Another case of hyper-religiousity strikes. Some moralists feel chuffed and the country of Saudi Arabia takes another slap in the face. The Saudi-bashers, of course, are having a field day. This time around, they seem justified as this is truly an idiotic exercise in moralism run amok.
The only up-side to this is that the Saudi Arabic language media is on top of the story, as this AP piece notes.
Saudi court sentences 75-year-old woman to lashes
MAGGIE MICHAELCAIRO (AP) – A 75-year-old widow in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for mingling with two young men who are not close relatives, drawing new criticism for the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious police and judiciary.
The woman’s lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that he would appeal the verdict against Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi. The attorney, Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, said the verdict issued March 3 also demands that Sawadi be deported after serving her sentence.
… Complaints from Saudis have been growing that the religious police and courts are overstepping their broad mandate and interfering in people’s lives, and critics lambasted the handling of Sawadi’s case.
“How can a verdict be issued based on suspicion?” Laila Ahmed al-Ahdab, a physician who also is a columnist for Al-Watan, wrote Monday. “A group of people are misusing religion to serve their own interests.”
Sawadi told the court she considered al-Anzi as her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she didn’t provide evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.
Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said journalist Bandar al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan. In a recent article, he wrote that he felt the need to report the case “so everybody knows to what degree we have reached.”
The woman’s conviction came a few weeks after King Abdullah fired the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing owners of TV networks that broadcast “immoral content.” The move was seen as part of an effort to weaken the hard-line Sunni Muslim establishment.
There’s nothing in today’s Arab News, but Saudi Gazette carries this report, based on news agency reporting, but less thorough.
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March:10:2009 - 04:26
AN purposefully chose not to translate the Al-Watan story. The ME saw the story and chose not to run it because it makes the PVPV look bad. A certain reporter has left the paper, so the paper no longer has the driving force to do this coverage. But if you want to know what great things ALJ is doing, AN is your paper.
March:10:2009 - 07:32
Using a 75 year old foreign widow to further the religious agenda here is disgusting. How anyone can side with the PVPV on this one is beyond me. What I really dislike about the religious faction here in KSA is the need to control everyone’s lives and their ability to turn what should be considered normal behaviors into something cheap and sexual. Sentencing an old woman whose only crime is being lonely to 40 lashes will only serve to repulse the world and hopefully the citizens of KSA. When will this madness stop?
March:10:2009 - 07:47
I’d suspected that that was behind the non-story.
March:10:2009 - 21:31
John: you don’t have to be a Saudi-basher to be repulsed by a society that capable of such cruelty.
I found it really interesting the young man’s father reported them. They are relatives, it would appear, but not close. Is this really something else? A property dispute? An extortion scam to get money out of the old woman?
March:11:2009 - 00:04
I agree that you don’t have to be a Saudi-basher. But things like this provide bashers more ammunition by which to discredit Saudis and their struggle toward reform. It’s not necessary and is a self-inflicted wound by Saudis on the whole of Saudi society.
The father in question is apparently the father of the woman’s deceased husband, not her father. Could be a property dispute. I doubt she has money. I suspect it’s more that she’s inconvenient, none of her Saudi relations want to take financial responsibility for her, so all their problems go away when she’s deported.
March:11:2009 - 14:24
The father is the father of the husbands nephew. In other words the woman’s brother in law. Since he also got his son in trouble, I’m guessing things didn’t work out as he planned. He accused her of “corruption” whatever that means. And BTW Arab News carried the story today.
March:13:2009 - 03:18
[...] Saudi Arabia takes another slap in the face. It is also a slap in the face for the new minister of justice, who obviously needs to fight hard [...]
March:15:2009 - 22:51
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March:15:2009 - 23:05
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March:16:2009 - 21:02
[...] Saudi Arabia takes another slap in the face. It is also a slap in the face for the new minister of justice, who obviously needs to fight really [...]
March:17:2009 - 11:16
Saudis are not discussing this from what I heard! I wonder if there was anything in Arabic on it…
March:20:2009 - 01:56
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