A member of the Council of Senior Scholars and the Supreme Judiciary Council has condemned the suspected arson attack on the Jouf literary club Sunday. Speculation is also rife that the fire may have been started by people opposed to a recent editorial written in a magazine by the club's chairman. The club was set on fire Sunday two hours after the chairman received an SMS death threat. Senior scholar and judge Dr. Ali Bin Abbas Al-Hakami, has slammed the suspected arson attack and the SMS death threats received by the club's chairman Ibrahim Al-Humaid. “This is a corrupt action and the perpetrators deserve the severest punishment. Attacking public property and damaging people's interests is a great crime. The perpetrators are sinners.” Al-Hakami said that the perpetrators should be punished severely “by the ruler to stop them harming Muslims and to set an example” to others who are also intent on carrying out similar deeds. “Who gives them the right to threaten to kill a Muslim? On what grounds do they conclude that killing a Muslim is halal?” “Halal” is the Islamic term for legal. Al-Humaid's editorial for Sisra magazine called for a unified response to many problems facing Arab societies. This includes facing up to “common enemies of the nation and the Ummah” including external enemies like “Israeli and internal enemies like poverty, lack of development, technological backwardness and cultural illiteracy”, Al-Humaid said in the editorial. However, Al-Humaid concluded in the editorial that although these divisions and problems have been around for a long time, they have now started to recede and make “way for a new dawn”. Meanwhile, the Jouf Police is continuing to investigate the cause of the fire, according to spokesman Brigadier Daman Bin Wanis Al-Daraan. He said that samples were taken from the gutted office and other damaged rooms and will be sent for analysis. At 11:41 A.M. on Sunday, Al-Humaid received a death threat on his cell phone stating: “Do you know that your murder is halal. Within a few hours you'll be killed like your neighbor Hamoud and his fellows.” The message was referring to the late Hamoud Al-Suailem, the officer at the Jouf Police Department who was assassinated by terrorists in 2003. Other police officers were also shot dead during the incident. This was the second fire at the club in less than a year. Last year a fire broke out at the cultural tent before a poetry soiree for Saudi female poet Halimah Madhafer. Throughout 2009, many evening events at the club were cancelled without prior notice or any reasons provided.
