Ali Alyami is a Saudi-born political commentator and founder of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. He contributed articles to The Weekly Standard between 2005 and 2012, writing about Saudi politics, reform movements, human rights in the Kingdom, and broader Middle Eastern affairs.
For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, Saudi women are being allowed by their ultra-conservative government to compete. As the Saudi athletes marched in the opening ceremonies in London, the women’s faces and open arms showed a joyful sense of emancipation from the yoke of…
A shadow has darkened prospects for democratic reform in Saudi Arabia with the announcement that the most envied, loathed, and feared man in the country is now heir to the throne. Unless the present king, the elderly and ailing Abdullah, outlives him, the newly named Crown Prince Nayef – himself in…
The controlled public rage against corruption, oppression, and marginalization at the hands of tyrannical Arab regimes that has unfolded in recent weeks is unprecedented and probably unstoppable, but it caught most Western observers by surprise. While they accept the Arab revolt for what it is—a…
THE ASSASSINATION OF former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is a great tragedy for her country, but also for pro-democracy Muslims, and especially for Muslim women, worldwide. For all her shortcomings, Bhutto was pro-democracy and adamantly opposed to extremism. Because of her beliefs and…
THE LONG-AWAITED DEATH of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia brought most of his subjects more hope than grief--hope that the new king, Abdullah, might move toward freedom of speech and other democratic reforms. It is hard to imagine that this sentiment is shared by the large and profligate ruling family.…
JUST OVER A YEAR AGO, 13 prominent Saudi reformers were rounded up in Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dammam and thrown into prison. They had signed a petition asking for a constitutional monarchy to replace the absolute monarchy now reigning in Saudi Arabia. As is common in the kingdom, no charges were…