“We are the silent majority.” It is the leitmotiv of Nsawya FM (Feminism, FM, in Arabic), the maximum that radiate the waves of this clandestine radio station that has erupted in the silence sepulchral of Saudi Arabia. “The silent majority is made up of all women of working class, which lack the most shy and privilege who are tired of bearing the burden of everyday life to achieve a pinch of their rights”, relates to THE WORLD one of the voices of the initiative, which refuses to provide his name for fear of reprisals.
This radio broadcast from a few weeks ago on the internet, trying to slip his message beyond red lines and censorship. “Our potential audience is sitting in their houses, in the shade. Do not do anything to defend their rights because, in reality, in Saudi Arabia it is not allowed to express outrage or even despair, marginalization or hatred that women suffer from day to day”.
Nsawya FM aims to provide these women a kind of remedy radio. Your speaker is the result of the collaboration of a score of women, saudis and other nationalities, scattered over the kingdom, ultraconservative and outside the walls. “Each volunteer has a special history, but we don’t do personal questions. No one has studied journalism, and each one has another job with that subsists”, details the main champion of the invention. “For years I had the idea of doing something that would help other women. At the end is the result of a collective work that seeks to bring light and education”.
at the time, your technology team comes in the space of a table: a computer, with a program to edit and broadcast, and a microphone. And your grill, still under construction, welcomes a limited number of programs that echo the strings that sojuzgan to the saudis.
Progress on the car and the television news
last June, entered into force by a royal decree which removed the ban on driving and a few weeks ago a woman was for the first time in front of the news night of state television, but the limitations, which are grouped under the system of male guardianship, they remain. The saudis cannot travel abroad, have surgery, get married, rent an apartment, enroll their children in a school or open a bank account without the permission of a mahram (male guardian), either parent, spouse, brother or even stem.
“women have more conscience than men. They are concerned about entirely different issues such as the right to education or to work, entertainment, or the possibility of dressing to your taste and to be truly the ones that take decisions about your life. We yearn to decide our fate and to regain rights that were taken from us,” says one of the souls of Nsawya FM.
The first broadcast programs have been talked about before some of their fears as well as gender-based violence, a phenomenon enclosed between the four walls of the home. “We want to provide tools so that the victims can confront the harassment.” The last monographic transmitted is the life of the saudis out of the country and his hope to return one day.
Repressed on the internet
His darts have not gone unnoticed to the authorities and the sectors most recalcitrant of the local society concerned about the reforms undertaken by the crown prince Mohamed bin Salman. “The government’s reaction has been to obstruct the web link from which we issue and to report our account on Twitter,” admits one of its precursors, determined to deliver battle. “We have confidence in our work. The only thing we do is peacefully express our ideas. It is precisely the fear of repression made optásemos for anonymity. We don’t want to share destiny with the activists who have been arrested for having defied the driving ban”.
At least nine women -icons of the struggle for the right to be placed at the wheel – remain behind bars since last may. Await the start of a trial with charges that include “having maintained contacts suspects to countries rivals,” and that could cost them sentences of 20 years in prison. Repeated calls to his release, launched by international human rights organisations, have been unsuccessful. Its emergence in the waves has coincided, moreover, with the disappearance and likely murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate of saudi arabia in Istanbul in the last case of an attack on dissent and freedom of expression in the kingdom.
The cast of presenters of Nsawya FM is bent on demonstrating that “there are feminists in Saudi Arabia but don’t go on social networks”. “Often what is communicated in this country is the image of women close to power. Our goal is to provide the real face and speak of the suffering of the saudis so that they are aware of a patriarchal system and sexist set from the rejection of women”.
Their resources, even rudimentary, expected to grow at the pace of their listeners and their contributions. “The dream that moves us is to be free some day. That, as in other countries, the laws that govern our society are not religious but civil. We are not optimistic, but we can not give up dreaming.”
