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Saudi Arabia sacks newspaper editor after boycott edict
Jordan Times, 5/28/03
JEDDAH (R) — Saudi Arabian authorities have fired the editor-in-chief of a leading reformist newspaper after an influential cleric issued a religious edict calling for a mass boycott of the daily, staff at the paper said on Tuesday.
This followed a campaign launched by the Arabic-language Al Watan daily against the powerful religious leaders of the ultra-conservative kingdom, and was seen by many journalists as an indication of a power struggle between the strict Muslim establishment and reform-minded officials.
Saudi editors at Al Watan, which is owned by a member of the royal Al Saud family, said Editor-in-Chief Jamal Khashoggi had been sacked on Monday evening, hours after Sheikh Abdullah Ben Abdul Rahman Al Jibrin, a member of Saudi Arabia's religious edicts body, issued his edict saying the paper had ridiculed “virtuous” people.
Khashoggi was not immediately available for a comment.
Al Watan has recently published a series of damning articles against the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the so-called religious police in Saudi Arabia which enforces the kingdom's austere brand of Islam.
Khashoggi, who was recently appointed to Al Watan, is seen as a leading reformist voice in Saudi Arabia. He wrote several editorials condemning religious extremism after the suicide bombings that killed 34 people in Riyadh this month.
Like other media in Saudi Arabia, Al Watan follows strict government guidelines on its editorial content. It is owned by the son of Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal.
Last year, Saudi authorities fired three editors of local newspapers, including one from Al Watan, for allegedly printing articles deemed as harmful to the kingdom.
This week, Interior Minister Prince Nayef met senior editors of several Saudi newspapers and urged them to avoid publishing news that he said was “damaging and misleading”.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |