Talk:2011–2013 Saudi Arabian protests

2011 Saudi Arabia protests
This page should remain. Hopefully it'll encourage people to post more info as it comes in regarding the protests in Saudi Arabia as there is little on the 2011 protests page. These protests are an ongoing event and clearly Saudi Arabia is committing human rights abuses which should be given notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.221.17.117 (talk)
 * Strong Remain, with the March 11th "Day of Rage" and the billions being spread around the country to attempt to quell protests is notable for the largess alone --Rarian rakista (talk) 20:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Objection to deletion
I object to the deletion proposal in version [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&oldid=415534255 ] (as do two editors above).

The arguments given for deletion are:
 * 1) "I sense some WP:CRYSTAL reguarding the day of rage plus WP:NOTABILITY issues. Most of the info is already covered in 2010–2011 Middle East and North Africa protests."


 * CRYSTAL: "CRYSTAL" applies to the 11 March protests themselves. 11 March 2011 Saudi Arabian Day of Rage would violate CRYSTAL, at least for the moment. But that's not the main content of this article. Protests have been made and plans for a "Day of Rage" have been made. The plans were notable enough for oil prices to be affected. None of this content is CRYSTAL.
 * NOTABILITY: Many reliable sources consider just the rumour and risk of major protests in Saudi Arabia to be highly notable, and the small-scale protests that have happened so far to be significant in the Saudi context.
 * REDUNDANCE/SPLIT: The MENA article does presently cover most of the same material, but that's probably because the long-term stability of this particular article has not yet been established. This is the length question in WP:SPLIT. The MENA article is long enough as it is. Not all the sections there are (yet) notable enough to split off as articles, but it makes sense to split off those that are notable enough and more or less put the WP:LEAD of the country article as the paragraph in the MENA article (with appropriate differences in the first one or two sentences). That would help shorten the MENA article, and avoids forking of content. (i did this for Yemen some time back.)

Hence, i will remove the deletion proposal template as per the instructions in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&oldid=415534255 ]. Boud (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that a PROD tag is not warranted in this case. Saudi Arabia has seen significant developments over the past month that, arguably, make the protests within its borders suitable for their own article. If someone disagrees, I advise nominating the article for deletion to gauge the broader consensus on whether this article meets the criteria for inclusion.  Master&amp;  Expert ( Talk ) 03:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

From the main page

 * Please place all important info into the article. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In Saudi Arabia, an unidentified 65-year-old man died on 21 January after setting himself on fire in the town of Samtah, Jizan. This was apparently the kingdom's first known case of self-immolation.

On 29 January, hundreds of protesters gathered in the city of Jeddah in a rare display of criticism against the city's poor infrastructure after deadly floods swept through the city, killing eleven people. The demonstration came Friday, a day earlier than the planned demonstration that was spread through mobile phone text messages. it started with several women demonstrating and then they were joined by more men in Jeddah's Tahlia Street. Police stopped the demonstration about 15 minutes after it started. About 30 to 50 people were arrested after minor flighting between the police and the demonstrators. On the same day, an online campaign started on Facebook, making demands that included calling for Saudi Arabia to become a constitutional monarchy, and for "an end to corruption, an even distribution of wealth, and a serious solution for unemployment".

On 5 February, about 40 women wearing black clothes demonstrated in Riyadh in front of the Interior Ministry building, calling for the release of their prisoner husbands and sons who were held without trial. The demonstration ended when an official from the ministry came out and promised to solve their problems.

On 10 February, a Thomson Reuters report claimed that 10 intellectuals, human rights activists and lawyers came together to create the Umma Islamic Party – considered to be the first political party in Saudi Arabia since the 1990s – to demand the end of absolute monarchy in the country. On 18 February, all ten founding members of the party were arrested and ordered to withdraw demands for political reform in exchange for their release.

On 22 February, almost a hundred people went out and demonstrated in the city of Hafar Al-Batin north east of the kingdom before the return of King Abdullah. The demonstration ended with the arrest of 10 people. The people of the city reported hearing gun fire during the demonstration.

On 23 February, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, after returning to the country following three months spent abroad for health treatment, announced a series of benefits for citizens amounting to $10.7 billion. These include funding to offset high inflation and to aid young unemployed people and Saudi citizens studying abroad, as well the writing off some loans. As part of the Saudi scheme, state employees will see their incomes increase by 15 per cent, and additional cash has also been made available for housing loans. No political reforms were announced as part of the package, though the 86-year-old monarch did pardon some prisoners indicted in financial crimes.

A "Day of Rage" is planned by Saudi Arabians on 11 March 2011.

Does a Saudi Arabian "town" already exist in the en.wikipedia?
Newspapers writing in English in roman letters will often not happen to given the same transliteration (and usage or non-usage of al- or Al-) as what happens to be in the en.wikipedia, and redirects may often not be in place. So please check if a town/city already has a link or not. Newspapers usually give some geographical clue to help reduce ambiguity (e.g. near the East coast) and common sense can usually help work out what town they're talking about. You'll find, for example, that the "town" Al-Ahsa referred to in a list of towns in one Press TV article could have any of several related geographical meanings - and is most likely to mean the same thing as Hofuf, written by Press TV as "al-Hufuf". Boud (talk) 18:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Saudi_Arabia
 * Category:Populated places in Saudi Arabia - e.g. can also include informal region names

Correct information?: "false information there is no such name as faisal abdulahadwas"
I came across this article by coincidence and I have hardly any knowledge about Saudi Arabia, the Arabic language or Arabic names. However, I do not think the comment at the end of the follwing section can remain unaltered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests#Arrests_and_other_repression

(this is a false information there is no such name as faisal abdulahadwas, as no saudi use name "abdulahadwas" because it's against the religion.

(1) Is the name really impossible because it is "against the religion"? (2) Could it be a spelling error? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.245.115 (talk) 18:38, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Faisal and Ahmed and Abdul-Ahad all have their own en.wikipedia entries as common Arabic names; Abdul-Ahadwas and Abdulahadwas do not. However, i have no idea if Saudi Arabia is like some European Union countries which not so long ago had certain legal restrictions requiring given names to be names of Catholic saints. It's also possible that Faisal modified his name slightly for the purposes of his "nick" on Facebook.


 * In any case, i've added a second source (also Deutsche Presse-Agentur) giving Abdul-Ahad as an alternative. We could possibly switch to Abdul-Ahad as the "main" name and Abdul-Ahadwas as an alternative. At the moment, there are about 3 places in the article with his name: if someone wishes to do this, please switch all 3. Boud (talk) 19:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * i've switched to Abdul-Ahad as the "main" name and Abdul-Ahadwas as an alternative. Boud (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

original research about assassinated Day of Rage Facebook administrator
In the edit [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=417264052&oldid=417262963 ], an IP editor added the unsourced comment "(this is a false information there is no such name as faisal abdulahadwas, as no saudi use name "abdulahadwas" because it's against the religion."

To the user: please provide a source, preferably in English, which explains this. What you say might be true, but we cannot just insert this in the article without any external source. My personal guess is that "was" is not part of the name, or there's a typo, but that's a minor issue. If he's really called Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahad and was assassinated by Saudi authorities because of his Facebook activities, the fact still remains notable. Boud (talk) 18:44, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

blanking (or other vandalism) record
Some IP users have attempted to remove the information on Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahad's assassination. They have been warned nicely, but it's probably useful to keep links to the warnings and edits here. Please update this if there are any future full or (unjustified) section blankings. Boud (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * User talk:77.30.101.211 (3 edits, KSA IP)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=417104515&oldid=417104330 ] (full page blank)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=417157636&oldid=417104597 ]
 * User talk:2.91.228.26
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=417333213&oldid=417327272 ]
 * User talk:24.208.213.197 (4 blanking edits)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=417482102&oldid=417473007 ]
 * User talk:Proveprove (3 blanking edits; new user: only edits are the 3 edits of this article)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=417483579&oldid=417482102 ] (full page blank)

List updated 22:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC). Probably semi-protection will soon be unavoidable. Whether it's one person or many, the four users have approximately similar behaviour. Boud (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

That's about 11 edits out of the last 50 edits (since 04:46, 4 March 2011), about 22% of edits. Boud (talk) 23:30, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Some new blanking(s):
 * User_talk:Abbashh (4 blanking edits by new user; reverted within 4 minutes; subtle warning placed on the user's talk page)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=420780881&oldid=420738190 ] 26 March

Update. Boud (talk) 20:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Number of facebook followers
At least two IP editors have increased the number of Facebook page followers from 17,000 to a larger number. My guess is that these edits were done in good faith, and that the users checked the number of followers on the main FB page. A factor of 50% or so greater in a week is quite credible. However, IMHO this requires a source. The exact (public) Facebook page and a WebCite archive would be one possibility, but apparently the most well-known FB page is private. So in that case we need some external source, e.g. a news organisation, despite known biases of news organisations. Boud (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

editsemiprotected
Please fix the categorization, it doesn't make too much sense.

to:

184.144.160.156 (talk) 03:46, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Not done: The page is no longer protected, so technically you can make the change, but we generally don't pipe categories. Furthermore, some of those pipes are wrong: the category "2011 riots" lists all riots that occurred in the world in 2011, not just riots in Saudi Arabia. That, in fact, is the point--that this is one article in a larger category of similar articles. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:04, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

lead
See LEAD. These two recent edits: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=421154600&oldid=421154183 ] [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=421155704&oldid=421154600 ] shifted the second paragraph of the lead to a section 'overview' and replaced it by a short paragraph from a source not used in the main content. Content such as: dropped out but seem notable enough to me.
 * three protests in Riyadh took place
 * the Qatif region protests were not just "about discrimination", they were calling for prisoners to be released, and by mid-March, they specifically objected to the Peninsula Shield Force being used against the 2011 Bahraini protests
 * one of the co-founders of one of Saudi Arabia's main human rights organisations was arrested
 * the second elections (municipal) in Saudi Arabia's history, which had been delayed, were suddenly announced to take place in April

While i agree that the paragraph was getting rather long, condensing/summarising does not mean dropping almost everything. i dropped the police presence on 11 March that prevented Day of Rage demos in Riyadh and Jeddah, since it can be argued that police preventing a protest is less notable than a protest taking place. The 4+13+20 March Riyadh demos were probably more notable than the police prevention of an 11 March Riyadh demo.

Hope the new paragraph is a good compromise. Boud (talk) 22:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Reliable source expelled from KSA
Five of the refs for this version [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&oldid=421379587 ] of the article are by Ulf Laessing, who turns out to have been Thomson Reuters' chief correspondent for KSA. Ref number 60 in this version [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&oldid=421699413 ] not only gives the info that Laessing was, in effect, expelled, but it's rather interesting to see a journalist's two-year overview of political evolution in KSA. The more so that five of our refs are by him (in his role as a Thomson Reuters correspondent). Boud (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Source

 * While the Saudi elite looks nervously abroad, a revolution is happening by The Guardian -- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 12:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's consistent with what we have in the article, it seems to me - except that we haven't claimed that it's a revolution. Boud (talk) 20:42, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I just thought if y'all are looking for a citation to pack up un-sourced claims, you can use the guardian article to fix it. that's all. -- The Egyptian Liberal (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Lead
PassaMethod: thanks for updating the lead - it definitely needed improvement! i've reconverted the IBTimes ref to a repeat ref, and i've restored some key points (that are in the main content): Boud (talk) 20:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * late Jan: Jeddah protests
 * March: two Saudi human rights organisations protesting the arbitrary arrest of one of their founders
 * March: municipal (men-only) elections being announced (instead of delayed ad infinitum)
 * several Riyadh etc. demos in front of ministries in April (in a country where demos are banned!)
 * Most of these events were too insignificant to be in the lead. I left the major issues though Pass a Method   talk  08:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * For other people who wish to see PassaMethod's recent changes to the lead, they can be found here: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=426033257&oldid=425898764 ]. i fail to see why the four points above are un-notable parts of the main content; i also fail to understand why you insert an old reference twice in the lead as a bare URL instead of using a repeat citation to the already existing reference: type  .
 * i will give some more detail to the four points above:
 * late Jan: Jeddah protests
 * Street demonstrations of any sort in KSA have generally been considered "rare", and some of those in the present article are described by the sources as "rare". So the first of this series of 2011 protests, in the context of the MENA protests, i.e. the Jeddah protest, surely is significant.
 * March: two Saudi human rights organisations protesting the arbitrary arrest of one of their founders
 * One of the notable aspects of the MENA protests is that it's not Westerners telling Arabs that they need freedom, it's MENA inhabitants self-organising. The fact that Saudis have two (barely tolerated) local human rights organisations in a totalitarian situation and that these two organisations are speaking out and complaining seems rather obviously notable. Overcoming WP:BIAS means that we do not have to wait until a Western, highly media-savvy human rights organisation complains about human rights violations.
 * March: municipal (men-only) elections being announced (instead of delayed ad infinitum)
 * These are (apparently) just the second of any sort of governmental elections in the history of KSA. We don't need to stress this second-in-history aspect in the lead (especially without stronger sources), but this is surely the most concrete political change so far that seems to have been provoked (brought forward instead of delayed ad infinitum) in KSA since the protests started. So stating the most concrete aspect seems justified to me.
 * several Riyadh etc. demos in front of ministries in April (in a country where demos are banned!)
 * See above regarding rareness of demos in KSA. It also seems rather NPOV to focus on one part of the country than another: the demos in and around Qatif are obviously more sustained, but demos in Riyadh are more of a direct threat to the government - the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo was a key element in this year's Egyptian revolution.
 * Boud (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I am simply trying to avoid clogging the lead. The lead is full enough. Pass a Method  talk  04:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

SCPRA vs ACPRA
Since someone replaced ACPRA, i suggest discussion should go to Talk:Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association. i put a comment on the talk page there, which seems to have gone unnoticed by the person who had trouble understanding why the abbreviation is not SCPRA. My guess for an explanation is just a guess, but it does at least show why there's no reason why we need to override the sources. Boud (talk) 18:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

update - please explain
A request tag for an update was made in this edit: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=428762049&oldid=427060221 ]. i've added an update for the 5 May Qatif demo.

Please explain what else needs updating. If the present pattern of protests continues, then there should be in-and-near-Qatif demos tomorrow Friday 13 May, so reports on that in the following days should bring this up-to-date AFAIK from the sources i can find. Boud (talk) 19:36, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No explanation in over a week. Maybe a lot of protests are happening in KSA, but even Press TV can barely manage a few modified sentences and a modified title for the Friday in-and-near Qatif demos, and Thomson Reuters has stopped reporting on them. See the section below for Manar al-Sharif and the women driving protests/campaign. i've removed the update tag since there's no evidence or discussion of what needs to be updated based on available sources. Boud (talk) 21:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

women's rights protests
Women have protested and campaigned this year both for the right to participate in the municipal elections and for the right to drive, and neither of these campaigns seem to be finished.


 * A brief, sourced description of the election protest was removed in this edit [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Saudi_Arabian_protests&diff=426228222&oldid=426228038 ] but in any case, the main place for encyclopedic information about that is probably Saudi_Arabian_municipal_elections,_2011, which can be linked to here after a brief description.
 * Manal al-Sharif seems to be the main article for the 2011 driving protest (the discussion page there is probably the best place to discuss whether or not that should become a 2011 driving campaign page instead of the al-Sharif bio page).

In this article, should we start a section like ==Women's rights campaigns== and briefly mention and crosslink to these two campaigns/protests, or should these go in the timeline? IMHO putting them as a separate section would help improve the encyclopedic aspect of the article as opposed to the newsy aspect.

Women's rights protests may be less dramatic than street protests and police/army shootings, but AFAIK women have been a key force in all of the MENA protests of 2011, and in this case, women protesting for their rights constitute an identifiable part of the protests separate from the other protests.

Boud (talk) 21:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * KSA women are coordinating with one another - see the France24 info included now in Manal al-Sharif - Wajeha al-Huwaider contacted al-Sharif and... in fact was the person who filmed her. Boud (talk) 23:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Since there have been no strong reactions, i've included these both in the timeline. Boud (talk) 22:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

disambiguation warning for al-Johani - the bravest man in Saudi Arabia
In case anyone feels that Khaled al-Johani, the "bravest man in Saudi Arabia", is notable enough for an article, please note that the article Khalid al-Juhani (same consonants, and exact spelling used by HRW for the bravest man in KSA) is about another person, who died in 2003, and will need a disambiguation template, see Template:About for some hints on how to do this. Boud (talk) 20:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

22 June 2011
Are the protests still going? GameGuy95 (talk) 03:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Nasser al-Muhaishi (Nasir, Mahishi)
There don't seem to be many English language RS on Nasser al-Muhaishi, although his killing in November by the authorities seems to have led to the authorities starting a killing cycle - at least for a few days. There does seem to be a lot of Arabic-language online social network coverage. The following facebook page was either by Nasser or by people supporting him after his death: http://ar-ar.facebook.com/Nasser.qatif. Boud (talk) 03:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Saudi security forces levitating
While this topic is not at all funny, The Daily Telegraph seems to have published a photo of Saudi security forces levitating: http://www.webcitation.org/64fpJTllh - or to have reproduced a photo prepared by the Ministry of Interior (Saudi Arabia) using gimp or similar software... Maybe The Telegraph is trying to hint that it doesn't take the Ministry of Interior claims seriously? In any case, there's no suggestion that the photo is CC-BY-SA, so IMHO we can't use it (even for the Ministry of Interior article). Boud (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

"suppression of Shias in Syria"
I did my best to modify the sentence added to the lead in to match the intention of the editor. If we had enough material in the "reactions" section on this topic, then having a summary in the lead would be, in principle, straightforward. Until then, we need to make sure that the claim is properly sourced.

To explain my change a little more:
 * s/Syria/Bahrain/: the source refers to the Peninsula Shield Force intervention in Bahrain, not to Saudi intervention in Syria
 * shift wikt:non sequitur to relevant paragraph: the first of the four paragraphs of the lead consists of 1-sentence "Arab Spring" context plus the "first" demos of Jan/Feb/March 2011, while the third paragraph covers the Eastern Province uprising in more detail - so the third paragraph makes more sense for this sentence than the first one
 * no need for Shia link since Shi'a_Islam_in_Saudi_Arabia in paragraph: a more specific link is generally sufficient, or makes more sense after a general link rather than before it - e.g. it would be strange to first refer to Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia and then a few sentences later tell the reader that s/he may need to check where Saudi Arabia is; starting out at a general level and progressing to specifics seems more standard and pedagogically natural to me than the reverse
 * quote instead of unattributed "seen": see WP:WEASEL for the risk of saying what is, e.g. "commonly seen" - it's seen by who? Western academics? protestors as they state on their websites? or as interviewed in Western newspapers? Saudi authorities? Bahraini human rights organisations?

I hope this matches the intended change. Boud (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * User:Pass a Method, you seem to have misunderstood, which modified your sentence and shifted its position based on the above reasoning. gave us two copies of essentially the same sentence, but in two different places, and with several of the problems remaining in one of the two copies of the sentence. There's no point having two copies of essentially the same sentence IMHO. Boud (talk) 00:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Lead structure
In case it's not obvious, the present lead structure is roughly: mainly based on the timelines, but dividing into topics and including what seem to be the most "notable" reactions. Boud (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) 1 sentence of Arab Spring context + Jan/Feb/March 2011 "first" self-immolation and demonstrations
 * 2) labour rights demos
 * 3) Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia demos
 * 4) women's rights actions

mid-March - protests in six different cities?
The Arab Network for Human Rights Information claims that the Saudi Arabian protests are spreading through universities, with protests in six different towns around Saudi Arabia in the past two weeks. My suggestion for new info is:
 * 1) first add concrete info to the timeline, properly sourced: Timeline_of_the_2011–2012_Saudi_Arabian_protests_(from_January_2012)
 * 2) as enough new or significant info accumulates, update the lead of that timeline page and more or less copy this updated lead to the timeline summary on 2011–2012_Saudi_Arabian_protests
 * 3) if/when this update is significant enough, update the lead of 2011–2012_Saudi_Arabian_protests and possibly the corresponding summary of Arab Spring

The leads should be NPOV summaries, of course, not synthesis.

Other sections of 2011–2012_Saudi_Arabian_protests would eventually have to be WP:SPLIT off e.g. if KSA government reactions really started becoming notable. Boud (talk) 01:11, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Domestic section - table of deaths
In by 115.135.219.20, there was the edit comment,  The administer real name is Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahadwas, and its not confirmed if he was the administrator of FB group, so it was called "Believed".

Hi 115.135.219.20: I saw you made several improvements, but some things seem to need fixing, IMHO.

Please have a look at the sources, and at the discussion above on this Talk page. Some sources put "Ahadwas", some put "Ahad", and some Wikipedians feel strongly that it must be Ahad rather than Ahadwas. At the moment, we have to go by the sources, while using common sense. If you have a better source in favour of "Ahadwas", then please give it and then we can remove the alternative name.

"Believed" adds no useful information and when the source is absent, it really sounds like a weasel word. We shouldn't put any information in this encyclopedia that is not reported or believed. This doesn't need to be stated! E.g. "Barack Obama is believed to be the President of the United States of America" - this is a widely believed (and reported on) claim as of 00:58, 21 March 2012 (UTC). But "believed ..." can be omitted. For information which is less certain, we can add one or more source. In this case, Deutsche Presse Agentur is the main source in two references, so i'll add that instead of "believed".

"Prior at" - better use standard English grammar and a simpler word: "before", IMHO.

Alternative English spellings - without the alternative English transliterations, it is difficult for the reader to find the occurrence of a name in a source - especially in long sources.

You put that al-Mheishi/al-Muhaishi "died from chest wounds on Monday night" - not everybody wishes to check a calendar from several years ago (someone might read this in the year 2020, for example) to find out which date corresponds to a Monday near 20 November 2011. The two sources gives: So Sunday 20 Nov 2011 is what both sources say, not Monday. Boud (talk) 00:58, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "On November 20, Saudi security forces shot dead Nasir al-Muhaishi at a checkpoint in Qatif. During clashes following his funeral procession on November 21, ..." (HRW)
 * "...protest over the death of a 19-year-old Shia man, Nasser al-Mheishi, who died of wounds sustained near a police checkpoint on Sunday night in unclear circumstances."

Deaths in Qatif
I haven't been following events in KSA very closely, but someone might want to work this bit into the article. According to the BBC, a Saudi soldier was shot dead by "rioters on motorbikes", and after that, a protestor was killed by Saudi troops, both incidents occurring in Qatif in the Eastern province.

Saudi Arabia: Soldier shot dead in Eastern Province

--L1A1 FAL (talk) 21:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It's in the timeline article Timeline of the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests (from July 2012) and in the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests tables here. There's a twitter photo of Hussain Yusuf al-Qallaf, the protestor, and it seems that another demo was planned for the evening of 4 August against the shooting, but these are only tweets. Boud (talk) 22:36, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Lead structure (Aug 2012)
See above for the previous lead structure.

It's probably time to update this. We presently have an addition to these 4 components, with a 5th paragraph "The arrest of highly popular sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on 8 July 2012 and subsequent police shootings resulted in thousands of angry Shias protesting.[66][67]". This omits the country-wide protests in July; "angry" is not in the sources nor in the main 'from July' subsection and sounds a bit orientalist; "Shias" is dubious and orientalist (antidiscrimination protests for LGBT people, women, or immigrants generally have non-LGBT, men, or non-immigrant participants, respectively, so it would be surprising if KSA anti-Shia-discrimination protests were different and consisted only of people identifying themselves as Shias; also, at least one source gives the protestors calling for the release of both Sunni and Shia detainees); and it doesn't re-use existing ref names. But in any case, the July/August info should be integrated into the lead.

I propose the following updated structure of the WP:LEAD:
 * 1) One sentence of Arab Spring context + one sentence on Jan/Feb/March 2011 "first" self-immolation and demonstrations.
 * 2) * Replace 11 March/Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahad sentence by a brief sentence on Khaled al-Johani's role, imprisonment, and brief release, because al-Johani is much better documented (notable) than Ahmed Abdul-Ahad.
 * 3) countrywide labour rights, prisoner release demos.
 * 4) Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia demos including protestor and security forces death counts.
 * 5) women's rights actions (women's suffrage, right to drive, university protests).

Paragraphs 2 countrywide and 3 Eastern Province will need updating. Any objections? Boud (talk) 20:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sounds a good idea. But I have something to add-on here. For example the protesters, since the arrest of the radical Shia cleric, has now escalated their calls for the most radical demand: The fall of the monarchy. Hell, we may able to put Abdication of King Abdullah as part of their goal just like we did in the 2011 Bahraini uprising article. But the problem here is that they didn't just call for King Abdullah only to abdicate, but they were asking for the entire House of Saud monarch to abdicate. If this is one of their goal then what should we add here?


 * The second thing I want to discuss is the starting date. Yes, we know that some 65-year old man set himself on fire, but is that really the true beginning of the Saudi protests? I mean if judging by the official day of demonstrations, it should be 11 March where the Day of Rage protests starts in Qatif, not 21 January. I have check the Google result and they mostly mention about protests starting in 11 March, compare to those who says its 20 March. So, should we change to 11 March?


 * Third, I would recommend, if can and if possible, try to upload some photos. It will at least describe something about the Saudi protests. And lastly, about the casualties table, how do we define the word From? Is the word referring to their hometown, or where they killed?

Myronbeg (talk) 09:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * i'll separate those into separate subsections - that will make the discussion easier in case more people join in. IMHO better first to work things into the main body of the article first, and then it should be not too difficult to decide what goes in the lead. Boud (talk) 20:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Aims of the protestors
"But the problem here is that they didn't just call for King Abdullah only to abdicate, but they were asking for the entire House of Saud monarch to abdicate. If this is one of their goal then what should we add here?"

I agree that this is claimed by many sources for the EP (Eastern Province) protestors, but the countrywide protests are quite a mix, and the women's rights protestors at the moment (at least, according to sources i could find) are not calling for the House of Saud to fall. Western sources seem to want to focus just on EP protests, Iranian sources seem to want to claim that the EP protests are spreading like wildfire across KSA, but the reality seems to be a mix of many different protest movements, so it's not "the movement's main aim".

But we can certainly add that to the infobox.

Maybe the next step would be to start a section "Aims" between "Background" and "Protests timeline". The infobox does not have refs for all the aims at the moment, but in the main text it should be easy to find these. Boud (talk) 20:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Starting date
Timeline of the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests (January–April 2011) shows that like any real social process, a "start date" is more of a convenient shorthand for historians - or a way of presenting the events according to a preferred POV - or both - and not an accurate description of reality. Brian Whitaker of the Guardian in late Feb 2011 talked about actions that in the KSA context consist of protest actions that "in a Saudi context [are] momentous". The 29 Jan and 5 Feb demos were described as "rare" by most sources AFAIR. I think there's also a 5 March or so demo and an imprisoned protestor widely supported by Amnesty International, ANHRI, HRW, etc. - sometime we should add him and the protest.

I get the feeling that Western mainstream media are starting to repeat 11 March as "the starting date", so by the principle of WP:RS, once enough media say that the protests started on 11 March 2011 and repeat it often enough, we might be forced into saying that, no matter that it's an oversimplification or misleading.

On the other hand, check Timeline of the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests (January–April 2011) - the first Qatif protest we have is 17 Feb, not 11 March.

But we only need a "single starting date" in the infobox - i would still go for 21 Jan, but as long as there's a more accurate (less oversimplified) summary in the text, i don't think that's a problem. Boud (talk) 20:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Photo upload
Starting from https://twitter.com/Sharqiyah_E and going to other Twitterers, many good photos exist, but some personal contact (twitter, email, ...) would be required to explain to people who take the photos the concepts of free licensing, and the different ways in which the authors of the photos could publish their photos under a valid licence and at the same time not put themselves at too much risk. Things like https and TOR can help, but the OTRS (volunteers at Wikimedia Commons) normally require an email. If the person publishing the photo clearly labels it "This photo is (c) CC-BY-SA-3.0 or later", then that might be the safest (in terms of not being arrested and tortured for sending an email), especially using https and TOR. Alternatively, accessing an email server (e.g. gmail) outside of KSA by https would be one step of elementary net security. (Disclaimer: do not rely on my short paragraph here as a guide to how not to be arrested for publishing a photo that your government does not want published. Search for info yourself, check, read, think.)

Anyone willing to explain these sorts of things and convince/help someone to upload them at Commons:Special:UploadWizard would be most welcome. I have no idea how good the Arabic language help pages are at WM Commons. Boud (talk) 20:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Casualties tables "from"
I'm fairly sure the intended meaning is where the person mostly lived, not where s/he was killed. The sources don't always give this info, so the place where s/he was killed can be a first (sourced) guess as to where the person is from. Boud (talk) 20:47, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Updated lead 28 Aug 2012
I updated the lead more or less as above - it's not easy to compress without arbitrarily removing info: The EP paragraph and the women's rights actions paragraph are longer than the countrywide pro-prisoner-release demos/sit-ins paragraph - IMHO this reflects the depth of information we have and also more or less matches Western mainstream media attention. Boud (talk) 21:34, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) One sentence of Arab Spring context + one sentence on various Jan/Feb/March pre-11 March Day of Rage protests + one sentence Facebook/Abdul-Ahad + one sentence al-Johani
 * 2) * labour rights protests included in 1st paragraph because short
 * 3) Eastern Province demos including protestor and security forces death counts.
 * 4) countrywide pro-prisoner-release demos paragraph after EP protests, since they earlier were mostly only in EP (Wikipedia listed sources)
 * 5) women's rights actions (women's suffrage, right to drive, university protests).

Protests over?
Looking at the timeline page there hasn't been any fresh protest since August 2012. Unless there are protests we have missed in the five months since, I propose that the end date be set to 23 August 2012. --ERAGON (talk) 07:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)