Talk Elections

57 Muslim states in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation declared Thursday that Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström "humiliated Saudi-Arabia and its social norms, legal system and political institutions" when she criticized sharia-law as "medieval" in a condemnation of the whipping of blogger Raif Badawi and stated that "they whip bloggers and have a royal family with absolute powerr. Then it is clear that you can not use any other word than dictatorship".

Saudi-Arabia has stopped all business visas to Swedes (hurts especially Ericsson, Ikea, Saab, Atlas Copko, but others as well).

Both Saudi-Arabia and the UAE have called home their Ambassadors to Stockholm and Kuwait has delivered an extra harsh condemnation.


http://alummahworld.com/article/234/oicidb (http://alummahworld.com/article/234/oicidb)

lol Saudi Arabia can  right off, what a bunch of twats.

Truth hurts. 

If only more western politicos had the balls of the Swedish Foreign Minister.

Perhaps Saudi Arabia should have a medieval economy to go with their medieval code of law.  We'll see how important keeping women suppressed is when 4 of 10 infants die before age one and those who survive rarely make it past 35.

We could create a currency called the Saudi Arabia Monopoly Money Oil Dollar...a worthless currency not accepted anywhere except as payment for Saudi oil.  Take their oil and give them monopoly money for it.

Maybe we could say..."hey Saudi Arabia...your priveleged rich have been a gold mine for terrorists who represent a danger to us.  Perhaps its time none of you had time away from constantly procuring food to think about terrorism.

We can make your oil worthless and literally starve you to death.  Be careful who you snap at, small fry.

The statement is very weird but predictable. These Arab governments are saying Saudi Arabia was humiliated? How? If they think the Saudi Arabia is within their rights to do this stuff and that this stuff isn't inherently bad, how does Sweden calling them out humiliate Saudi Arabia? Shouldn't they just say that Sweden is being foolish or Sweden is out of bounds? No, primitive people have this bizarre notion that if someone does something dickish to you (not that that's what happened, but that's presumably how they see it), then that person has humiliated you. I've always noticed this and I've always found it very strange.

Well, she should accept the award.

Sweden took the lead among Western countries on two difficult issues recently (recognition of Palestine and this), they deserve respect for that...

The Swedish FM is a massive FF.

God I hate Saudi Arabia so much. Honestly I have more respect for the leadership of North Korea than the Saudi Royal family.

Saudi Arabia deserve worse than humiliation. 

Wallström is a FF, and butthurt theocrats can go f**k themselves.

Good to see that Chancellor Faymann for once stops just smiling the whole day and takes a similar stance on a similar Saudi-related issue that we had here recently:

https://news.yahoo.com/austria-mulls-quitting-saudi-backed-religious-center-vienna-144837055.html

     Good for her. There was nothing wrong with what she said. If the Muslim leaders don't like it, then that is their problem.

Great hopefully we start calling out these morons more often.

I doubt that you could say that "57 Muslim countries" condemned Sweden, since not all of OIC member states are even Muslim(-majority) countries to begin with.

For instance, the South American countries of Guyana and Suriname are among the 57 OIC members too. 14% of Suriname's population and 7% of Guyana's population are Muslims.

All we have is a statement made by the OIC secretary general on the issue, but we don't know whether the government of the Christian-dominated OIC member Guyana agrees with that statement. They probably don't.... ;)

But it is still nice to see that Sweden is not as half-assed as my own country when dealing with Saudia Arabia.

The fact that Germany intends to sell tanks to Saudi Arabia pops up as an issue here now and then and a particularly relentless journalist tried to roast Merkel's deputy press secretary over the matter during a press conference a couple of weeks a ago.

Among other things he asked the government to explain the difference between Saudi Arabia and ISIS if both maintain virtually identical judicial systems with virtually identical punishments (answer: Saudi Arabia is a member of the international community, ISIS isn't), and whether or not Sauda Arabia constitutes a dictatorship (answer: "I'd call it a kingdom").

Between their support for Palestinian independence and standing up to the Saudis, Swedish foreign policy has been consistently FF as of late. Very few countries take the right side on both these issues.

Few posters would know what OIC is and "Sweden condemned by organization representing 57 Muslim or partly Muslim countries for Saudi comments" is a bit much.

OIC defines their role as being "the collective voice of the Muslim world" and no member countries have distanced themselves from the statement. Silence is acceptance in cases like this.

Also, the vast majority of the member states are majority Muslim, so a few exceptions don't really matter.

I wish American foreign policy could pull off the same thing as Sweden...

Took long enough for someone to say it.

The diplomatic conflict is over and the Saudi ambassador is on his was back to Stockholm. Neither Margot Wallström nor Stefan Löfven want to say whether Sweden gave an apology or not.. but Wallström states that she did not withdraw her statements about democracy and human rights. She also condemned the suppression of the rights of women during the crisis.

King Carl Gustaf and Löfven had send a letter to the Saudi king and the two kings spoke on the phone. Löfven says it was to clear up the misunderstanding that they had insulted Islam.

The Swedish decision not to prolong an arms deal is not affected by this. Saudi-Arabia used to be the seventh largest market for the Swedish arms industry so at least there is a principled stand with some costs in this.

Not sure what to make of this. Looks like they caved in, but Saudi-Arabia might also have been embarrased by a conflict with an EU-country and wanted to normalize quickly before other EU countries got "inspired".

You make it seem like it was the Saudis who folded. From what it transpired one would think the signs point to the Swedes as having been the ones who backed down or at least had to be "forgiven" by the Saudis.

No I do not.

Björn von Sydow, the special envoy who delivered the Kings letter to the Saudi royal family and negotiated with them, denies he gave an apology. Arab News and  Asharq Al-Awsat says Sweden did give an apology. Perhaps the King personally apologized, but not as HoS?