Elderly Woman Sentenced to Jail and Lashings for Fraternization in Saudi Arabia

[ccharles000]

/17/2009 - Khamisa Sawadi was convicted last week in Saudi Arabia of fraternizing with men who are not within her immediate family and has been sentenced to 4 months in prison, 40 lashes, and deportation. The men reportedly brought bread to Sawadi, 75.

According to the Arab News, one of the men, who was also sentenced to prison and lashes, said that "The woman asked me to bring bread for her. At that time, I contacted my friend Hadyan who was incidentally passing and he helped me buy bread, as I did not have a car. After I gave her the bread two commission officials came. They first said they belonged to a charity and wanted to know the living condition of the woman. While we were going out they caught us and handed over to the police."

Sawadi and the two men plan to appeal their sentences. According to Arutz Sheva, human rights lawyer Abdulrahman Al-Lahem has volunteered to represent them.

At a meeting last month, members of the United Nations Human Rights Council urged Saudi Arabia to actively work to end pervasive human rights violations in the country, particularly those against women and children. Women's rights in Saudi Arabia are currently limited on a number of fronts including marriage rights, freedom to travel, property ownership, education, and work.

Media Resources: Feminist Daily Newswire 2/9/09; Global Voices Online 3/16/09; Arutz Sheva 3/16/09; Arab News 3/11/09

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswire.asp

[hobbit709]

1. Pick a religion, any religion

The fanatic fundies of any religion are the same. They would do the same here in the name of Jesus if they could.

[leftynyc]

4. The problem is when religion is

the government as in Saudi Arabia. And I think you're wrong - they're not all the same. Unless you can link me to any goverment official who has called for this kind of punishment for this kind of action, you're really full of shit.

[hobbit709]

5. You think the fundie nutjobs wouldn't do this here if they were in power.

I didn't say that any government official today would. I said the fundies would if they could. All fanatics want to impose their worldview on everyone else. And I might be full of it since I haven't had my morning throne session yet.

[leftynyc]

9. But that's the issue

I see people all the time saying "fundies would do this, fundies would do that". The facts are they can't and they wont. While in Saudi Arabia and Iran the clerics are the government, we simply don't have that here. Therefore it's a totally moot point and just a way to downplay what these fundamentalist goverments are doing.

[Tim01]

10. Maybe they would try it.

But Americans, including mainstream Christians, would not stand for that kind of torture in this country.
I can say with confidence that if a fundie tried to whip a 75 year old woman in front of a bunch of average american christians, the fundie would be stopped by the christians. And if there were americans in the crowd who were not self identified christians, the fundie would get real bad hurt.

[polmaven]

19. Absolutely right.

The vast majority of religions - around the world - do not have anything approaching this kind of tenet. This is a case of the government USING some religious dogma for its own purposes to justify the unjustifiable amount of misogyny.

[cali]

6. true or not, that's largely immaterial- though it gets trotted out faithfully

every time a story like this appears. The fact is that they don't do it here. They do it there regularly. In fact, there isn't a Christian nation in the world where there's the equivalent situation. No doubt that there are Christian and Jewish fundies who would like to oppress women, but they don't have the power to impose laws such as the one illustrated in the article.

[hobbit709]

8. The idea is wrong there, it's wrong here and it's wrong anywhere else.

But don't believe for a second that the fundies here wouldn't have wet dreams about it if they got in power. Religion and government should NEVER mix, no matter what religion and what form of government.
But compare the attitude of fanatic fundies of any religion-they're identical in how they treat women and anyone not like them.

[cali]

11. duh. of course it's wrong everywhere. But it does not happen

everywhere. And like it or not, there isn't a Christian majority country in the world that does it. It's an absurd false equivalency that only serves to distract from reality.

[truebrit71]

15. So the stories about burning women in the US as witches is fiction?

..I think those people thought they were 'Christian' too, no?

[Coventina]

16. Burned, no. Hanged, yes. And some men as well.

But I just want to point out what the separate parties were found "guilty" of:

Having sex with the devil, putting curses on people & their livestock - if such a thing were possible, could be construed as a serious crime.

Giving bread to an old woman? I don't think Christianity has ever considered that a crime.

[truebrit71]

17. ..but it didn't stop the "christians" from making up trumped up charges and killing them anyway...

..right?

"Giving bread to an old woman? I don't think Christianity has ever considered that a crime." ....and neither does Saudi Arabia...this old woman is being done because she "fraternized"..not because she took some bread..

[Coventina]

18. Yes, Saudi Arabia DOES consider giving bread to an old woman a crime

if the bread is given to her by men who are not related to her and she is not escorted by a male relative at the time. That is what they define as "fraternization".

Can you show me a similar case, prosecuted by the government, in the last 100 years by a "Christian" nation? Heck, I'll give you 200 years.

[truebrit71]

20. The crime was being in the presence of men not related to her. Bread had nothing to do with it...

...they could have been giving her spaghetti...

Nice strawman though..the last 200 years? When did I say that?

Fail.

[Coventina]

24. How is asking for a similar case a strawman?

:shrug:

[cali]

21. um, when was that? Yesterday? Ten years ago? A hundred?

Two hundred? er, no. That happened some 300+ years in the past. And as someone noted they weren't burned. And the numbers? 19. It's utterly absurd to bring this up as a comparison. This is 2009, not 1690.

[Coventina]

23. Not only that, but it wasn't the "US" but a British colony.

The United States has never executed a "witch".

[truebrit71]

25. ..and you don't think that "modern" Saudi Arabia is AT LEAST 300 hundred years behind..

..the rest of us?

"Christians" in the past committed horrendous acts in the name of piety and faith and their "morals" are the same clung to by the xtian fundies of the 21st century...but it's the dirty brown-skinned people that are the heathens right? Because today's fundies wouldn't do the same things they did in the past right?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

2. Such A Horrible Story.

Yet some here actually have the irrationality to claim that sexism is just as dangerous here in the us.

[ccharles000]

3. I agree

[cali]

7. No one claimed that in the thread that I believe you're referring to.

Stay honest there, OMC.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

14. Actually, They Had.

In fact, there were quite a few posts that I had to reply to in disbelief that they were making that case. The subthreads may have since been deleted, but it is factual that a few of them stating just that had been made to begin with.

For what it's worth; I'm always honest. I know no other way.

[biopowertoday]

12. The risks physically are certainly not as great but it takes it toll

in long-term psychological distress.

[Marie26]

13. Bat-shit crazy. nt

[ogneopasno]

22. Yay, allies! Yay, allies!

[WildEyedLiberal]

26. Why do so many people in these threads feel the need to claim that "Christian fundies are as bad"

First of all, it's totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is about a specific instance that happened in the real world to a real person. But that doesn't stop some people from concocting increasingly implausible hypotheticals in which Christian fundies are a) in charge of an entire nation's legal system and b) intend to persecute women in exactly the same ways as radical Wahabbist Muslims do, whether or not there's any evidence that fundies have actually expressed a desire to, for example, beat an old woman for accepting unrelated young males into her home.

I don't know if it's just an out-of-control sense of political correctness that forces these people to drag "Christian fundies" into every discussion about whatever barbaric punishment du jour has just happened in Saudi Arabia or Somalia or wherever, but it's pretty bizarre and rather idiotic.

[leftynyc]

27. Thank Heavens

I've made this point countless times on these kinds of threads. It seems the only religion that is given leeway is Islam. The people who try to maintain that our fundies (who are toothless in this country) are the same as the fundies who are literally the government in Saudi Arabia and Iran look like morons.

[Dreamer Tatum]

28. The only thing I can figure

is that NOT saying that Christian "fundies" are just as bad is equivalent to holding Christianity in higher esteem than
Islam.

Trust me, Usual Suspects, most of us get it: you hate religion and religious people. No need to make up things that haven't happened and won't happen.