Saudi crown prince: we will defeat advocates of hatred, Shoura council calls for increasing the freedom of expression
Saudi Arabia, Politics, 4/2/2004

Member of the cultural and media affairs committee in the Saudi Arabian Shoura council, Abdul Rahman al-Annad, said that the council showed its desire to develop the freedom of expression "and boosting it in the mass media" and converting the press into a forum of discussions between conservatives and liberals.

Al-Annad said "we want the dialogue between the liberal and conservative trends to be in open." He explained that "the dialogue was frank but was covert and secret," in remarks to the meetings held between the two sides in Mecca and Riyadh in 2003. He added that the freedom of expression coincides with the concept of dialogue launched by Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz and resulted in two sessions of dialogue in June and December 2003 between the Islamists and Liberals within reforms already started by Saudi Arabia.

Al-Annad, a member at the national society for human rights which was established recently said " we aspire the abrogation of certain unwritten and unclear red lines, expanding the circle of freedom to serve the concept of dialogue which was adopted " by the crown prince. He continued the " objective of the recommendations is to limit the interference of the ministry of information in the local press affairs, so as no writers, male or female, will be stopped from writing because of writing an article or changing the chief editor because of what his paper had published."

On the other hand, the office of the Austrian presidency said yesterday that the " talks made by Prince Abdullah, currently visiting the country and President Thomas Klistel dealt with terrorism and the conflict in the Middle East. Klistel commended the peace initiatives proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah to settle the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. He said that the attacks which took place in Riyadh and Madrid recently underlined the importance of the international efforts to fight terrorism, adding " symptoms " should not be dealt with, rather the reasons also. Klistel's office said that a great part of the talks between Austria and Saudi Arabia also dealt with bilateral issues in the fields of the economy and trade.

During the meeting Abdullah stressed that Islam is a religion of peace, amity and tolerance and terrorists are only a few group of deviationists who have no identity nor doctrine and that Muslims and Islam are apart from their crimes which the Islamic world itself had suffered. He expressed his confidence that the forces of tolerance and moderation will be able to defeat the " advocates of hatred."

On the other hand, the Saudi daily al-Riyadh said yesterday that the Saudi security forces were able to detain one wanted Saudi in al-Breeda city to the north of al-Qaseim while the border guards forces foiled an attempt to smuggle explosives to the Kingdom through Aseer and Jazaan areas near the Yemeni borders.

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  Saudi authorities release one reformer   (3/31/2004)
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