A Girl Abducted...Wait, Was She Saudi???

Any serious observer of Arabic media has gotta check out a few sources on a daily basis. If you're checking out traditional media, there's some heavyweights that are required daily reading....we'll list in order of preference: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, Al-Akhbar, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. Al-Quds Al-Arabi is pretty independent and thus has the best opinion pieces and overall news. Al-Arabiya maintains a pro-Saudi line with a Gulf focus, but usually has some pretty entertaining regional news not carried by other sources, plus their website is fun.

Today on Al-Arabiya we happened to notice a story about a kidnapping that had apparently captured Saudi public opinion for years:

The story discusses the sentencing of two Egyptians who kidnapped a 9 year old girl from the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia. According to the story, the Egyptian couple (a man and a woman) abducted the girl and kept her captive for 3 years and 6 months. During this time, the couple tortured the girl and one of them raped her repeatedly.

As we all know, Saudi Arabia is governed by strict Islamic law. The punishment for this couple's crimes: an immediate death sentence, which occurred yesterday. Apparently, the couple was caught when they tried to sneak the girl out of Saudi Arabia, where they were living. Asked about the sentencing, the victim, Radia Abdel Ru'oof, stated that she was happy with it, noting that it is her right to see such a sentence.

Summary:
Two people kidnap and torture a girl. They are sentenced to death. Do you think most Arab readers have a problem with that? If you guess "no," then you're right. Dozens and dozens of readers in the comments section praised the judgement, with notes like: كويس انهم يقتلو "They were killed...good." Or الحمد لله اولا واخر ثم الشكر لقادتنا واسود نايف وسلطان الله يرحمهم   "Thank God firstly, and then thank our leader [Saudi princes] Nayef and Sultan may God have mercy on them." One comment notes that the girl sold fabrics with her parents outside the mosque.

However, the interesting part of the comment section (totaling 276, up from about 150 six hours ago) occurs when the majority of users start asking about the victim's citizenship - they want to know if she was Saudi. Among the first 37 comments, over a third mentioned the victim's girl's citizenship (Afghani) or ask about it. Finally, a reader on comment number 37 notes that "This is a real crime - the citizenship of the girl isn't important at all, evil is present every society and you all should avoid focusing on that point."

Between comments #38 to #77, an additional 13 people note that the girl was an Afghan or Pakistani and not Saudi. It's really startling to see how many people make an effort to note that no, don't worry, this girl wasn't Saudi. The comments also may have something to do with the fact that the article revealed the victim's name openly...if a Saudi woman was raped and her name was revealed, that may drastically hurt her chances at marriage. That fact may be why Saudi readers asked about her nationality...or maybe they just didn't care unless the girl was Saudi.

There were some redeeming comments, such as #95: الانسان هو انسان بغض النظر عن جنسيته وديانته ولونه "People are people, regardless of their nationality or religion or skin color." That's a good man. However, it was overall disappointing to notice that most initial comments focused on the girl's background, and not her well-being or future.

State Department...Still 'Hacking' ?

As we noted previously, the US State Department has been taking part in some interesting activities on Yemeni websites. Originally described as “hacking Al-Qaeda websites,” their activities were actually much less mysterious than originally thought.  We (and others) later determined that the State Dept. operatives simply posted doctored banners and images on Yemeni forums, specifically المجلس اليمني Al-Majles Al-Yemeni or Ye1.org.

Anyway, they’re not finished, and we are following what they’re doing. They’re making some cool graphics, but overall their work remains pretty ineffective at persuading people to dislike Al-Qaeda. When these guys come onto threads with their State Dept logo and signature, the conversation almost always turns from Al-Qaeda to the ills and dark sides of American foreign policy (which here inevitably includes drone strikes that kill civilians).

Here’s the latest example of their work, found Sunday on ye1.org:

The text reads "Ansar Al-Sharia is thirsty for the blood of Yemenis, and relishes in shedding their blood. To Al-Qaeda- the proud tribes of Yemen are on the lookout for you." [In Arabic, Ansar Al-Shar means 'Followers of Evil']

We believe that this parody image is supposed to be a play on an original Ansar Al-Sharia (AAS) propaganda image that was published as part of an AAS public relations campaign last winter:

The text reads "Ansar Al-Sharia: Relief for Yemen after its thirst, Hope for Yemen after its desperation. Proud tribes of Yemen, how then are you sacrificing yourselves for them?" [the Americans, presumably]

 In the original AAS banner above, the group refers to Yemeni tribal elements who oppose them as "Sahwat" صحوات or "Awakenings," harking back to the Awakening Councils of Anbar, Iraq. The groups consisted of tribes opposed to Al-Qaeda and who fought to end Al-Qaeda's influence in their territories. Just as they did in Iraq, Al-Qaeda/AAS tries to label the tribal Yemenis who fight against them as traitors or apostates in order to de-legitimize them and Islamically permit their killing.

So far, reverse image searching shows that the AAS image shows up over 2,000 times on the internet. The State Dept.'s image shows up only once. We'll be keeping our eyes open for more.

More Ahmad Shafiq Hating

The caption accompanying the post: "One neighbor to the other."
Bramjnet, one of the largest (is there a bigger one?) Egyptian web forums on the internet, features a very long thread on the Egyptian elections, with over 27,000 posts and almost 1 million views.

Egyptian Presidential Candidate Ahmad Shafiq Drunk During Interview?

We don't need to elaborate much on this one.....watch the video and see for yourself.