Princess: Stepping Out of the Shadows, стр. 72
1 April
. Saudi Arabia beheads three men in public in the northern city of Al-Jawf; in 2003 the three men killed a deputy governor, a religious court judge and a police lieutenant.
15 May
. Three reform advocates are sentenced to terms ranging from six to nine years in prison. Human-rights activists call the trial ‘a farce’.
Saudi author and poet Ali al-Dimeeni is sentenced to nine years in prison for sowing dissent, disobeying his rulers and sedition. His 1998 novel
A Gray Cloud
tells the story of a dissident jailed for years in a desert nation prison where many others have served time for their political views.
27 May
. King Fahd, Saudi Arabia’s monarch for twenty-three years, is hospitalized for unspecified reasons.
1 August
. King Fahd dies at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. His half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, is named to replace him.
8 August
. Hope rises in Saudi Arabia after the new king, Abdullah, pardons four prominent activists who were jailed after criticizing the strict religious environment and the slow pace of democratic reform.
15 September
. The Saudi government orders a Jeddah chamber of commerce to allow female voters and candidates.
21 September
. Two men are beheaded in Riyadh after being convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman.
17 November
. A Saudi high-school chemistry teacher, accused of discussing religion with his students, is sentenced to 750 lashes and forty months in prison for blasphemy following a trial on 12 November.
27 November.
To the delight of Saudi women, two females are elected to a chamber of commerce in Jeddah. This is the first occasion when women have won any such post in the country, as they are largely barred from political life.
8 December
. Leaders from fifty Muslim countries promise to fight extremist ideology. The leaders say they will reform textbooks, restrict religious edicts and crack down on terror financing.
Saudi Arabia enacts a law that bans state employees from making any statements in public that conflict with official policy.
2006
12 January
. Thousands of Muslim pilgrims trip over luggage during the hajj, causing a crush in which 363 people are killed.
26 January
. Saudi Arabia recalls its Ambassador to Denmark in protest at a series of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed published in the Danish
Jyllands-Posten
newspaper. Discontent spreads across the Muslim world for weeks, resulting in dozens of deaths.
19 February
. Following the publication of the twelve cartoons of the Prophet – highlighting what it described as self-censorship – the
Jyllands-Posten
newspaper prints a full-page apology in a Saudi-owned newspaper.
6 April
. Cheese and butter from the Danish company Arla are returned to Saudi Arabian supermarket shelves following a boycott sparked by the country’s publication of offensive cartoons.
April
. The Saudi Arabian government announces plans to build an electrified fence along its 560-mile border with Iraq.
16 May
. Newspapers in Saudi Arabia report that they have received an order from King Abdullah telling editors to stop publishing pictures of women. The king claims that such photographs will make young Saudi men go astray.
18 August
. According to the
Financial Times
, Great Britain has agreed to a multi-billion-dollar defence deal to supply seventy-two Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to Saudi Arabia.
20 October
. In an attempt to defuse internal power struggles, King Abdullah gives new powers to his brothers and nephews. In the future, a council of thirty princes will meet to choose the Crown Prince.
2007
4 February
. A Saudi Arabian judge sentences twenty foreigners to receive lashes and prison terms after convicting them of attending a mixed party where alcohol was served and men and women danced.
17 February
. A report published by a US human-rights group reveals the Saudi government detains thousands of prisoners in jail without charge, sentences children to death and oppresses women.
19 February
. A Saudi court orders the bodies of four Sri Lankans to be displayed in a public square after being beheaded for armed robbery.
26 February
. Four Frenchmen are killed by gunmen on the side of a desert road leading to the holy city of Medina in an area restricted to Muslims only.
February.
Ten Saudi intellectuals are arrested for signing a polite petition suggesting it is time for the kingdom to consider a transition to constitutional monarchy.
27 April
. In one of the largest sweeps against terror cells in Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry says police arrested 172 Islamic militants. The militants had trained abroad as pilots so they could duplicate 9/11 and fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields.
5 May
. Prince Abdul-Majid bin Abdul-Aziz, the governor of Mecca, dies, aged sixty-five, after a long illness.
9 May
. An Ethiopian woman convicted of killing an Egyptian man over a dispute is beheaded. Khadija Bint Ibrahim Moussa is the second woman to be executed this year.
23 June
. A Saudi judge postpones the trial of three members of the religious police for their involvement in the death of a man arrested after being seen with a woman who was not his relative.
9 November
. Saudi authorities behead Saudi citizen Khalaf al-Anzi in Riyadh for kidnapping and raping a teenager.
Saudi authorities behead a Pakistani for drug trafficking. This execution brings to 131 the number of people beheaded in the kingdom in 2007.
14 November
. A Saudi court sentences a nine-year-old girl who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes. The court also bans a lawyer from defending her, confiscating his licence to practise law and summoning him to a disciplinary hearing. (The following month she is pardoned by the Saudi king after the case sparks rare criticism from the United States.)
2008
21 January
. The newspaper
Al-Watan
reports that the Interior Ministry issued a circular to hotels asking them to accept lone women as long as their information was sent to a local police station.