Saudi police opens fire to disperse protestors

The ban on protests in Saudi Arabia has been breached and the police reportedly opened fire "into the air", to break up breakers of the ban. Earlier, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Saud al-Faisal was reported to have openly threatened, to "cut foreign fingers" to respond to unrest. Confronted with the geostrategic pressure of the Shi'ite-majority and republican Iran, Saudi Arabia's ruling elites are also evidently wary of the United States' liberal position on the rights to dissent and protest and fairly disillusioned by the America' s 'betrayal' of Egypt's Mubarak. Allying with European powers to break up the Ottoman Empire, Saudi Arabia's ruling family was also anti-Soviet Union during the Cold War. Since 1991, it has been serving as the West's counterbalance to Iran. However, the fact that massive protests and popular revolts persists on Saudi Arabia's periphery despite its condemnations clearly reveals that its moral authorities and soft power among the Arabic-speaking Muslim masses in the regions are not as great as its ruling elites and clerics would like to imagine for themselves or/and project to others.

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