60 Lashes For Journalist

Posted on 25 October 2009 by Stenberg-Tendys W.L. in Uncategorized

A Saudi court has sentenced female journalist, Rozanne al-Yami,22, to 69 lashes, after charging her, over her involvement in a television show, in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex.

Al-Yami worked as a coordinator for the television show, but has denied working on the sex-show episode. “I am too frustrated and upset to appeal the sentence,” she said.

In the program, which was aired in July on the Lebanese LBC satellite channel, the man, Mazen Abdul-Jawad appears to describe an active sex life and shows sex toys that were blurred by the station. The court sentenced Abdul-Jawad, who worked for the national airline, to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes. His lawyer, Sulaiman al-Jumeii, maintains his client was duped by the TV station and was unaware he was being recorded.

The government moved swiftly, shutting down LBC’s two offices.

Three other men who appeared on the show, “Bold Red Line,” were also convicted of discussing sex publicly and sentenced to two years imprisonment and 300 lashes each.

In July a Saudi Arabian Princess, who gave birth to an illegitimate child to a British man, was secretly granted asylum, after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home.

The woman, who comes from a very wealthy Saudi family, says she first met her English boyfriend – who is not a Muslim – during a visit to London. She became pregnant the following year and was worried that her elderly husband, who is a member of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia, had become suspicious of her behavior. She persuaded him to let her visit the UK again to give birth in secret.

She feared that she and her child would be subject to capital punishment under Sharia law, which could include flogging and stoning, or an honour killing. Adulterers can also face beheadings, or hangings.

There were at least 102 executions of men and women last year in Saudi, which is an average of two every week.

In 2007, a woman from Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after being gang-raped. She offended cultural expectations because she was unaccompanied when she got into a car with a former boyfriend.

The man had agreed to hand back a photograph of the woman who was about to marry another man, but as they drove along a street they were stopped and seized by seven men who raped them both. The woman was originally sentenced to 90 lashes but the sentence was increased when she appealed. Eventually, after an international outcry, she was pardoned.

In 2007, King Abdullah II of Saudi Arabia was jeered during a state visit to Britain as dozens of demonstrators turned out to protest at his country’s human rights record.

King AbdullahII has since waived the flogging sentence, due to wide international media outrage.

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