75-year-old Saudi widow to be flogged for meeting with men who were not her immediate relatives

[Amerigo Vespucci]

75-year-old widow to be flogged

Tuesday, 10 March 2009



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/75yearold-widow-to-be-flogged-1641548.html

The sentencing of a widow to 40 lashes for mingling with two young men has sparked new criticism of Saudi Arabia.

Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi, was convicted and sentenced last week for meeting with men who were not her immediate relatives.

The two men, including one who was Mrs Sawadi's late husband's nephew, were reportedly bringing her bread. They were also found guilty and sentenced to prison terms and lashes.

The woman's lawyer, Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, said today that he plans to appeal against the verdict, which also demands that Mrs Sawadi be deported after serving her prison term.

[cynatnite]

1. What's with the photo? It's not a part of the article. n/t

[tonysam]

2. I Think the OP is Trying to Convey a Message.

I am just not sure what it is.

[Deja Q]

3. That one of them is a 75 year old woman?!

:wow:

[marshall]

6. Maybe those are the men she was meeting with

It would put a whole new spin on the story.

[GoesTo11]

7. One was her husband's nephew bringing her bread.

I think they would want to just put her on an ice floe to die, except they don't have ice floes in the Red Sea.

[pepperbear]

9. that's a saudi prince with whom bush is cavorting. n/t

[FLAprogressive]

4. just disgusting. but of course they're our "ally".

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. That this passes for a legal system amazes me.

It would be like codifying the traditions of gangs or street crime, or any other sort of bullyism.

This is the kind of law that RWers envy.

So much for human dignity, let alone a far-fetched concept like justice.

[Vehl]

8. so true.

how such laws are conceived are beyond my ken!
its disgusting and sickening.

[struggle4progress]

10. Saudi Arabia: Lashes for 75-Year-Old Widow (AP via NYT)

... The newspaper Al Watan said the woman, Khamisa Sawadi, met with two 24-year-old men in April after she asked them to bring five loaves of bread to her home. The two men, her nephew and his business partner, were arrested by the religious police after delivering the bread, the newspaper said. They were also sentenced to lashes and imprisonment ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/middleeast/10briefs-LASHESFORWID_BRF.html?_r=1&ref=world

It's shocking: a nephew bringing his elderly aunt some bread

[MilesColtrane]

11. These people are fucked in the head.

[indepat]

12. You would think the UN and the rest of the entire world would not put up with such as this

from any country in the family of nations. :P

[Kievan Rus]

13. The US & UK should abandon Saudi Arabia

These Saudi nutjobs are the enemy of everything that democracy and equality stands for.

Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia; Osama bin Laden is from there also.

The sooner we get off foriegn oil, the better...maybe then, the West can tell Saudi Arabia to go f*** themselves.

[XemaSab]

14. Outrageous!

I consider the spouses of my aunts and uncles to be my aunts and uncles, not some kind of step-relatives.

If one of them needed me to bring them food, I would do it.

I don't know how the crazy Saudi system can not count the parents of your cousins as relatives.