RIYADH: The fact that he still has a newspaper to edit is proof enough to Khalaf Alharbi that the ceiling of freedom in Saudi Arabia is rising. His mischievous tabloid Shams, Arabic for Sun, has endured suspension, the arrest of one of its journalists and the carping of Islamist hardliners who say it embodies the Westernised future they fear Saudi Arabia will face if liberals get their way.

But with a daily print-run of nearly 70,000, and recent permission to print inside the oil-producing kingdom instead of in neighbouring Bahrain, Alharbi says the paper for young people aims to set a new standard after its first turbulent six months.

“Boldness is one of the basic tools of a journalist. You have to try to enter all the sensitive areas and you have to try to go over the line,” he said in an interview.

“Fear of the free press is based on an illusion. Countries that have a free press have discovered that there’s no problem, that the press can be responsible, because in the end the press is patriotic and loves its country.”

Shams, which is owned by a grandson of Crown Prince Sultan, has certainly put its money where its mouth is.

Trying to break the mould of Saudi Arabia’s sometimes drab print media, it avoided hiring experienced journalists.

“We preferred to have a team without previous journalistic experience. The rules of work on the other papers are a bit traditional, and we wanted to be different,” Alharbi said.

When King Abdullah came to power last year, he promised progress on a range of political, social and economic reforms. The appearance of Saudi Arabia’s first tabloid last December has been seen as another sign of slow, but inevitable, change.

The paper has published sensational features about forced marriage for young girls, premarital relationships, unemployment among women, an official ban on school sports for girls and arbitrary detention by police.

And it managed to survive its most daring act of all — publishing some of the Danish cartoons of the holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that provoked a global outcry among Muslims earlier this year.

The paper was shut down after running the caricatures, but the Ministry of Information, seen as a progressive force in Saudi Arabia under Minister Iyad Madani, allowed it to return a few weeks later.—Reuters