Flicker of Hope for Rania, Saud
Suzan ZawawiAL-KHOBAR: RANIA Abo-Enin and Saud Al-Khaldi’s forced divorce case is likely to be resolved soon, hopes the couple’s lawyer.
Rania’s father was seriously injured in a car accident recently. Now Rania’s uncles have been intervening in her case, supporting her marriage and convincing her father to withdraw his disapproval.
“The father seems willing to cooperate, but the mother is still adamant,†said Ibraheem Zafer Al-Bahri, legal adviser and the lawyer representing Rania and Saud.
An initial claim that Rania’s father was the couple’s main problem was rebutted by Rania’s friend. “Rania was convinced she could persuade her father to accept Saud as his son-in-law, but her mother was the main problem and the one who rejected Saud,†said Rania’s friend who whishes to remain anonymous.
After Rania’s parents refused Saud’s proposal a couple of times, Rania sought the court’s help to transfer her legal guardianship from her father to her uncles. With the law stating that Saudi women must have their legal guardian’s consent for marriage, Rania hoped to get married by changing her legal guardian.
However, Judge Omar Al-Tuwejri ruled against Rania.
So, Rania and Saud decided to elope to Bahrain. Upon discovering that they had eloped to Bahrain and got married, Rania’s father filed a case to get his daughter divorced from her husband.
Currently Rania is in hiding in fear of being arrested and is due to deliver her baby any day….
This particular case of forced divorce may be finding a resolution, but it’s not one that will be of much use to others. Saudi papers report 19 cases of forced divorce, including the case of ‘Fatima’. They all need to be resolved with a clear cut understanding of where tradition ends and religion begins. I suspect it will take a ruling from the King and a set of new fatawas before a definitive solution, of service to all, is reached.
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February:27:2007 - 09:16
[...] Crossroads Arabia have also been very busy recently. In one week, they updated on the recent Valentine’s-day-related punishments, Adel Al-Jubeir’s formal assignment as Saudi ambassador to the US, HR groups protesting Saudi beheadings, cyber activism by Saudi women, and both forced divorce cases of Fatima and ex-husband Mansour, and Rania and ex-husband Saud. Regarding the most-recent death of celebrity Anna Nicole Smith, Yazeed seems to have had it with the obsessive media coverage of the case. He is disappointed with CNN’s Larry King and said: “Every night, every single night (I like to have CNN on when I sleep) that’s all he talks about, he has the same guests (almost), talking about the wacky case.” He also said that he is changing his “sleep channel” to Fox News. This whole craze has certainly turned some heads. Aya thinks that the media regards Anna Nicole’s death more important than Iraq. Speaking of Iraq, Ubergirl87 raised some very interesting questions, in a recent post, regarding the wartorn country. [...]