Desertnazic Saudis order 40 lashes for elderly woman (75) for mingling

[Spiraling Leopard]

A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.

According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, "Fahd" and "Hadian."

Fahd told the policeman that he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with duties such as enforcing dress codes, prayer times and segregation of the sexes. Under Saudi law, women face many restrictions, including a strict dress code and a ban on driving. Women also need to have a man's permission to travel.

Al Watan obtained the court's verdict and reported that it was partly based on the testimony of the religious police. In his ruling, the judge said it had been proved that Fahd is not the Sawadi's son through breastfeeding.

The court also doled out punishment to the two men. Fahd was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes; Hadian was sentenced to six months in prison and 60 lashes. In a phone call with Al Watan, the judge declined to comment and suggested the newspaper review the case with the Ministry of Justice.

Sawadi told the newspaper that she will appeal, adding that Fahd is indeed her son through breastfeeding.

The case has sparked anger in Saudi Arabia.

"It's made everybody angry because this is like a grandmother," Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN. "Forty lashes -- how can she handle that pain? You cannot justify it."

This is not the first Saudi court case to cause controversy.

In 2007, a 19-year-old gang-rape victim in the Saudi city of Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for meeting with an unrelated male. The seven rapists, who had abducted the woman and man, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison. The case sparked international outrage and Saudi King Abdullah subsequently pardoned the "Qatif Girl" and the unrelated male.

Many Saudis are hopeful that the Ministry of Justice will be reformed. Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced in February a major Cabinet reshuffling in which many hard-line conservatives, including the head of the commission, were dismissed and replaced with younger, more moderate members.

The new appointments represented the largest shakeup since King Abdullah took power in 2005 and were welcomed in Saudi Arabia as progressive moves on the part of the king, whom many see as a reformer. Among ministers who've been replaced is the minister of justice.
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The actions of the religious police have come under increased scrutiny in Saudi Arabia recently, as more and more Saudis urge that the commission's powers be limited. Last week, the religious police detained two male novelists for questioning after they tried to get the autograph of a female writer, Halima Muzfar, at a book fair in Riyadh, the capital of the kingdom.

"This is the problem with the religious police," added Al-Huwaider, "watching people and thinking they're bad all the time. It has nothing to do with religion. It's all about control. And the more you spread fear among people, the more you control them. It's giving a bad reputation to the country."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/09/saudi.arabia.lashes/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

[Daleksfearme]

another sick twist of Islam

[briann]

This is so hideous.

Next thing you know they'll start lashing 5 year olds.

[angryChineseKahanist]

This is so hideous.

Next thing you know they'll start lashing 5 year olds.

Don't they already do that?
They already stone little girls.

[zachor_ve_kavod]

When atheists claim that people would have still developed a similar morality to Judeo/Christian ethic without a belief and devotion to G-d, I laugh at them.  They seem to think that there is something innate in people that causes people to be good.  I ask you, are people good?  Look at Islam, which is an instinctive based religion, how horribly they behave.

[briann]

When atheists claim that people would have still developed a similar morality to Judeo/Christian ethic without a belief and devotion to G-d, I laugh at them.  They seem to think that there is something innate in people that causes people to be good.  I ask you, are people good?  Look at Islam, which is an instinctive based religion, how horribly they behave.

I dont see how Islam is an instinctive based ideology... no more than Naziism is. 

Islam and Naziism prove the power of brainwashing can overcome anything. Human beings would not instinctively lash an elderly woman 75 times no more than they would instinctively throw children in ovens.

This is about evil, backwards, and INHUMAN ideologies... and people who have been brainwashed beyond recognition to think that they are doing what is supposed to be done. 

[zachor_ve_kavod]

When atheists claim that people would have still developed a similar morality to Judeo/Christian ethic without a belief and devotion to G-d, I laugh at them.  They seem to think that there is something innate in people that causes people to be good.  I ask you, are people good?  Look at Islam, which is an instinctive based religion, how horribly they behave.

I dont see how Islam is an instinctive based ideology... no more than Naziism is. 

Islam and Naziism prove the power of brainwashing can overcome anything. Human beings would not instinctively lash an elderly woman 75 times no more than they would instinctively throw children in ovens.

This is about evil, backwards, and INHUMAN ideologies... and people who have been brainwashed beyond recognition to think that they are doing what is supposed to be done. 

If you study societies before monotheism, you'd be surprised how animalistic they were.  Nazism was a reversion to primitivism.  Hitler (ym"sh) stated that explicitly.  Judaism and Christianity are faiths that are concerned with transcending that which is ordinarily human, through a devotion to and sanctification of G-d.  That which is human, stinks.  That's what islam and nazism celebrates, the most natural and vile and primitive instincts of humanity.

[briann]

When atheists claim that people would have still developed a similar morality to Judeo/Christian ethic without a belief and devotion to G-d, I laugh at them.  They seem to think that there is something innate in people that causes people to be good.  I ask you, are people good?  Look at Islam, which is an instinctive based religion, how horribly they behave.

I dont see how Islam is an instinctive based ideology... no more than Naziism is. 

Islam and Naziism prove the power of brainwashing can overcome anything. Human beings would not instinctively lash an elderly woman 75 times no more than they would instinctively throw children in ovens.

This is about evil, backwards, and INHUMAN ideologies... and people who have been brainwashed beyond recognition to think that they are doing what is supposed to be done. 

If you study societies before monotheism, you'd be surprised how animalistic they were.  Nazism was a reversion to primitivism.  Hitler (ym"sh) stated that explicitly.  Judaism and Christianity are faiths that are concerned with transcending that which is ordinarily human, through a devotion to and sanctification of G-d.  That which is human, stinks.  That's what islam and nazism celebrates, the most natural and vile and primitive instincts of humanity.

I completely dissagree... Islam and Naziism are NOT Natural.  They are artifical and twisted brainwashing, and there is nothing human about them.  Yes, we may be violent in out nature... but we DON'T have an innate nature to throw children in ovens and torture 75 year olds.  This is psychotic behavior.

Yes, I know about animalism and paganism... and yes.. many of them did horribly barbaric things... but this was because they were brainwashed by idiologies that were the most prevalent BECAUSE the founders or 'prophets' were the most violent and subjugating at the time.

Kinda like 'Lord of the Flies.  The kids become violent and barbaric because the new leaders of the anarchist society are the ones that were the strongest and most willing to subjugate.  The vast majority of people DO NOT have the capacity to willingly torture 75 year olds...   BUT... those who have the potential to be vicious fascist dictators... such as stalin, Hitler, or Mohammad... DO have that potential.... and they use BRAINWASHING via Mein Kampf, The Comunist Manifesto, or The Koran... as one of their many tools.

[ag337]

How utterly absurd is this?

To put it in perspective how we would look at this ridiculous practice.
Here is an example:

Imagine that your seventy five year old Grandmother lives far from you and she has a kind thirty five year old male neighbor who offers  to give her a hand when she needs it.  One day she needs saltine crackers for her nausea and the neighbor helps her out by going to the store and bringing them to her.  And then, boom, there is a loud crash through her door and some men take her and the neighbor away to jail.  They all get charged with some idiotic morality law and your Grandmother has to spend four months in jail and get forty lashes.

How primitive, delusional, idiotic, inhumane, unsympathetic, and cruel are these absurd laws that Muslims want to impose on the world.  They don't even have empathy for an elderly woman.  It's disgusting.

Radical Islam must be stopped anywhere and everywhere at any price.  Because if not, these extremists will stop at nothing to impose sharia law on the "non believers" and if the "non believers" do not accept these laws, these extremists intend to kill them.

I, for one, am going to do everything in my power and ability to expose this dangerous cult of a religion to anyone and everyone who will listen.