Reverse Honor Killing

When it comes to honor killings, usually you hear about some poor woman who has been killed for daring to date a man, or not get engaged to whomever her father chose, etc.  This is more of a reverse one.  An Indonesian man in Australia killed his mom's lover because he felt it dishonored his family.  Honestly, I am a bit surprised he didn't kill his mother.

Women's News June 24, 2011

I've posted before about the plight of Asian workers in the Middle East (and elsewhere) who are mistreated.  You may remember that Saudi Arabia has really had some problems with mistreating house maids.  Well, now they've executed a house maid from Indonesia, who killed her abusive employer.  Indonesia is livid and recalled their ambassador, because they were not informed, and have decided not to allow any more workers to go to Saudi Arabia.  The suspension starts August 1st.  There are currently 28 Indonesians on death row in Saudi Arabia.

The Women2Drive campaign is under way in Saudi Arabia.  Women are driving and posting photos of it online.  You can support them at their Facebook page.

The first woman priest in the Middle East was ordained in Bahrain this month.  She's an Anglican who used to work in Yemen, but is currently posted in Dubai.  Apparently Bahrain is the "cathedral of the Gulf," which is why the ceremony was there.

Human Rights for Workers: Update I

An Indonesian maid in Saudi Arabia is in the hospital after allegedly being tortured by her employers.  An official team from Indonesia is there investigating the incident.  They are also looking into the murder of another Indonesian maid.  Human Rights Watch issued a report on migrant worker conditions in April.

Yum, Blackberries

Okay, what is going on in the Gulf States? First the UAE decides to ban the Blackberry, then Saudi Arabia jumps on the bandwagon and preempts them. So service stops in Saudi Arabia, only to start up again. Indonesia (a Muslim country) is also annoyed at RIM, the maker of Blackberry.

So what's the big deal? Blackberry communication is encrypted. Which means that the Saudi government cannot monitor what you and your friends are doing on your Blackberries. One article I read mentioned a Saudi blogger, who said he received a lot more comments from people using Blackberries, because they weren't afraid the government would arrest them. So there are freedom of speech issues here, except that Saudi Arabia doesn't have freedom of speech.

Another big deal is that the Blackberry is Western. And by that I mean the company that makes it (RIM) is Canadian, and the servers are in Canada, the US, and maybe Europe. And the Middle Eastern countries cannot believe that the US government isn't getting its hands on Blackberry information. So Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Indonesia, and India, all want the ability to read what people are saying on their Blackberries. In Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf States, the Internet is throttled and the government has complete access to what people are doing. They now want that same access on the Blackberry. Supposedly, RIM is now trying to work with Saudi Arabia on the situation. And see this article for a bit more information on how the Blackberry works.

Civet Coffee

Too much news today . . . where to begin? So, Civet Coffee. Never heard of it? Civets eat coffee beans, then poop them out, and then people pick up the beans and make them into coffee. Really expensive coffee. This mainly happens in Indonesia, and the clerics there are looking into the subject and should be issuing a ruling on whether or not Muslims can drink it. They're worried it might be dirty, which I completely understand. The lead cleric said that it was basically an issue of whether or not they cleaned the beans before they made the coffee.