Princess: Stepping Out of the Shadows, стр. 75
15 December
. Police raid a private prayer gathering, arresting thirty-five Ethiopian Christians, twenty-nine of them women. They later face deportation for ‘illicit mingling’.
Seventy-six death row inmates are executed in Saudi Arabia in 2011.
Indonesian maid Satinah Binti Jumad Ahmad is sentenced to death for murdering her employer’s wife in 2007 and stealing money. In 2014, the Indonesian government agree to pay $1.8 million to free Satinah.
2012
2 January
. Saudi Arabia announces that on 5 December it will begin enforcing a law that allows
female workers only in women’s lingerie and apparel stores.
12 February
. Malaysian authorities deport Hamza Kashgari, a young Saudi journalist wanted in his home country over a Twitter post about the Prophet Mohammed, defying pleas from human-rights groups who say he faces execution. His tweet read: ‘I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you.’
February
. A royal order stipulates that women who drive should not be prosecuted by the courts.
22 March
. Saudi Arabia media reports say single men in Riyadh will be able to visit shopping malls during peak hours after restrictions aimed at stopping harassment of women are eased.
4 April
. A Saudi official reiterates that Saudi Arabia will be fielding only male athletes at the London Olympics. However, Prince Nawaf bin Faisal announces that Saudi women taking part on their own are free to do so but the kingdom’s Olympic authority would ‘only help in ensuring that their participation does not violate the Islamic sharia law’.
A man found guilty of shooting dead a fellow Saudi is beheaded. His execution in Riyadh brings the total number of beheadings to seventeen for 2012.
23 May
. An outspoken and brave Saudi woman defies orders by the notorious religious police to leave a mall because she is wearing nail polish and records the interaction on her camera. Her video goes viral, attracting more than a million hits in just five days.
16 June
. Saudi Crown Prince Naif bin Abdul-Aziz, a half-brother of King Abdullah, dies. Naif is the second Crown Prince to die under King Abdullah’s rule.
18 June
. Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, a half-brother to the king, is named the country’s new Crown Prince.
24 June
. In Saudi Arabia, a man dies from severe pneumonia complicated by renal failure. He had arrived at a Jihad hospital eleven days earlier with symptoms similar to a severe case of influenza or SARS. In September, an Egyptian virologist says it was caused by a new coronavirus. Months later the illness is named MERS (Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome).
June
. Blogger Raif Badawi is jailed for ridiculing Islamic religious figures.
20 July
. Saudi authorities warn non-Muslim expatriates against eating, drinking or smoking in public during Ramadan, or face expulsion.
30 July
. Saudi Arabia implements a ban on smoking in government offices and most public places, including restaurants, coffee shops, supermarkets and shopping malls.
2013
9 January
. Saudi authorities behead a Sri Lankan domestic worker for killing a Saudi baby in her care. Rizana Nafeek was only seventeen at the time of the baby’s death and proclaimed her innocence, denying strangling the four-month-old boy. Many agencies and individuals worldwide pleaded with the boy’s family, and with the Saudi government, to pardon the girl.
11 January
. King Abdullah issues two royal decrees granting women thirty seats on the Shura Council. The council has 150 members. Although the council
reviews laws and questions ministers, it does not have legislative powers.
15 January
. Dozens of conservative clerics picket the royal court to condemn the recent appointment of thirty women to the 150-member Shura Council.
1 April
. A Saudi newspaper reports that the kingdom’s religious police are now allowing women to ride motorbikes and bicycles, but only in restricted recreational areas. They also have to be accompanied by a male relative and be dressed in the full Islamic abaaya.
16 May
. Riyadh vegetable seller Muhammad Harissi sets himself on fire when police confiscate his goods after he is found to be standing in an unauthorized area. He died the next day.
29 July
. Raif Badawi, editor of the Free Saudi Liberals website, is sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for founding an internet forum that violates Islamic values and propagates liberal thought. Badawi has been held since June 2012 on charges of cyber-crime and disobeying his father.
20 September
. US prosecutors drop charges against Meshael Alayban, a Saudi princess accused of enslaving a Kenyan woman as a housemaid, forcing her to work in abusive conditions and withholding her passport. Lawyers for the Saudi royal accused the thirty-year-old Kenyan, who has not been named, of lying in an attempt to obtain a visa to stay in the USA.
8 October
. A Saudi court sentences a well-known cleric convicted of raping his five-year-old daughter and torturing her to death to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. The court also orders the cleric to pay his ex-wife, the girl’s mother, one million riyals
($270,000) in ‘blood money’. A second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, is sentenced to ten months in prison and 150 lashes.
18 October
. Angry by the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues, Saudi Arabia says it will not take up its seat on the UN Security Council.
22 October
. A source says that Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief revealed that the kingdom will make a ‘major shift’ in relations with the United States in protest at its perceived inaction over the Syria war and its overtures to Iran.
24 October
. Saudi women are warned that the government will take measures against activists who go ahead with a planned campaign to defy a ban on women drivers in the kingdom.
26 October
. Saudi activists say more than sixty women