Saudi Arabia Feature: The Professor on Trial for Speaking Out (Lippmann)

Mohammad Al-Qahtani (Photo: Hassan Ammar/Toronto Star)What are the limits of free speech and open dissent in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? They are often unclear and seemingly arbitrary, but there is no doubt that Dr. Mohammad al-Qahtani, a professor and activist, went well beyond them, and he knew it. He was hardly surprised when Saudi prosecutors, finally fed up with his vociferous denunciations of the regime, hit him with a long list of criminal charges. He had predicted it, and in the context of Saudi Arabia, he was asking for it.

“Make no mistake,” he said shortly before a recent procedural hearing on his case. “We are all going to prison.” By “we” he meant himself and two colleagues in the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, perhaps the most outspoken and daring agitators for human rights and personal freedom in the kingdom.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: How Many Have Died in Hama?

Today was a hot Friday in Ramadan, a day where traditionally people of faith fast during the day, and stay home out of the sun. Instead, in Syria, possibly 125,000 protesters, or possibly more, took to the streets. They marched, chanted, and prayed for change in their country. Those hopes were met with bullets more often than they were not.

The list of casualties today is likely to be between 15-30, not counting what happens tonight, and what happened today in Hama. Since Ramadan began last weekend, approximately half of the casualties in most of Syria have occurred at night. Regardless, today, and tonight, the Syrians are sending a clear message that the old ways will never return, and Syria will never be the same.

Meanwhile, still very little news out of Hama, and all of it bad. The city is under attack by at least 250 tanks, and their food, medicine, communication, and water supplies have been cut off. The people of the fourth largest city in Syria, a city larger than Boston, have no water. Tomorrow's forecast - 100+ degrees Fahrenheit.

And Yemen is heating up, Egyptians are still struggling with the military, the Libyan rebels still fight Gaddafi, and Bahrainis still protest. Ramadan is going to be a long, ugly, and important month.

We close with this live feed from an incredible and festive Lattakia, on Syria's coast:

We will return tomorrow morning.

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