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Saudi Writer Faces Death Penalty For Doubting Prophet on Twitter

Thomas W. Lippman, author of Saudi Arabia on the Edge:The Uncertain Future of an American Ally, gives the example of Hamza Kashgari as “an almost perfect microcosm of the dilemma facing King Abdullah and the princes as they try to balance their push for modernization with their need to maintain religious purity.”
Saudi men read newspapers at a coffee shop in Riyadh, September 19, 2011. Saudi Arabian bloggers and journalists say the arch-conservative Islamic kingdom will find it hard to douse glimmers of more open reporting despite a tightening of media rules after the spread of popular revolts through the Arab world.  Picture taken September 19, 2011. To match Analysis SAUDI-MEDIA/CENSORSHIP. REUTERS/Fahad Shadeed    (SAUDI ARABIA - Tags: MEDIA SOCIETY POLITICS)

In their public statements and glossy planning documents, the men who run Saudi Arabia talk boldly about an exciting future of prosperity and innovation built on full integration into the global economy and the development of a “knowledge society” of educated citizens.

They seldom mention the other Saudi Arabia — a retrograde, anti-intellectual and often cruel society gripped by religious extremism that has surfaced again in the case of Hamza Kashgari. His story is an almost perfect microcosm of the dilemma facing King Abdullah and the princes as they try to balance their push for modernization with their need to maintain religious purity.

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