29 Mar 2024
Thursday 7 January 2016 - 17:00
Story Code : 195854

US Muslim group starts unusual protest against Saudi Gov't

A new, very unusual protest campaign kicks off in the United States that urges people to mail a bunch of potatoes to the Saudi Embassy in Washington to promote public awareness to Saudi Arabias grim human rights record.

What are most the effective ways to shed some light and promote awareness on important issues in a modern society obsessed with social media and Internet pranks?

Forget about free lectures on campuses, giving out flyers on the streets or organizing a rally, because these things won't be as effective as setting up extravagant ways to excite public attention, like doing the famous Ice Bucket Challenge or urging people to mail hundreds of pounds of potatoes to an embassy.

Yes, mailing potatoes or even whole sacks of potatoes to the Saudi Embassy in Washington might soon become the next cool thing to do. Well, at least that's what Rahat Husain, the advocacy director of the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMMA), hopes for.

"We're encouraging people to send potatoes to the Saudi Embassy," Husain said in an interview to Radio Sputnik.

Potatoes themselves, obviously, have nothing to do with human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, but the UMMA wants to raise awareness and get the word out there, so the general public becomes familiar with Saudi crimes.

The campaign calls people from around the world to put stamps on any potato or potatoes, write down the address of the Saudi Embassy in Washington on the spud and mail it using postal services.
The Saudi government is used to rallies, trying to bring awareness to their grim human rights record, taking place around their embassies all the time; but the mass campaign of sending potatoes to the Saudi Embassy in the United States is so unusual that it would certainly catch them off guard, Husain is convinced.

The potato sending campaign was started as a public protest after the Saudi government decided to execute Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. The cleric was arrested in 2012 during anti-government protests in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia.
By Sputnik News
https://theiranproject.com/vdcbssb8arhb9wp.4eur.html
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