SAUDI ARABIA: King pardons female journalist sentenced to 60 lashes
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has pardoned a female reporter who was sentenced to flogging for her involvement in a risqué talk show in which a Saudi man bragged about his sexual exploits on air.
Twenty-two-year-old Rozanna Yami was sentenced by a court Saturday to 60 lashes for helping to produce the controversial July episode of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp.’s Bold Red Line talk show in which guest Mazen Abdul-Jawad boasted publicly about his sex life in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
On Monday, King Abdullah intervened in the case and granted Yami a royal pardon. The reporter expressed relief over the king’s overruling of her sentence and thanked him.
"The king has vindicated me. I am satisfied with the king's order, and I accept the decisions of the sovereign," she told Reuters news agency.
Abdul-Rahman Hazzaa, a spokesman for the Saudi information ministry, said the royal pardon meant that Yami’s case now will be transferred to the ministry for further review and possible disciplinary action.
"They will transfer the case to the ministry of information. ... In this case, the flogging has been dropped,” Hazza was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Abdul-Jawad, 32, a divorced father living in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Jeddah, was sentenced to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes earlier this month for “incitement to sin” over his sexual boasts on air. Abdul-Jawad described his sexual exploits in detail on the ill-fated episode, beginning with when he had sex with his neighbor at age 14.
He bragged about his foreplay tricks and how he used Bluetooth cellphone messaging to pick up women on the streets of Jeddah.
He was shown in his bedroom, which was decorated in red, surrounded by sex toys with the theme song from the movie “Swingers” playing in the background.
In one instance, Abdul-Jawad whipped out a sex toy and waved it before the camera.
This public display did not go down well with the Saudi authorities, who, as in many other Muslim countries, restrict sexual content on television and in print publications such as newspapers and books.
Three of Abdul-Jawad’s male friends who appeared on the show with him also were sentenced to jail terms and 300 lashes each. As for Yami, the reporter denied she had anything to do with the taboo-breaking LBC talk show episode. "I had nothing to do with Mazen Abdul-Jawad's show," she told Reuters over the weekend. "The verdict was just because I cooperated with LBC."
King Abdullah reportedly ordered the case of Yami and another reporter -- a pregnant woman also accused of having a role in the LBC program -- be referred to a committee of the Saudi ministry of education and culture, which handles media issues.
Saudi blogger Ahmed Al-Omran, who moderates the popular Saudi Jeans blog, told The Times in an e-mail that he expected Yami to be pardoned and that her case would be referred to the ministry, just like a previous case involving a Saudi columnist.
“I have to say that I was pretty much expecting that she will get a sort of pardon and the sentence won't be carried on," he wrote.
Courts in Saudi Arabia, which adheres to a strict version of Islamic law, are largely controlled by clerics with wide discretion in defining actions deemed criminal and setting measures of punishment, including lashes and the death penalty.
New York-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch, or HRW, welcomed the royal pardon in a press statement, saying it “sent an important message to the country’s courts."
HRW also called on King Abdullah to overrule the sentence imposed on Abdul-Jawad.
Despite the royal pardon, Yami says her life remains a nightmare, that she feels like she has been given a social death sentence for being involved with the scandal-ridden show.
"I am not a heroine," she told Al-Arabiya TV. "I am just an ordinary human being. Society sentenced me to death before the judge even passed sentence."
Following the row over the talk show episode, the Saudi authorities pulled the plug on LBC in the kingdom. The channel’s offices in Riyadh and Jeddah were forced shut shortly after the episode's airing.
-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut
Photo: Saudi reporter Rozanna Yami. Credit: Saeed Shamaa / EPA
"Stoning of Soraya M".....need I say more about the insecurities and shamelessness of your clerics and Muslim brethren.
FIGHT ON!!!! MUSLIM WOMEN...YOU DEFINITELY HAVE EARNED YOUR RIGHTS after so many years of abuse and marginalization by IGNORANT MEN!!!
Posted by: twitter.com/cavscout90 | October 30, 2009 at 01:23 PM
You are right, the man was actually given 1 thousand lashes and sentenced to a full 5 years in jail. It is totally wrong through to hand out such severe punishments for something which would not be labelled a crime in a developed country.
Posted by: sex toys | October 29, 2009 at 02:09 AM
What right has this stupid, interfering 'Human Rights Watch (?)' got to do with other countries' legal system and jurisprudence? Who has given them right to poke their noses into the normal criminal recourses in other countries which they do not even understand? Damn these kind of paranoid, interfering, insane and sham 'watchdogs' who are nothing but an interfering and intolerable scum.
Posted by: Osman Haider | October 28, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Uh smapattack, did you actually read the article? The MAN was given 1000 lashes and sentenced to 5 years in jail. I suspect that you are afraid of being labeled a "Feminazi" but the truth is you are one. Your post is evidence enough. I personally think that both genders were punished harshly and that adults should be free to make decisions for themselves, well most anyway.
Posted by: Kevin | October 27, 2009 at 05:28 PM
This makes me insane. What about the MAN who actually talked about his sexual exploits?? What's his punishment as he was the one who actually DID the talking? I hate this world. If I stand up to injustices like this I will be labeled a "Feminazi" here in the states. Women need to fight against these injustices.
Posted by: smapattack | October 27, 2009 at 11:42 AM
She is so pretty! No doubt she landed a sex-talk job lol..
Posted by: Sam | October 27, 2009 at 10:13 AM