VZCZCXRO9009
RR RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHDIR
DE RUEHJI #0477/01 3511139
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 171139Z DEC 09
FM AMCONSUL JEDDAH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1659
INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSYRIYADH 8637
RUEHDH/AMCONSUL DHAHRAN 0196
RUCNDA/USMISSION USUNNEW YORK 0121
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHD
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC

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