نشریه علوم سیاسی
سال نوزدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 73، بهار 1395)

Basically the crises and challenges in each community affect the strategies, policies and procedures that govern the country and manage the society. Saudi Arabia, as a traditional community, because of a variety of reasons faces a series of crises, which are certainly effective on the policies of the Saudi regime, the effectiveness of its management, the prevalent trends as well as its interactions with the foreign environment. In fact, the type of the political system and the non-democratic structure governing the Saudi society, and also the traditional patriarchal power structure and mechanisms in the country have resulted in a series of crises, which have adversely affected the ability and effectiveness of the Saudi regime, causing catastrophic events such the incident of Mina in 2015 and the inability to manage it effectively. This article seeks to determine the effects of the crises in the Saudi society on the disaster of Mina and its management. The study shows that the crises and challenges in Saudi society have led to the ineffectiveness of the government in preventing the occurrence of the disaster and in particular its management.

One of the aspects that can be considered in the analysis of the disaster of Mina is in terms of the power structure and the political system of Saudi Arabia. In this approach, the analysis of the Saudi power structure and political system will reveal a number of features that can be helpful to some extent in the interpretation of the how and why of the disaster of Mina. Saudi Arabia's political system which is based on a system of Rentier hereditary monarchy has led to such consequences as indifference toward the disaster, lack of accountability, media and diplomatic hegemony based on threat and bribery; on the other hand, the binary structure of the power (religion and politics) has resulted in legalizing and taking an ideological approach toward the incident. Furthermore, the strategic alliances of the West with the Saudis have led to the integration of the Western media with the government in the reflection of the incident. In addition, the impact of some of the variables in the time of the incident, such as the war in Yemen and Syria, and the challenges posed by the transition of the power should not be ignored.

A total number of 475 Iranians were martyred in the hajj ritual in 2015, which was one of the most catastrophic events in the history of hajj in Mecca. The death toll was because of the fall of a crane within the area of Masjid al-Haram and the stampede in Mina during the ritual of “stoning the devil” (Ramy-e Jamaraat). The event was quickly covered by the press of the world and the world of Islam and led to an intense media war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and eventually led to a sharp decline in diplomatic relations between the two countries. This research focuses on this media war and its main question is how the media of the two countries represented the event; and which mechanisms did they use to represent the events and confront with each other. To answer these questions Laclau and Mouffe's discourse-analysis method has been used. This study shows that the Saudi press tried to marginalize the negative role of the Saudi Arabia and steer the public opinion towards Iran, using a variety of mechanisms, such as addressing the event as neutral, using religious codes such as fate, attributing the responsibility to the Iranian pilgrims and the Revolutionary Guards of the Islamic republic of Iran, and denying the Iranian narrative about the incident. In contrast, the Iranian press tried to address the event negatively through the following features: addressing the other party as belligerent, accusing the Saudis’ as having tendency to America and Israel, condemning the Saudis’ as taking a self-interest approach in the hajj and reproaching the Saudis’ as showing tendency to terrorism.

Subsequent to Mina Catastrophe in 2015 and the death of about 500 Iranian hajjis, the observation of the survivors’ rights is regarded a significant issue.
In the present article, after a review on the nature of Mina Catastrophe in terms of rights, it has been investigated the ways of considering the rights of survivors regarding the capacities of international rights, the rights of Islamic Republic of Iran as well as Saudi Arabia’s.
On the basis of a realistic investigation, observing the rights of survivors and their families would be dependent on the capacities of internal and international rights. This issue will be pursued in fields such as relying on the capacity of friendship contract among Iran and Hejaz in 1929, 3003 Ionesco convention concerning preservation of universal abstract cultural inheritance and also referring to the pseudo crime law about the foreigners in America in which the violation of human rights in Mina catastrophe is considered the violation of common international law.

Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia are two influential countries in the subpart Persian Gulf, whose influence covers all the grand Middle East. The relationship between the two countries has been full of tensions during the last decade. During this period, the change of the political figures of the two countries has not brought about any improvement in this relationship. The reasons behind these tensions include the sources of the foreign-policy behavior of the two countries, their historical background and also disparity between their benefits in the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East. The most expanded space of the competition of the two countries covers the three countries in crisis, namely Iraq, Syria and Yemen. There are three outstanding scenarios in the foreign policy of the two countries in the mentioned region: attempt to establish a government, attempt to maintain the political structure of the falling-apart countries, and finally maintenance of the current trend which may result in segregation of the countries in crisis. This article studies these scenarios and motives and the obstacles on their ways. Meanwhile, it is concluded that the best scenario for the two countries is the second scenario, which is in agreement with the national benefits of the two countries and the history and general conditions of the region.

The disaster in Mina during the ritual of “stoning of the devil” (Ramy-e Jmaraat) in September, 24th, 2015, led to the death of 464 people of Iranian pilgrims. This event raised numerous legal issues falling in the domain of the international law, civil liability, conflict between the laws and courts and also the international criminal law; meanwhile, the involvement of the political issues has decreased the possibility of resolving the conflict in a logical way. Appealing to the Iranian or Saudi Arabia courts or to the international resources is the recommended strategy; however, the impunity of governments obstacles the course for an appeal to national courts of Iran; on the other hand, the principle of the rule of governments obstacles the course of referring to the international courts. Through a descriptive and analytical method, this article studies the previous similar international cases and it concludes that based on the principle of the territorial eligibility in the criminal law and the law of the location of occurrence of the damage included in the regulations concerning the civil liability, it is possible to refer to the national courts of the Saudi Arabia; however after the relative improvement of the political relations, a more efficient solution is to achieve a conclusive agreement for the recompense of the damages of the victims and accomplishment of a convincing agreement.