SAUDI ARABIA'S NEWEST AND MOST CONTROVERSIAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JEDDAH 000477 SIPDIS FOR NA/ARP-JHARRIS; NEA/PPD-PAGNEW PKABRA, DBENZE; R-WDOUGLAS; S/SRMC-FPANDITH; ECA/A/E-RSWENSON; ECA/A/E/NEA-DIVES E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/23/2019 TAGS: KPAO SA SCUL KIPR SOCI SUBJECT: SAUDI ARABIA'S NEWEST AND MOST CONTROVERSIAL UNIVERSITY: LIMITING ACCESS TO PRESERVE (SOME) FREEDOM REF: A. JEDDAH 0445 ¶B. RIYADH 1342 JEDDAH 00000477 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Consul General Martin R. Quinn for reasons 1.4 (b) and ( d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: In the weeks following its highly anticipated official inauguration on September 23, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has found itself at the center of a maelstrom of controversy in Saudi government, religious, and media circles. Saudi Arabia's premier university and its list of Kingdom "firsts" -- including and especially its "mixed-gender" policy in classrooms and some extracurricular activities -- have raised not only eyebrows throughout the Kingdom but increasingly also barriers to access to the campus for Jeddah-based diplomats, official visitors (ref A),and public-diplomacy (PD) program participants (ref B). While unique in many respects, including its reported $10 billion endowment, KAUST is showing early signs of following -- and perhaps outdoing -- KSA's other universities in restricting visits by "outsiders." There are some signs, however, that KAUST administrators' tight limits on access are part of the young university's efforts to (a) reduce the intense scrutiny of how students go about their lives on campus and (b) maintain the relative cultural and social freedom they enjoy in KAUST's unique environment. END SUMMARY. OFFICIAL VISITORS TO KAUST: NOT NOW; PLEASE WAIT UNTIL WE CALL YOU ¶2. (C) More than two months after our initial official request to visit KAUST, the (Irish-national) Acting Provost responded in a somewhat curt, pro forma manner advising that he had "forwarded the request to the university's 'Visitor Office'" (Comment: i.e., administrative Siberia. End comment). Consulate Jeddah's principal MFA contact, Ambassador (Director General) Mohammed Tayeb, subsequently advised us to send a diplomatic note reiterating the request. Delivering the note to the MFA during a courtesy call, the PAO was told the MFA would be organizing a visit to KAUST for "all Consuls General" in December, after the Hajj holidays, confirming our impression that other diplomats in the Kingdom's Western Region have similarly been denied access since the September inauguration. ¶3. (C) As reported in ref A, Special Representative to Muslim Communities (SRMC) Farah Pandith visited KAUST and spoke briefly and informally with Muslim students during her recent program in Jeddah. The quiet, ad hoc meeting in the student cafeteria set off an alarm bell when a Saudi KAUST official "discovered" that the university's Director of Communications had granted "unauthorized" access to "diplomatic vehicles and staff." In retrospect, the incident appears to have been another harbinger of the university's skittishness about potential adverse publicity in the wake of sharp criticism from traditional and new media and some religious figures of "outside" influences and cultural events (including mixed-gender parties with dancing and music) on campus. (Comment: On a more positive note, we have just learned that KAUST, after having cancelled one PAS-arranged concert, has agreed to host a concert by noted Arab-American musician Simon Shaheen in late January.) STUDENT SOCIALIZING: KEEP A LID ON IT... ¶4. (C) Following weeks of media rumbling over KAUST students' social life on campus, the university's administrators appear to be curbing at least some of the more visible and potentially embarrassing activities organized by or for students. According to an American citizen working at KAUST, university officials canceled several student-arranged parties in the weeks following the internet distribution of "party pictures." For one of the canceled parties, students had booked an event room on campus, hired a DJ, and invited a controlled guest list of 50 to maintain radio silence on the party beforehand. Some students were upset about these cancellations. The university has also reportedly been JEDDAH 00000477 002.2 OF 003 cracking down on Saudi students bringing their Saudi friends to the campus -- in some cases to ogle young women without abayas (traditional body-length black garments). University officials have since severely restricted campus access to non-student Saudis. ...SO YOU CAN ENJOY THE SOCIAL BENEFITS UNIQUE TO KAUST ¶5. (C) On the other hand, Consulate contacts and Americans at KAUST have told us that many students are actually choosing to stay at campus on weekends rather than head to Jeddah, 50 miles to the south. On campus there is reportedly much more to do: outdoor movie nights several evenings a week on the "discovery quad" and recreation at the recently-opened bowling alley and squash courts. There is even a mixed-gender "MTV Dance Class" at the campus recreation center. (Note: mixed-gender dancing has been the subject of many widely circulated photographs of students enjoying themselves and, presumably, part of the ongoing social and religious controversy in KSA over KAUST's commitment to a broader mixed-gender policy on campus. Many average Saudis, in addition to prominent clerics and members of the ruling family and government, view mixed dancing -- or any dancing that is not performed by males as part of traditional Saudi cultural events -- as particularly decadent and out of line with the Kingdom's moral and cultural norms.) We are also hearing that the KAUST administration has made good on at least some promises to address students' concerns about poor housing and incomplete facilities, and that overall, mixed socializing continues to take place without notable problems. THE KING STANDS FIRM; TOP CLERICS TOE THE LINE ¶6. (C) As the university's patron and advocate, King Abdullah has not been reticent in defending KAUST and its mold-breaking role in Saudi education and society. In addition to the swift, high-visibility firing of a top cleric who criticized KAUST's policy of mixing genders, the King gave perhaps his clearest reaffirmation to date of KAUST's value and importance to KSA in a speech that Makkah Region Governor Prince Khalid Al-Faisal read on November 21 at the Muslim Word League's 10th annual convention. In the speech King Abdullah enjoined Muslims to play a key role in rebuilding human civilization in the present era: "We have to pay more attention to human development and teach our youths contemporary sciences and technologies while giving utmost attention to Shariah subjects and remaining committed to the Islamic constitution.... There is no harm in taking science and technology from others and molding them to suit our moderate Islamic pattern." King Abdullah is enjoying a growing chorus of support from top Saudi and regional clerics for KAUST's curriculum and mixed-gender policy. In a lengthy interview with the influential Arabic-language Saudi daily 'Okaz', which appeared over the December 10-11 Saudi weekend in both that paper and its sister English-language publication 'Saudi Gazette', Sheikh Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (KSA's infamous 'mutawa'een', or religious police) praised the establishment of KAUST as an "extraordinary move and huge accomplishment." On the issue of gender mixing, Al-Ghamdi added, "Those who prohibit the mixing of the genders actually live it in their real lives, which is an objectionable contradiction, as every fair-minded Muslim should follow Shariah judgements without excess or negligence." The interview article also quoted Ali Al-Jum'ah, Grand Mufti of Egypt, as describing KAUST as an "edifice of science" and stating that there is "no harm in coeducation between male and female students within Shariah rules and within a learning environment. This is permissible according to Shariah." ¶7. (C) COMMENT: The controversies surrounding KAUST will almost certainly not die down any time soon, but our temperature-taking to date suggests that this young university is employing a mix of strategies to maintain its unique mission and environment while also taking measures, including strict access limitations, to minimize outside JEDDAH 00000477 003 OF 003 scrutiny and attendant leaks of potentially embarrassing or inflammatory reports about life on campus. The King has largely remained above the media and religious fray while taking a few key, decisive steps to buttress the university and warn critics who go too far in criticizing what he sees as a vital part of his legacy. Post will continue to monitor and report on atmospherics and developments at KAUST. END COMMENT. QUINN