Holidays & More

Ahh... .let the holiday season begin! Eid Al Fitr next week (celebrating the end of Ramadhan), Eid Al Adha in ten weeks (celebrating the end of the Hajj in Mecca), National Day, Islamic New Year, etc, etc. His Majesty the Sultan has announced that the public sector get the whole week off whereas the private sector gets Saturday-Tuesday off.

.

Wednesday evening saw 11 people convicted for what the government is referring to as "illegal gathering" and what sounds like the right to assemble peacefully to me. Anyhow, three of them are well-known activists who have been through enough hell already in the past 18 months (Saeed Al Hashmi, Basma Al Kiyumi and Basma Al Rajhi). One year in prison and a 1000/- fine for "illegal gathering and cutting the road" according to one local newspaper that needs a new translator. Complete BS.

.

Naturally, we've also made international news. Yahoo News had the audacity to put His Majesty and Muammar Gaddafi in one sentence in their piece here. The Petition Site is calling for Oman to stop denying people their basic human rights here. The Arab Network for Human Rights Information report is here. The Washington Post published a piece on Thursday here. Legal news here.

..

Overall, embarrassing.

..

On a brighter note, I was really pleased to read this piece in Gulf News here. Take the time to read it.

.

Oh, and somehow Dhofari Gucci ended up in The Week's piece "To Say or Not To Say" last week with Andy & BluChi (best known for his activity on Twitter, his food review site Omani Cuisine, and his column in Muscat Daily). I'm not entirely satisfied because my words were played around with a bit (when did I EVER write about domestic abuse? I was just listing topics that could create controversy).

..

And finally, 11 reasons why you should never touch soft drinks ever again.