Riyadh serves notice protests remain red line despite promised reforms

RIYADH, Oct 24 (AFP) - Saudi authorities have served notice that despite plans for reform, demonstrations remain a red line, detaining more than 70 protesters in three cities as they quelled rallies called by an exiled Islamist dissident group.

This was abundantly clear in Friday's coverage of the protests by state-guided newspapers, which largely ignored the demonstrations, with only a few carrying official or pro-government accounts of the attempted rallies.

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"Religious authorities and the government are at one in opposing street protests -- the former believe they destabilize society, and the latter argue that they are opening up other avenues of expression," said one commentator who asked not to be named.

The head of Saudi Arabia's Higher Judiciary Council, Sheikh Saleh bin Mohammed al-Luhaidan, said in remarks published here hours before Thursday's attempted protests that demonstrations were "demagogic" and authorities were duty-bound to "stand up firmly" to such activities.

Calls for demonstrations and sit-ins "amount to calls for strife, and to an attempt to spread vice and undermine security," he told the daily Okaz.

His remarks followed a warning by Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz that protests "violate existing (rules) and anyone who takes part in them will be subjected to deterrent punishment meted out by the (Islamic) court."

On Thursday afternoon, security forces detained more than 70 demonstrators as they put on a show of force to halt protests called by the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA).

Five women were among some 50 people detained in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, another 13 were picked up in Hail, north of Riyadh, and at least 10 were arrested in Dammam in the oil-rich Eastern Province, witnesses said.

In the capital, a heavy police deployment around a mosque that was meant to serve as the starting point for a demonstration thwarted the planned march.

A terse account by the official SPA news agency said participants in the rallies were "being interrogated" and would be referred to court.

It did not give figures, but the interior ministry earlier said that 83 people, including three women, out of a total of 271 rounded up during an October 14 protest on a main thoroughfare of Riyadh, also called by MIRA, remained in custody.

In fact, said a prominent moderate Islamist, the timing of the latest protests was ill advised, given that authorities have started taking on board reformers' demands.

"Peaceful demonstrations are internationally accepted as a way of expression," lawyer Mohsen al-Awaji told AFP Friday.

But demonstrations should be properly timed and "not involve violence or incitement to violence," he said.

Crucially in this case, "the government is, unusually, responding to some of the demands of reformists, and it is therefore inappropriate to defy it at this point. It would be better to encourage it (to move ahead with promised reforms), gently and wisely," Awaji said.

Saudi Arabia announced earlier this month that the first ever polls in the kingdom would take place within a year to elect half the members of new municipal councils.

Semi-official reports have since said that polls would be held within three years to fill one-third of the 120 seats in the appointed Shura (Consultative) Council, and that half the members of regional councils would be elected within two years.

Pro-reform activists have twice petitioned Crown Prince and de facto ruler Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz since the beginning of the year to demand the liberalization of Saudi Arabia's conservative system, based on a strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law.

But reform is opposed by ultra-conservatives and radical Islamists, and the Saudi leadership is also facing an enemy from within.

Presumed Islamist extremists carried out suicide attacks against three residential compounds in Riyadh in May, leaving 35 dead and prompting authorities to launch a massive crackdown on suspected militants.

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