Hamza Kashgari is a test... in jail and possibly facing a death sentence for a tweet

Richard Cohen: "... It’s hard to attract — or keep — first-class talent in what, after all, is a very weird place. Women are not permitted to drive, and the chance remark, if it is deemed heretical, can result in draconian punishment.

Frankly, the economic progress of Saudi Arabia does not concern me today — and neither do the complicated role and obligations of the king. My cultural relativism takes me only so far. It stops way short of condoning the execution of anyone for an errant, if silly, tweet.

A life is on the line. I asked the Saudi embassy in Washington the status and the whereabouts of Kashgari and was told to put my request in writing — an e-mail. That was late last week, and I have heard nothing. So keep your eye on Hamza Kashgari — in some ways the future of Saudi Arabia, in all ways merely a terrified human being."

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES & REVEALING OP-EDs IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hamza-kashgari-is-a-test-for-saudi-arabia/2012/02/20/gIQAuNL8PR_story.html

Keep your eye on Hamza Kashgari. He’s the 23-year-old former columnist for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Bilad newspaper who had the extremely bad judgment to tweet an imaginary conversation he was having with the prophet Muhammad. In almost no time, he was running for his life, hopping a plane in Jeddah and hoping to reach New Zealand. In Malaysia, where he apparently had to change planes, he was held incommunicado until a private plane arrived from Saudi Arabia. He’s now back home, in jail and possibly facing a death sentence....READ MORE