The Tuwaa Discussion Forum ( ar, منتدى طوى) was the one of the first Saudi discussion forums that promoted
liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
. It was founded in 2001 and was the most popular
cyber
Cyber may refer to:
Computing and the Internet
* ''Cyber-'', from cybernetics, a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory and purposive systems
Crime and security
* Cyber crime, crime that involves computers and networks
** Conventi ...
-based discussion forum in
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
.
A successor to Elaph's Forum, the first liberal Saudi forum on the web, Tuwaa members discussed social, religious and political reforms of Saudi Arabia and criticised the support of the religious institution by the Saudi Government, and criticised
Wahhabism
Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, an ...
.
The site attracted famous Saudi writers and intellectuals as participants, among them were
Turki al-Hamad
Turki al-Hamad ( ar, تركي الحمد, ) is a Saudi Arabian political analyst, journalist, and novelist, best known for his trilogy about the coming-of-age of Hisham al-Abir, a Saudi Arabian teenager, the first installment of which, ''Adama'', ...
and
Muhammed Taib
Muhammed Saeed Taib ( ar, محمد سعيد طيب, ) (born 1939) is a Saudi Arabian political activist, lawyer, writer, and one of the most prominent Liberalism, liberals in the country. He is best known for his book ''Prince and Intellectuals'' ...
, a liberal activist.
The forum was subjected to several hacking and denial of service attacks by Saudi extremists and the site was blocked and forced to shut down by the Saudi Interior Ministry on 11 May 2004.
See also
*
The Bees Army
The Bees Army or ''Geish al-Nahl'' ( ar, جيش النحل), also called the "Electronic Bees", refers to an opposition movement aimed at confronting what the movement describes as Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian government propaganda. The movement con ...
References
*{{cite book, author1=Paul Aarts, author2=Gerd Nonneman, title=Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy, Society, Foreign Affairs, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0n4UCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA47, date=September 2007, publisher=NYU Press, isbn=978-0-8147-0718-0, pages=47–
Internet forums
Internet in Saudi Arabia
Society of Saudi Arabia