Revolution imminent in Saudi Arabia

Islam Times: Press TV has interviewed with Paul Wolf, Human Rights Lawyer, to share his opinion on this issue.

Press TV: Riyadh has been saying that it will allow women to take part in politics but at the same time these same women if they are candidates for municipal office for instance, they must present a written authorization from their husbands, women's votes must be accompanied by their male guardians at the polling stations.

So when we are again speaking of the type of reforms that the Saudi kingdom may try to bring, is this going to be the answer for these protests or as I was just mentioning earlier, our reforms completely or simply impossible with the system of absolute monarchy inside Saudi Arabia?

Wolf: Well no. I do not think that the protests are specifically about women rights. I think that the Saudi monarchy has taken a number of steps including paying two thousand dollars to each citizen, providing loans for education and to start businesses to Saudi young people, a number of measures like this to try to prevent the kind of thing that we have seen in Bahrain, in Yemen and in Libya and women's rights issue is only one.

You know, I like to follow up on what your previous guest said. In Saudi Arabia, cell phones with cameras are illegal. All telephone conversations are monitored. The government controls the TV and the print media. And ...election was in 2009 and the election was cancelled. So the Saudis, they have legitimate right and self determination to demand right of free speech. Those rights are guaranteed by treaties that Saudi Arabia has signed. As a member of the United Nations it had to sign universal declaration of human rights, international covenant on civil and political rights and a number of other treaties.

So I mean it is great if they are taking action to try to include women in the political process but really no one is included in the political process. The Saudi monarchy has been in power for many generations and I mean just look at the Saudi king. Do you think that is a type of person who could be elected? The man is 78 years old and really I think that the situation is extremely disturbing in Saudi Arabia.

I do not like to advocate any kind of violence but I think that the protesters, they have to demand these rights, they have to be on the streets and probably is likely that some people will be hurt or even lose their lives as we see in many other countries in the Middle East.

Press TV: On the other hand some analysts have been saying that in fact the West may be speculating right now on the collapse of the Saudi regime and even planning beforehand on it. Some say that it is rather the interest of two sides meaning Riyadh and Washington and now diverting the US with rather use the gas reserves of the African region and start to part ways from Saudi Arabia. Would you agree with that speculation?

Wolf: Well I do not know where that comes from. What the United States will often do in these situations is make contacts and support both sides certainly what happened in Egypt and you know, I am sure we had contacts in Libya as well, because we just do not know which way things are going to go . So I am not surprised that someone is planning what would the United Sates do if the Saudi monarchy falls down. But I think that the United States is going to do as it did in Egypt, back the Saudis until the very last minute.

You know, United States is dependent on Saudi Arabia for something like 20 percent of its oil and that is very significant. Saudi Arabia has also been an air race really for the US war on Iraq and Saudi Arabia is the United States most important Arab ally and United States could not really afford to lose control of that area and particularly as your other guest said, Mecca and Medina are in Saudi Arabia. It is really crucially important to the future of Muslim world, what happens in Saudi Arabia. So the United States is certainly going to plan for the contingency that the monarchy may not fall but I think the United States will also do whatever it can to try to prevent that from happening.

So let's hope that this can happen without violence because as we have seen in Tunisia and in Egypt, if the dictators step down voluntarily, things get better maybe not at the rate that everyone wants but I think they are moving towards democracy in those countries but as we have seen in Yemen, Bahrain and in Libya, when they use a force to try to crush the protest, the result is an ongoing conflict and we still do not know how the situations in any of those countries are going to turn out.