Ministry Intervenes as Writer Sentenced to 275 Lashes
Raid Qusti, Arab News

RIYADH, 21 March 2005 — The case of a Saudi writer who was sentenced by a Shariah court in Riyadh to 275 lashes and four months imprisonment after being accused of being “corrupt” by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has returned to the Ministry of Culture and Information yesterday after the intervention of the ministry, Arab News has learned.

The case is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia.

This is a huge story!

The Saudi media is going toe-to-toe with the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, aka the religious police or Mutawaain. There are laws that regulate which courts hear what kinds of issues and an attempt is being made to try a journalist in a religious court when it properly belongs in another court.

This article is certainly worth reading. Note the complicated chains of authority that oversee them, but also what protections they have. Note as well that the journalists involved in the issue are writers for Arabic language papers, not just the English ones.

I’ll be following this case closely.