CONFIDENTIAL
SAUDI ARABIA (continued)
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completely muzzled, by informal pressures. People speak quite freely in private.
The King is the court of final appeal, and any judicial decision can in theory be over-ruled by him. Islamic Law is supposed to prevail and in practice does so to a considerable extent without much inter- ference by the executive. But there is theoretically no "separation of powers" in Islam.
There are no trade unions.
Comment by Middle East Department: Curiously, Saudi Arabia is a member of the ILO. But the "trade union representatives" are in fact Government nominees.
Control of passports and exit visas is quite strict, though it is exercised in principle within the spirit of the ex- ceptions in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Saudis
on the whole seem to wish to return home from abroad: this is not a country which suffers from massive exodus of students, etc.
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CONFIDENTIAL