Saudi media are reporting that the guy (name is being withheld in Saudi Arabia) who flounced around while wearing an official uniform, then posted a video of it on YouTube, has been sentenced. A year in jail and 1,000 lashes were the punishment meted out by the Saudi court. It seems that he’d been arrested last year for appearing in drag, but was pardoned by the King during a round of royal pardons at year’s end.
Interestingly, this Arab News article on the subject says that he was sentenced for ‘being a homosexual’. Now, there may be some Shariah law based on hadith that criminalize the state of being gay, but it’s not explicit in the Quran. Saudi Gazette/Okaz, in their coverage, say only that he was committing ‘acts improper and against Islamic teachings’ in addition to ‘impersonating an officer’. That’s a pretty wide net, open to being cast by any judge for nearly anything. Saudi Gazette/Okaz also says that he’s to receive 200 lashes, not 1,000.
The young man’s father says his son is suffering from ‘hormonal deficiencies’ and has psychological problems. Given that this video clip appeared on YouTube, I’m inclined to believe the latter. But there’s a long history of homosexuality being defined, prima facie, as a mental problem. The early-to-mid 20th C. in America saw people kept in mental institutions because their families, with the support of doctors, believed there was some mental wiring loose. It was sufficient in the USSR to earn a long (if not interminable) stay in a mental hospital. These measures, arguably a step up from the Biblical admonition that a gay man be stoned to death, are still seen as reasonable by those who can’t get their minds around the fact that some percentage of all humans (even Saudis) seem to be homosexual. Further, transvestitism, even absent homosexuality, seems to send the Saudi establishment into a frenzy. Saudi media have been reporting over the years about police busts of drag parties. ‘Gender-bending’ seems to be particularly offensive to Saudi sensibilities.
Homosexual-cum-impostor cop sentenced to jail, lashes
RIMA AL-MUKHTAR | ARAB NEWSPublished: Mar 11, 2010 00:21 Updated: Mar 11, 2010 00:43
JEDDAH: A 27-year-old man who was arrested in January on three charges, including homosexuality, was sentenced to one year in prison and 1,000 lashes and fined SR5,000, local media reported on Wednesday.
The man, who has not been named by officials, was arrested in January after a video was widely viewed locally. Rumors began circulating as to the origins of the video and the background of the man depicted in it, causing local police to release a statement this week confirming the arrest.
The video depicts a man with long hair dressed in a police uniform flirting with the man filming him. He asks for the cameraman’s driver’s license, then demands “physical comfort” after saying the license is expired. At one point the man displays a firearm.
Toward the end of the two-and-a-half minute clip, the man begins to partially undress and rub his chest to the sound of club music emanating from the car stereo.
He was charged with impersonating a police officer, committing a “general security” offense and being homosexual.
The man had previously been charged with homosexuality and was sentenced to counseling and memorizing a chapter of the Qur’an.
One newspaper interviewed the man’s father, who claims his son is mentally unstable and was seduced by his friend to perform for the camera. The father was unaware of the video before his son was arrested.
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March:11:2010 - 14:07
Two points: The Taz’hir principle is what I like to call the judicial loophole in Shariah. Any judge can determine that any crime is deserving of any punishment if it is deemed that the crime has a “socially corrupting” effect. This is how drug traffickers are beheaded even though the Qur’an doesn’t prescribe a punishment for trafficking drugs across borders. A joyrider was almost beheaded on a ta’hir ruling. The taz’hir priciple gives Shariah judges carte blanche to prescribe punishments up to death for any crime. (Obviously a judge wouldn’t get a “death for jaywalking” sentence approved by a higher court, but since homosexuality is widely considered an abomination in Saudi Arabia, a judge could possibly get away with beheading a homosexual.)
Second point; You said through the mid-20th century in America homosexuality was treated as a mental illness. I had a gay friend who was committed in the 1980s by his conservative family for being gay. It still happens in the US, though it’s done through family interventions on minors in their custody and not by the state.
March:11:2010 - 16:59
Thanks. The overbroad scope of Taz’hir is exactly why Saudi Arabia needs to speed up its legal reforms and codification of law. It’s just too loosey-goosey to allow a judge to inflict punishments, including capital punishment, because his own sensibilities were offended. Going by ‘traditional values’ or ‘community standards’ isn’t a whole lot better, but at least they involve someone in addition to a judge.
Yes, even today you find people claiming that homosexuality is a ‘mental defect’ and that it should be treated as such in order to be ‘cured’. More than the state, though, it’s that the Psychology establishment removed it from the DSM, undercutting any official pretense (church, state, individual) of enlisting psychologists into a cultural battle.
March:11:2010 - 21:31
Epidemiological studies show that world wide 3% of men are gay, 3% of women are lesbian and about 3% of the population are bi. So approximately 10% of any given national population are not strictly heterosexual.
Homosexuality has been out of the DSM since DSM III (70′s-80′s) but conservative Christians are the ones now seeing it as a treatable defect and providing therapy to make heterosexuals out of homosexuals. This of course has failed miserably in the past, as it seems that homosexuals/lesbians are “hard-wired” to have the sexual attractions and orientations that they do.
Probably the commitment for homosexuality was with a retrograde service or for something else…eg depression, anxiety, insomnia, paranoia… all of which would be normal when your family is against you in this way, let alone one’s own struggles with the social implications of one’s sexual orientation.
Transvestites are in the vast majority heterosexual males. It is more of a fetish than a sexual orientation issue.
March:12:2010 - 08:09
Chiara, your comments make me think of a debate I recently read (on the Intranet of the multinational Co that employs me); that debate was about LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender); one commenter was saying that ALL the religions are againts that and that those people should be treated… You can imagine the harsh reactions he got !
March:12:2010 - 08:38
Michel–Yes indeed! and good luck to the religions on effecting change
. The psychoanalysts and the behaviouralists tried valiantly and failed miserably, in the sense that they changed no one and made some far more neurotic than they were (including some notable Hollywood actors). I only treat their other problems: depression, anxiety, phobias, adjustment disorders, relationship problems, family problems, acculturation problems, body image issues, etc ie same as for heterosexual patients. The only time their sexual orientation is addressed as a primary topic is when they have issues about it, eg. they are not out to themselves fully yet, they are wondering about outing themselves to others, suicidal because feels it means they will have no loving normal emotional life, having trouble seeing where they would fit in society since they aren’t the dress up like a flamingo and march in the Gay Pride Parade type, etc.
Harder are the heterosexually married ones who are coming to terms with their homosexuality. They struggle more, before they switch to divorce mode. Which reminds me I also see their young adult children, and ex-wives all of whom are functioning well in society and come for other problems.
March:13:2010 - 00:02
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