Saudi King Fires Adviser After Remarks About Women

[Catbird]

"Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has dismissed a controversial ultraconservative adviser after he publicly criticized reforms aimed at easing restrictions on women..."

"Sheik Abdul-Mohsen al-Obeikan had told a local radio station that officials were working to Westernize and secularize the country's laws by "legalizing taboos."

"This situation is a very dangerous one that is linked to schemes by influential people to corrupt Muslim society by removing women from their natural position," he said in remarks recently broadcast on the station UFM.

...King Abdullah has irked the country's hardline clerics by easing some restrictions and allowing women to vote and run in 2015 municipal elections.

After his dismissal, al-Obeikan posted on his Twitter account a statement saying he hopes that the kingdom's rulers are kept away from "bad advisers."

...The former adviser, 81, sparked an uproar in 2010 when he said that a woman could be alone or even appear without her veil in front of an unrelated adult male if he drinks her breast milk because it establishes a mother-son bond in Islamic tradition."

Mustn't "Westernize" by giving women equal rights but it's okay to use Twitter to publicize your political views.

Wonder if Time will do a follow up cover shoot to show this kind of motherhood?

But I guess even the slightest sign of progress, be it ever so faint, is good to see.