July 29th, 2009 by Max

In an informative piece for Foreign Policy, Ian Bremmer writes that political reform in Saudi Arabia has for a long time been moving “very, very slowly.”  Two recent developments, however, seem to indicate that this forward crawl may have even reversed: plans to reopen public cinemas, which have been banned for a number of years, have just been binned, while an editor of a leading newspaper was fired after a piece criticizing the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice–a militia that enforces Wahhabi codes of dress and behavior by means of physical violence–upset the country’s interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-Aziz.

Furthermore, reports that all computers in the country may soon be installed with a microchip tracking internet use only heighten observers’ concerns. With Crown Prince Sultan 84 years old, there are serious concerns that interior minister Nayef may become Saudi Arabia’s king.

Posted in Human Rights, Saudi Arabia |