university professors, judges, imams, researchers and government officials have warned the minister of culture and information against the prominence being given to women in the media. They described the projection of women in the media as a "phenomenon exceeding proper bounds of Sharia".
In a letter addressed to Dr Abdul Aziz Khoja, a copy of which was placed on the website Nurul Islam, the hardliners underlined the need for strictly adhering into the Kingdom's media policy, which prohibits women, including singers and artists, from appearing in the media. The statement, which was also carried by Al Madinah Arabic daily, urged scholars and reformers to examine the matter and come out with their proposals.
The 35 signatories of the statement included Shaikh Abdul Rahman Al Barak, Shaikh Abdul Rahman Al Mahmoud, member of the faculty of Usooluddin at Imam Mohammad Bin Saud University of Riyadh, and Shaikh Abdullah Al Sulaiman, judicial supervisor at the Ministry of Justice. They urged the minister to establish a supervisory Sharia committee at the ministry in cooperation with the Ifta Department, in line with Article 15 of the Media Policy of the Ministry of Culture and Information.
The signatories hoped the minister would undertake media reforms after rooting out "deviation" as far as radio, television, press, literary clubs and book fairs are concerned.
The statement, which was also carried by the Saudi news website Al Masdar, heavily criticised "plans to Westernise Saudi women and deprive them of their legal rights while travelling, as well as gender-mixing, opening doors for clashes with liberal ideologies, giving prominence for staging songs and playing musical instruments by women, publishing women's pictures, allowing women singers and broadcasters to mix with men at the ministry building, allowing entry of obscene newspapers and magazines with sexy pictures of women inside the pages and folders into the Kingdom", and described that all these are "no doubt, prohibited by Sharia".
According to the hardliners, all these phenomena are contrary to the laws of the country, royal decrees and the media policy of the Kingdom.
"This also involves violation of Article 7 in Item 2 of the Basic Governing System, which says that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shall be governed by the Book of God and the Tradition of the Prophet (PBUH).
The statement also drew attention to the fact these trends were also in violation of the Royal Decree No 2/4185, which prevents the staging of any dance programme involving women or appearance of female singers or news readers on television.
The decree also prevents the appearance of any types of pictures of women on newspapers or magazines for any reasons. The statement urged the minister to grant permission for a meeting with a delegation of 10 of the signatories to discuss the matter.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Campaign against maid abuse
By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC Arab Affairs Analyst
A Saudi Arabian campaign against the abuse of domestic workers in the country has sparked controversy.
There are an estimated 1.5 million foreign domestic workers in Saudi. Many complain of abuse.
Critics say the ads misrepresent Saudi society. Rights activists say abuse is common, and acknowledging it is a first step towards solving the problem.
A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year said some foreign workers are treated like slaves.
The adverts appeared on Saudi-owned satellite channels and newspapers.
A television advertisement, the first of its kind, shows a Saudi man shouting angrily at a foreign maid for failing to iron his clothes properly. We are obliged to treat servants well. Why ask them to do things that we can't bear ourselves? If we have mercy on them, then Allah will have mercy on us.
Another sequence shows the man in his car honking and yelling racist abuse at an Asian man.
The sketches end with him praying, asking God for help and mercy as a caption appears with the words "man la yarham, la yurham (He who shows no mercy, will receive no mercy [from God])".
This is the slogan of the Rahma (Mercy) campaign which has appeared on Saudi-owned satellite channels , MBC and Rotana, and some newspapers.
The print version of the campaign, which appeared in the London-based Al Hayat, showed a maid held inside a kennel with a dog collar around her neck, and a foreign chauffeur harnessed like a horse with a Saudi woman holding the reins.
'Misrepresentation'
But major Saudi newspapers have refused to publish the advertisement, apparently because for them, it was too shocking.
A campaign image showed a maid being fed from a dog bowl
Some writers and journalists have called for an end to the campaign because they believe it shows Saudi people as cruel and heartless.
Journalist Terad Al al-Asmari, told Islamonline, that the campaign overlooked abuse of domestic workers in other societies.
"It could lead to hatred between foreign labour and the Saudi citizen," he argued.
A Saudi academic, Dr Moutlaq al-Mouteery, criticised airing the campaign on satellite channels. Dr Mouterriy wrote saying that "discussing domestic problems on satellite channels turns them into a scandal [for Saudi Arabia]".
The director general of the Saudi advertising agency, behind the campaign, Qaswara al-Khateeb, defended the media drive.
"We sometimes forget that those who we deal with helpers are actually human beings," Mr Khateeb told the Saudi newspaper Arab News.
"We are obliged to treat them well. Why ask them to do things that we can't bear ourselves? If we have mercy on them, then Allah will have mercy on us."
Mr Khateeb told the BBC that the campaign was financed by a big Saudi corporation, but he refused to disclose which, adding that the backers did not want the message of the campaign to be associated with any particular group.
BBC Arab Affairs Analyst
A Saudi Arabian campaign against the abuse of domestic workers in the country has sparked controversy.
There are an estimated 1.5 million foreign domestic workers in Saudi. Many complain of abuse.
Critics say the ads misrepresent Saudi society. Rights activists say abuse is common, and acknowledging it is a first step towards solving the problem.
A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year said some foreign workers are treated like slaves.
The adverts appeared on Saudi-owned satellite channels and newspapers.
A television advertisement, the first of its kind, shows a Saudi man shouting angrily at a foreign maid for failing to iron his clothes properly. We are obliged to treat servants well. Why ask them to do things that we can't bear ourselves? If we have mercy on them, then Allah will have mercy on us.
Another sequence shows the man in his car honking and yelling racist abuse at an Asian man.
The sketches end with him praying, asking God for help and mercy as a caption appears with the words "man la yarham, la yurham (He who shows no mercy, will receive no mercy [from God])".
This is the slogan of the Rahma (Mercy) campaign which has appeared on Saudi-owned satellite channels , MBC and Rotana, and some newspapers.
The print version of the campaign, which appeared in the London-based Al Hayat, showed a maid held inside a kennel with a dog collar around her neck, and a foreign chauffeur harnessed like a horse with a Saudi woman holding the reins.
'Misrepresentation'
But major Saudi newspapers have refused to publish the advertisement, apparently because for them, it was too shocking.
A campaign image showed a maid being fed from a dog bowl
Some writers and journalists have called for an end to the campaign because they believe it shows Saudi people as cruel and heartless.
Journalist Terad Al al-Asmari, told Islamonline, that the campaign overlooked abuse of domestic workers in other societies.
"It could lead to hatred between foreign labour and the Saudi citizen," he argued.
A Saudi academic, Dr Moutlaq al-Mouteery, criticised airing the campaign on satellite channels. Dr Mouterriy wrote saying that "discussing domestic problems on satellite channels turns them into a scandal [for Saudi Arabia]".
The director general of the Saudi advertising agency, behind the campaign, Qaswara al-Khateeb, defended the media drive.
"We sometimes forget that those who we deal with helpers are actually human beings," Mr Khateeb told the Saudi newspaper Arab News.
"We are obliged to treat them well. Why ask them to do things that we can't bear ourselves? If we have mercy on them, then Allah will have mercy on us."
Mr Khateeb told the BBC that the campaign was financed by a big Saudi corporation, but he refused to disclose which, adding that the backers did not want the message of the campaign to be associated with any particular group.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Saudi Arabia: 'Don't strip me of my humanity'
Riyadh: The one-minute video airing on Saudi-owned satellite channels shows an Arab businessman screaming at his maid, pleading poverty when a domestic server asks to be paid, and denying an employee time off to visit his daughter in the hospital.
The clip closes with the businessman at prayer, pleading God for compassion, before fading to a line that reads: "He who is not merciful himself, will not be afforded mercy [by Allah]".
The video is part of the 'Mercy' campaign, a privately funded public service effort aimed at reminding Gulf Arabs that their religion requires them to treat employees, particularly their omnipresent maids and drivers, in a humane way.
The 'Mercy' campaign also includes brutally candid ads in Saudi newspapers, including one that depicts a maid peeking out from a doghouse with a chain around her neck. "Don't Strip Me of My Humanity!" the title reads.
"We want to raise public interest, to make people talk...and remind people what Islam is saying," says Kaswara Al Khatib, managing director of FullStop, the Jeddah-based advertising firm producing the public service ads, or PSAs.
Social responsibility
Al Khatib says the campaign is part of his company's social responsibility. "I look at what is going on around us and try to do something about it," he says.
The way some people treat their household help is "not good enough", he says, noting that 13-hour workdays are common and that living conditions are sometimes poor. "We think it's normal, but maybe we need to check, to go the extra mile," he says. "We need to treat them as equals."
Mercy is an important virtue in Islam. According to its scriptures, the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) once said: "The merciful are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Have mercy on those on earth, and the Lord of the Heavens will have mercy on you."
And before beginning most endeavours, Muslims invoke God's blessing by saying, "In the name of Allah the most Merciful, the most Compassionate."
Nonetheless, the treatment of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries is a sensitive and controversial matter, with critics charging that they are often underpaid and overworked.
There are an estimated 5.6 million foreigners living in Saudi Arabia, whose native population is 22.5 million, according to the CIA World Factbook. Many foreign workers are from poor Asian countries, such as Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
In July, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report about the conditions of the estimated 1.5 million household staff workers in Saudi Arabia. The report, titled As If I Am Not Human, said that these workers "receive less protection in Saudi Arabia than other categories of workers, exposing them to egregious abuses with little or no hope of redress.
"While many domestic workers enjoy decent work conditions," the report said, others endure "slavery-like conditions" that included "nonpayment of salaries, forced confinement, food deprivation, excessive workload, and instances of severe psychological, physical, and sexual abuse."
Exaggerated
The report caused a furore in Saudi Arabia, where newspaper columnists and government officials slammed it for being one-sided and exaggerated.
Many Saudis say that they, too, are victims, citing instances of maids running away to look for higher paying jobs after their employers had paid several hundred dollars to bring them to the kingdom.
"I'm sure there are abuses," Turki Al Sudairy, president of the government-appointed Human Rights Commission, said in a phone interview. "But a neutral person would think that all Saudis are doing this...We want a fair judgment. They [HRW] never thought that there are cases where the girls are hurting their employers."
Mazen Hayek, spokesman for the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) in Dubai, said that there has not been a lot of viewer feedback about the television ads of the 'Mercy' campaign.
He attributed this to the fact that "it's not an accusatory campaign, it's an awareness campaign...It calls for basic human rights and good treatment of human beings...It's not controversial".
MBC and MBC-owned Al Arabiya TV, which are popular throughout the Middle East, are both airing the three 'Mercy' videos "free of charge as part of its commitment to society," Hayek says.
MBC is owned by an in-law of the late Saudi King Fahd.
Rotana, another popular satellite television network among Arab audiences, which is owned by Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, is also planning to air the 'Mercy' videos, Al Khatib says.
Glimpses
Apart from the clip of the Arab businessman, two others show an Arab housewife shouting abuse at her maid, who appears to be Filipina. In one, she tells the maid to "get out of my sight" and in another, she yells at her "not to sleep until the house is spotless" as she apparently retires for the night.
The 'Mercy' ads are not appearing on Saudi government-owned television stations, Al Khatib says.
One Saudi newspaper offered the print version of the campaign declined to take it, but several others are running it, he added.
He says he'd only seen one negative comment so far from one newspaper reader. The $100,000 cost of the videos and print ads, which were all produced in Saudi Arabia, was borne by an individual who wanted to remain anonymous, Al Khatib says.
His firm has done other public service campaigns in the past, he adds, including ones against smoking and gossiping. Others have encouraged people to be good to their mothers, be devout Muslims, and demonstrate their patriotism by helping to improve Saudi society.
-- Caryle Murphy, Christian Science Monitor
The clip closes with the businessman at prayer, pleading God for compassion, before fading to a line that reads: "He who is not merciful himself, will not be afforded mercy [by Allah]".
The video is part of the 'Mercy' campaign, a privately funded public service effort aimed at reminding Gulf Arabs that their religion requires them to treat employees, particularly their omnipresent maids and drivers, in a humane way.
The 'Mercy' campaign also includes brutally candid ads in Saudi newspapers, including one that depicts a maid peeking out from a doghouse with a chain around her neck. "Don't Strip Me of My Humanity!" the title reads.
"We want to raise public interest, to make people talk...and remind people what Islam is saying," says Kaswara Al Khatib, managing director of FullStop, the Jeddah-based advertising firm producing the public service ads, or PSAs.
Social responsibility
Al Khatib says the campaign is part of his company's social responsibility. "I look at what is going on around us and try to do something about it," he says.
The way some people treat their household help is "not good enough", he says, noting that 13-hour workdays are common and that living conditions are sometimes poor. "We think it's normal, but maybe we need to check, to go the extra mile," he says. "We need to treat them as equals."
Mercy is an important virtue in Islam. According to its scriptures, the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) once said: "The merciful are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Have mercy on those on earth, and the Lord of the Heavens will have mercy on you."
And before beginning most endeavours, Muslims invoke God's blessing by saying, "In the name of Allah the most Merciful, the most Compassionate."
Nonetheless, the treatment of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries is a sensitive and controversial matter, with critics charging that they are often underpaid and overworked.
There are an estimated 5.6 million foreigners living in Saudi Arabia, whose native population is 22.5 million, according to the CIA World Factbook. Many foreign workers are from poor Asian countries, such as Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
In July, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report about the conditions of the estimated 1.5 million household staff workers in Saudi Arabia. The report, titled As If I Am Not Human, said that these workers "receive less protection in Saudi Arabia than other categories of workers, exposing them to egregious abuses with little or no hope of redress.
"While many domestic workers enjoy decent work conditions," the report said, others endure "slavery-like conditions" that included "nonpayment of salaries, forced confinement, food deprivation, excessive workload, and instances of severe psychological, physical, and sexual abuse."
Exaggerated
The report caused a furore in Saudi Arabia, where newspaper columnists and government officials slammed it for being one-sided and exaggerated.
Many Saudis say that they, too, are victims, citing instances of maids running away to look for higher paying jobs after their employers had paid several hundred dollars to bring them to the kingdom.
"I'm sure there are abuses," Turki Al Sudairy, president of the government-appointed Human Rights Commission, said in a phone interview. "But a neutral person would think that all Saudis are doing this...We want a fair judgment. They [HRW] never thought that there are cases where the girls are hurting their employers."
Mazen Hayek, spokesman for the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) in Dubai, said that there has not been a lot of viewer feedback about the television ads of the 'Mercy' campaign.
He attributed this to the fact that "it's not an accusatory campaign, it's an awareness campaign...It calls for basic human rights and good treatment of human beings...It's not controversial".
MBC and MBC-owned Al Arabiya TV, which are popular throughout the Middle East, are both airing the three 'Mercy' videos "free of charge as part of its commitment to society," Hayek says.
MBC is owned by an in-law of the late Saudi King Fahd.
Rotana, another popular satellite television network among Arab audiences, which is owned by Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, is also planning to air the 'Mercy' videos, Al Khatib says.
Glimpses
Apart from the clip of the Arab businessman, two others show an Arab housewife shouting abuse at her maid, who appears to be Filipina. In one, she tells the maid to "get out of my sight" and in another, she yells at her "not to sleep until the house is spotless" as she apparently retires for the night.
The 'Mercy' ads are not appearing on Saudi government-owned television stations, Al Khatib says.
One Saudi newspaper offered the print version of the campaign declined to take it, but several others are running it, he added.
He says he'd only seen one negative comment so far from one newspaper reader. The $100,000 cost of the videos and print ads, which were all produced in Saudi Arabia, was borne by an individual who wanted to remain anonymous, Al Khatib says.
His firm has done other public service campaigns in the past, he adds, including ones against smoking and gossiping. Others have encouraged people to be good to their mothers, be devout Muslims, and demonstrate their patriotism by helping to improve Saudi society.
-- Caryle Murphy, Christian Science Monitor
Friday, September 19, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Women Find an Unlikely Role Model: Oprah
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
New York Times
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia—Once a month, Nayla says, she writes a letter to Oprah Winfrey.
A young Saudi homemaker who covers her face in public might not seem to have much in common with an American talk show host whose image is known to millions. Like many women in this conservative desert kingdom, Nayla does not usually socialize with people outside her extended family, and she never leaves her house unless chaperoned by her husband.
Ms. Winfrey has not answered the letters. But Nayla says she is still hoping.
“I feel that Oprah truly understands me,” said Nayla, who, like many of the women interviewed, would not let her full name be used. “She gives me energy and hope for my life. Sometimes I think that she is the only person in the world who knows how I feel.”
Nayla is not the only Saudi woman to feel a special connection to the American media mogul. When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population.
In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai’a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia’s ruling authorities, as subversive.
Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.
“Oprah dresses conservatively,” explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women’s spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. “She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here.”
Today, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” with Arabic subtitles, is broadcast twice each weekday on MBC4, a three-year-old channel developed by the MBC Group with the Arab woman in mind. The show’s guests, self-improvement tips, and advice on family relationships — as well as Ms. Winfrey’s clothes and changing hairstyles — are eagerly analyzed by Saudi women from a wide range of social backgrounds and income levels.
The largest-circulation Saudi women’s magazine, Sayidaty, devotes a regular page to Ms. Winfrey, and dog-eared copies of her official magazine, O, which is not sold in the kingdom, are passed around by women who collect them during trips abroad.
The particulars of Ms. Winfrey’s personal story have resonated with a broad audience of Saudi women in a way that few other Western imports have, explained Mazen Hayek, a spokesman for the MBC Group.
Saudi Arabia was an impoverished desert country before it was transformed by oil money and, in just a couple of generations, into a wealthy consumer society. Saudi women readily identify with “this glamorous woman from very modest beginnings,” Mr. Hayek said, in a phone interview from Dubai.
Maha al-Faleh, 23, of Riyadh, said, “Oprah talks about issues that haven’t really been spoken about here openly before.
“She talks about racism, for example,” she said. “This is something that Saudis are very concerned about, because many of us feel that we’re judged for the way we veil or for our skin color. I have a friend whose driver touched her in an inappropriate way. She was very young at the time, but she felt very guilty about it — and Oprah helped her to speak about this abuse with her mother.”
MBC edits some “Oprah” episodes to remove content banned by censors in the region, officials at the channel say. It does not broadcast segments on homosexuality, for example. But the officials say they make most episodes available to their regional viewers uncensored, including some about relations between Arabs and Westerners and about living with the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Saudi women say they are drawn to Ms. Winfrey not only because she openly addresses subjects considered taboo locally, but also because she speaks of self-empowerment and change.
Wafa Muhammad, 38, a mother of five from Riyadh, said she believed that, in their adoration of Ms. Winfrey, Saudi women are expressing a hesitant sense of longing for real change in their country.
“Many of us feel that the solutions for our problems have to come from outside,” Ms. Muhammad said. When President Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, she continued, as an example, his presence briefly became a locus of hope for Saudi women. “A lot of women were saying that they wished they could talk to Bush about problems like forced marriage, about how our children are taken away if our husbands divorce us.”
In a country where women are forbidden to vote, or to travel without the permission of a male guardian, a sense of powerlessness can lead women to look for unlikely sources of rescue, Ms. Muhammad explained. “If women here have problems with their fathers or their brothers, what can they do but look to Oprah?” she asked. “The idea that she will come and help them is a dream for them.”
Nayla, the homemaker in Dammam, a Persian Gulf port city, says Ms. Winfrey helps her cope with a society that does not encourage her to have interests. “The life of a woman here in Saudi — it makes you tired and it makes you boring,” she said, sighing.
Like many Saudi women, Nayla struggles with obesity, a major issue in the kingdom because many women are largely confined to their homes and local custom often prevents them from participating in sports or even walking around their neighborhoods.
She says that Ms. Winfrey has inspired her to lose weight and to pursue her education through an online degree course, a method acceptable to her husband since she will not have to leave home.
As she spoke, Nayla sat on the floor of the women’s sitting room of her mother-in-law’s house. A battered wooden bureau, its top littered with hairbrushes, plastic figurines, and perfume bottles, was the only piece of furniture.
Several female relatives sat with Nayla, and the door was kept slightly ajar so that their small children, chasing one another in the hall outside, could enter. But at the sound of heavier, male footfalls approaching, the women all jumped to their feet and scurried to hide their faces behind the bureau. It would be shameful if a brother-in-law accidentally caught a glimpse of their uncovered faces, Nayla explained.
“Oprah is the magic word for women here who want to scream out loud, who want to be heard,” Ms. Muhammad said. “Look at what happened to the girl from Qatif,” she said, referring to the infamous case of a young woman who was gang-raped, then sentenced to flogging because she had been in a car with an unrelated man.
The young woman from Qatif received a royal pardon last year after her case became an international media cause célèbre.
“The Qatif girl was heard outside the country, and she was helped,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But we need to have Saudi women who help women here. We need to have women social workers, women judges.”
“We have a very male-dominated society, and it’s very hard sometimes,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But for now I have my coffee, and sit, and I watch Oprah. It’s my favorite time of day.”
New York Times
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia—Once a month, Nayla says, she writes a letter to Oprah Winfrey.
A young Saudi homemaker who covers her face in public might not seem to have much in common with an American talk show host whose image is known to millions. Like many women in this conservative desert kingdom, Nayla does not usually socialize with people outside her extended family, and she never leaves her house unless chaperoned by her husband.
Ms. Winfrey has not answered the letters. But Nayla says she is still hoping.
“I feel that Oprah truly understands me,” said Nayla, who, like many of the women interviewed, would not let her full name be used. “She gives me energy and hope for my life. Sometimes I think that she is the only person in the world who knows how I feel.”
Nayla is not the only Saudi woman to feel a special connection to the American media mogul. When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population.
In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai’a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia’s ruling authorities, as subversive.
Some women here say Ms. Winfrey’s assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.
“Oprah dresses conservatively,” explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women’s spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. “She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here.”
Today, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” with Arabic subtitles, is broadcast twice each weekday on MBC4, a three-year-old channel developed by the MBC Group with the Arab woman in mind. The show’s guests, self-improvement tips, and advice on family relationships — as well as Ms. Winfrey’s clothes and changing hairstyles — are eagerly analyzed by Saudi women from a wide range of social backgrounds and income levels.
The largest-circulation Saudi women’s magazine, Sayidaty, devotes a regular page to Ms. Winfrey, and dog-eared copies of her official magazine, O, which is not sold in the kingdom, are passed around by women who collect them during trips abroad.
The particulars of Ms. Winfrey’s personal story have resonated with a broad audience of Saudi women in a way that few other Western imports have, explained Mazen Hayek, a spokesman for the MBC Group.
Saudi Arabia was an impoverished desert country before it was transformed by oil money and, in just a couple of generations, into a wealthy consumer society. Saudi women readily identify with “this glamorous woman from very modest beginnings,” Mr. Hayek said, in a phone interview from Dubai.
Maha al-Faleh, 23, of Riyadh, said, “Oprah talks about issues that haven’t really been spoken about here openly before.
“She talks about racism, for example,” she said. “This is something that Saudis are very concerned about, because many of us feel that we’re judged for the way we veil or for our skin color. I have a friend whose driver touched her in an inappropriate way. She was very young at the time, but she felt very guilty about it — and Oprah helped her to speak about this abuse with her mother.”
MBC edits some “Oprah” episodes to remove content banned by censors in the region, officials at the channel say. It does not broadcast segments on homosexuality, for example. But the officials say they make most episodes available to their regional viewers uncensored, including some about relations between Arabs and Westerners and about living with the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Saudi women say they are drawn to Ms. Winfrey not only because she openly addresses subjects considered taboo locally, but also because she speaks of self-empowerment and change.
Wafa Muhammad, 38, a mother of five from Riyadh, said she believed that, in their adoration of Ms. Winfrey, Saudi women are expressing a hesitant sense of longing for real change in their country.
“Many of us feel that the solutions for our problems have to come from outside,” Ms. Muhammad said. When President Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, she continued, as an example, his presence briefly became a locus of hope for Saudi women. “A lot of women were saying that they wished they could talk to Bush about problems like forced marriage, about how our children are taken away if our husbands divorce us.”
In a country where women are forbidden to vote, or to travel without the permission of a male guardian, a sense of powerlessness can lead women to look for unlikely sources of rescue, Ms. Muhammad explained. “If women here have problems with their fathers or their brothers, what can they do but look to Oprah?” she asked. “The idea that she will come and help them is a dream for them.”
Nayla, the homemaker in Dammam, a Persian Gulf port city, says Ms. Winfrey helps her cope with a society that does not encourage her to have interests. “The life of a woman here in Saudi — it makes you tired and it makes you boring,” she said, sighing.
Like many Saudi women, Nayla struggles with obesity, a major issue in the kingdom because many women are largely confined to their homes and local custom often prevents them from participating in sports or even walking around their neighborhoods.
She says that Ms. Winfrey has inspired her to lose weight and to pursue her education through an online degree course, a method acceptable to her husband since she will not have to leave home.
As she spoke, Nayla sat on the floor of the women’s sitting room of her mother-in-law’s house. A battered wooden bureau, its top littered with hairbrushes, plastic figurines, and perfume bottles, was the only piece of furniture.
Several female relatives sat with Nayla, and the door was kept slightly ajar so that their small children, chasing one another in the hall outside, could enter. But at the sound of heavier, male footfalls approaching, the women all jumped to their feet and scurried to hide their faces behind the bureau. It would be shameful if a brother-in-law accidentally caught a glimpse of their uncovered faces, Nayla explained.
“Oprah is the magic word for women here who want to scream out loud, who want to be heard,” Ms. Muhammad said. “Look at what happened to the girl from Qatif,” she said, referring to the infamous case of a young woman who was gang-raped, then sentenced to flogging because she had been in a car with an unrelated man.
The young woman from Qatif received a royal pardon last year after her case became an international media cause célèbre.
“The Qatif girl was heard outside the country, and she was helped,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But we need to have Saudi women who help women here. We need to have women social workers, women judges.”
“We have a very male-dominated society, and it’s very hard sometimes,” Ms. Muhammad said. “But for now I have my coffee, and sit, and I watch Oprah. It’s my favorite time of day.”
Friday, May 30, 2008
Kuwait: MP to grill over TV show
A Kuwaiti Islamist lawmaker yesterday urged authorities to ban a team from Lebanese reality TV show "Star Academy" from recruiting young Kuwaitis, saying the program destroys morals.
"The recruitment of youth for a program that destroys morals and fights our (Islamic) values is no less bad and dangerous than recruiting them for terrorism or for peddling drugs," MP Waleed Al-Tabtabae said in a statement.
Tabtabae pointed out that a team from the TV show staff had arrived in Kuwait and set a center at the Holiday Inn Hotel to interview young men and women from Kuwait to select new participants for the coming cycle of the talent probing program.
Tabtabae, who adheres to the rigorous Salafi current of Islam, said Star Academy "imports Western values that are rejected by our society, and is based on mixing members of the two sexes to teach them Western habits and practices that they want to spread among our youth."
He warned Information Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah that he would hold him politically accountable if he does not stop the team from operating in Kuwait.
The mere admittance of this team in Kuwait means breaking an earlier promise given by the government not to allow them in, as a bid to preserve the Kuwaiti society principles, values and traditions," stressed Al-Tabtabae urging the information minister to stop the team and hold whoever licensed them to practice socially and traditional rejected activities in Kuwait.
Further, Tabtabae added that it was not acceptable that the Ministry of Information denies licensing the program's activities in Kuwait as well as denies any knowledge of it. "The ministry licensed the program producers; the LBC Satellite TV channel to establish tier office in Kuwait and it can cancel that license as a penalty for practicing public media activities without prior permission from the ministry," he said.
The Arab version of Star Academy is produced in Lebanon. Male and female contestants live in a boarding-school called The Academy, which is managed by a director, and are coached in various artistic disciplines and filmed day and night. Once a week, they participate in the equivalent of a prime time show, singing a song they prepared during the week before, as well as recapping their trials and tribulations from the past week.
Based on verdicts from judges and viewer voting, the weakest contestant is dropped while the eventual winner is awarded a record deal and usually some money. A number of Kuwaitis have taken part in the program since its inception about four years ago. It caused an uproar in Kuwait in 2004 when young stars of the program staged a concert in the conservative Gulf state.
Kuwait remains a religiously conservative country, where alcohol and discotheques are banned. Radical Islamists and tribal conservatives made strong gains in May 17 general elections.
-- Kuwait Times
"The recruitment of youth for a program that destroys morals and fights our (Islamic) values is no less bad and dangerous than recruiting them for terrorism or for peddling drugs," MP Waleed Al-Tabtabae said in a statement.
Tabtabae pointed out that a team from the TV show staff had arrived in Kuwait and set a center at the Holiday Inn Hotel to interview young men and women from Kuwait to select new participants for the coming cycle of the talent probing program.
Tabtabae, who adheres to the rigorous Salafi current of Islam, said Star Academy "imports Western values that are rejected by our society, and is based on mixing members of the two sexes to teach them Western habits and practices that they want to spread among our youth."
He warned Information Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah that he would hold him politically accountable if he does not stop the team from operating in Kuwait.
The mere admittance of this team in Kuwait means breaking an earlier promise given by the government not to allow them in, as a bid to preserve the Kuwaiti society principles, values and traditions," stressed Al-Tabtabae urging the information minister to stop the team and hold whoever licensed them to practice socially and traditional rejected activities in Kuwait.
Further, Tabtabae added that it was not acceptable that the Ministry of Information denies licensing the program's activities in Kuwait as well as denies any knowledge of it. "The ministry licensed the program producers; the LBC Satellite TV channel to establish tier office in Kuwait and it can cancel that license as a penalty for practicing public media activities without prior permission from the ministry," he said.
The Arab version of Star Academy is produced in Lebanon. Male and female contestants live in a boarding-school called The Academy, which is managed by a director, and are coached in various artistic disciplines and filmed day and night. Once a week, they participate in the equivalent of a prime time show, singing a song they prepared during the week before, as well as recapping their trials and tribulations from the past week.
Based on verdicts from judges and viewer voting, the weakest contestant is dropped while the eventual winner is awarded a record deal and usually some money. A number of Kuwaitis have taken part in the program since its inception about four years ago. It caused an uproar in Kuwait in 2004 when young stars of the program staged a concert in the conservative Gulf state.
Kuwait remains a religiously conservative country, where alcohol and discotheques are banned. Radical Islamists and tribal conservatives made strong gains in May 17 general elections.
-- Kuwait Times
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Lebanon: Biography of Journalist Diana Mukkaled
Diana Mukkaled is a prominent and well respected TV journalist in the Arab world, thanks to her phenomenal show "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" (By The Naked Eye), a series of documentaries around controversial areas and topics which airs on Lebanon's leading local and sattelite channel "Future Television".
Diana also is a veteran war corrependent, covering both The War in Iraq and in Afghanistan, as well as the Isreali "Grapes of Wrath" massacre in southern Lebanon. Daring to do superb investigative work in Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen and Iraq (prior to the collapse of the Saddam's regime) and dedicating entire episodes of "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" to issues such as "Honour Crimes" in Jordan, Diana has gained world wide recognition and was named one of the most influential women in a special feature that ran in Time Magazine in 2004.
Diana writes a weekly coloumn for Asharq Al Awsat Media's Supplement, where she discusses current affairs in Arab and world media.
Diana also is a veteran war corrependent, covering both The War in Iraq and in Afghanistan, as well as the Isreali "Grapes of Wrath" massacre in southern Lebanon. Daring to do superb investigative work in Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen and Iraq (prior to the collapse of the Saddam's regime) and dedicating entire episodes of "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" to issues such as "Honour Crimes" in Jordan, Diana has gained world wide recognition and was named one of the most influential women in a special feature that ran in Time Magazine in 2004.
Diana writes a weekly coloumn for Asharq Al Awsat Media's Supplement, where she discusses current affairs in Arab and world media.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)