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[Adventurer]

By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst

Ahmed al-Omran's site Saudi Jeans was blocked earlier in 2006
There's not just an oil boom in Saudi Arabia - there's a blogging boom too.
"It really took off last year," says Saudi journalist Rasheed Abou-Alsamh.

There are now between 500 and 600 Saudi blogs - in English as well as Arabic - and the bloggers are women as well as men.

"I think young people see the internet as a way of expressing themselves easily and in an uncensored fashion," says Mr Abou-Alsamh.

The Saudi kingdom is still in many ways a closed society.

Fictional love story

One young woman blogs under the name Mystique.

MYSTIQUE'S BLOG
I am born - a man chooses my name,
I am taught - to appreciate that he did not bury me alive,
I learn - what he wants me to know,
I marry - who he wants me to marry,
I eat - what he wants me to eat,
If he dies - another man controls my life
A father, a brother, a husband, a son, a man

Extract from poem: Rantings of an Arabian Woman
"I want to remain anonymous," she says, adding that only a small group of friends know her real identity.

Her English blog (www.mystiquesa.blogspot.com) is, by Saudi standards, outspoken.

"I have this fictional series, a love story between a man and a woman. And I get into the most intimate details of the relationship - like sexual details."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6055382.stm