Civil Society
Informal public discussion of public policy is not actively encouraged, although it is not expressly illegal per se, unless it is deemed to be promoting immorality, dissent or disloyalty. The government has created a national Consultative Council, and given permission for certain "societies" to exist; and limited non-partisan municipal elections were held in 2005. Yet, the Consultative Council is an appointed body with limited powers, and the legal societies have little ability to influence government policy. Labor unions are prohibited, as are political parties, although a few underground political parties do exist.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Saudi Arabia
Famous quotes containing the words civil society, civil and/or society:
“Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.”
—Joseph Ratzinger (b. 1927)
“Children’s liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (b. 1939)
“There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely DESPERATE. Nature herself is fundamentally antisocial, it is only by a usurpation of powers that the organized body of society opposes the natural inclination of humanity.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)