LA Times blog: "SAUDI ARABIA: Gay diplomat in Los Angeles may have a case, but little support in the Arab world"
Ya think? Homosexuality is a capital offense under sharia law, which is rigorously enforced in Saudi Arabia. (Even the Muslim chaplain of distinctly liberal Vanderbilt University said at a forum that homosexuals should be executed.)
It gets better. The Saudi diplomat, Ali Ahmed Aseeri, is secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. He applied for political asylum in the United States not only because of his gayness, but also because he is a friend of a Jewish woman!
One wonders which crime the Saudis consider worse.
The story has hardly been reported in legacy media, though NBC News broke it last Saturday. It has appeared on some blogs. I learned of it via an email bleg for interview of an attorney involved in the process. However, reports LAT's blog, reporting the story in the West at all is proof of anti-Muslim bigotry and an attempt to tarnish Islam (as if it is even possible to tarnish it even more). The story ...
was carried by a number of Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian and pan-Arab media outlets, where it has been provoking considerable commentary and a fair amount of skepticism.Remember, though, that in the Middle East if you don't explain a controversy with a conspiracy theory, you have not explained it. So:
Commenter "Abu Khalid," writing on the Al Jazeera website, which cited NBC's report, accused the Western media of bias and "relishing divisiveness among Muslims," and called into question the accuracy of the story. Very few seemed sympathetic to Aseeri's alleged persecution, and many considered his comments against his country and his actions traitorous.
Aseeri "said that some clerics distort Islam's tolerance ... how can he be gay and say these words?" wrote "Mohammad, a Son of the Nation" from the seaside Saudi city of Jeddah.
Readers of the Left-leaning Lebanese daily Al Akhbar, which ran a brief from the Agence France-Presse, were equally cynical, but for different reasons.
"If you're not embarrassed, do what you want. If he wanted to leave Saudi Arabia, it's Saudi's gain, but why tarnish the image of the Saudis?" wrote one commenter.
Yet another [commenter] expressed a sort of wry pity, speculating that perhaps Aseeri had fallen out of favor with the powerful Saud family, which rules the Kingdom.Aseeri is being set up! He's being framed!
"What a shame! so when he angered one of the royal family or someone close to them, he suddenly became gay and linked to a Jewish woman," the commenter wrote."I wonder about those ruling regimes in our Arab countries, may God help our people."
Here's a kicker, too. Lory Rosenberg, "an expert in refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International," weighs in that for asylum to be granted, it's not enough for Aseeri's homosexuality simply to be against the law. Aseeri must prove he will be persecuted, not merely prosecuted.
Would execution count as persecution? It might if gays are executed in the kingdom. But it's not really clear that they are unless their homosexuality is aggravated by other offenses, such as overt acts of sexual assault also. Mubarak Dahir, a gay columnist, wrote of visiting Saudi Arabia to investigate the question, especially whether gays were beheaded, as convicted murderers and others found guilty of serious felonies are.
Even gay Arab friends, long accustomed to the harsh treatment their own governments give homosexual citizens, sent me urgent and alarmed notes pleading with me to be careful. Saudi Arabia, the e-mails warned me, was exponentially more repressive than any other place I’d visited in the Arab World, and was therefore that much more dangerous. ...The main question with Aseeri's case is not whether his asylum request is justified, but whether an administration whose chief literally bowed to Aseeri's royal ruler could ever find the backbone to grant asylum. I'm guessing no.
I was able to do in-depth interviews with five gay men—three in Riyadh, the largest city and the seat of government, and two in Jeddah, the country’s most progressive city. I found these men worrying more about how to meet others for sex and companionship, how to date and keep their sexual orientation secret, whether they would be forced by their families to marry, and what to wear to show off their bodies. Getting beheaded was just about the last thing on anyone’s mind. ... [T]hey all scoffed at the notion that simply being discovered to be gay would lead to the death penalty. ...
"I can tell you there is more sex between men in Saudi Arabia than other places," he ["Salim"] believes, largely because men simply do not have the opportunity to interact with women in Saudi society. If you are quiet about it, you can have as much sex with men as you want, he says, and it’s easy to find. "Sometimes I go to the mall, and I see men staring at me in that way, and I know what they want."
There are real dangers if the police discover men cruising or having sex, he admits, but the threat is not getting your head chopped off. "They might threaten to expose you to your family if you don’t pay them money, or they might [sexually] abuse you," says Salim. If you are arrested for gay conduct, the typical reaction, says Salim, is to be sent to a hospital for the equivalent of so-called "reparative therapy," that tries to make gays straight.
People are beheaded for murder, rape and drug smuggling, he insists. Not for being gay.
But, he adds, in a country where it is an act of rebellion for a woman to drive, anything that defies the strict social codes in Saudi Arabia could be construed as political. If as a gay person you are seen as ‘too open," in a way that might "threaten society"—meaning the heavy hand of the government—it’s possible you could be executed for being gay, the men I spoke to theorized. Or if you are seen as doing anything that might resemble gay political organizing—whether it be in the Western tradition, or on a much more basic level, such as trying to construct too much of a gay community— then your life might be in danger, the men I spoke to conceded.
"You have to remember," Salim says with caution, "the government does not tolerate threats of any nature."
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