{"id":14453,"date":"2014-03-28T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/the-world-gives-saudi-arabia-poor-marks-on-freedoms\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:22:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:22:27","slug":"the-world-gives-saudi-arabia-poor-marks-on-freedoms","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/03\/28\/the-world-gives-saudi-arabia-poor-marks-on-freedoms\/","title":{"rendered":"The world gives Saudi Arabia poor marks on freedoms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Saudi<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

As he heads to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Abdullah, President Obama is receiving an earful<\/a> about the kingdom\u2019s human rights record. Earlier this week, 70 members of Congress signed a letter<\/a> urging Obama to confront Saudi leaders about human rights abuses, including \u201cviolations targeting women, religious minorities and peaceful political reformers.\u201d NGOs are also pressing him to make human rights a key topic on his Riyadh trip, and Amnesty International has called on<\/a> Obama to select a female Secret Service officer as his driver in Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world that bans women from driving.<\/p>\n\n

The American public also gives the kingdom poor marks for how it treats its citizens. Roughly seven-in-ten (72%) said the government of Saudi Arabia does not respect the personal freedoms of its people, up slightly from 64% in 2008. Only 11% said it does respect personal liberty, essentially unchanged from the 13% registered five years prior.<\/p>\n\n

And Americans are hardly alone in this view \u2013 across 39 nations surveyed<\/a> by the Pew Research Center in 2013, a median of just 18% said the Saudi government respects individual rights. In contrast, a median of 70% said the United States government respects the personal freedoms of its people (note that the survey was conducted prior to revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency\u2019s surveillance programs)<\/i>. Ratings for the Chinese government were not especially high (a median of 36%), but were still more positive than those for Saudi Arabia. Only Iran received an overall lower score (a median of 11%).<\/p>\n\n

Still, a few countries do give the Saudi regime relatively high marks: In Pakistan, Senegal, Jordan, Egypt, Nigeria and Indonesia, at least half believed the Riyadh government respects personal freedoms. All of these have populations that are over 85% Muslim, with the exception of Nigeria<\/a>, which is almost evenly split between Muslims and Christians.<\/p>\n\n

In several other majority Muslim nations, however, Saudi Arabia received poor ratings. On balance, Turks, Palestinians and Tunisians said the kingdom does not respect personal liberties. And in Lebanon, 71% held this opinion, although views differed among the country\u2019s Sunni (49%), Shia (84%) and Christian (80%) communities.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans are not the only ones who give Saudi Arabia poor marks on how the country treats its citizens: A median of just 18% across 39 countries surveyed said the Saudi government respects individual rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[],"bylines":[937],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[514,510],"research-teams":[525],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14453","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-richard-wike","formats-short-read","regions-countries-international","regions-countries-middle-east-north-africa","research-teams-global"],"label":"Short 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