SAUDI ARABIA: Forget detention -- misbehaving schoolgirl sentenced to 90 lashes

Schoolchildren in Saudi Arabia might want to put those rubberbands back in their knapsacks, the spitballs back in their mouths and begin meekly raising their hands before asking questions following a harsh ruling against a 13-year-old who had a spat with her teacher.

According to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, as cited by the Daily Mail of London, the adolescent got into a tussle with her teacher after she was caught with a cellphone camera, apparently forbidden in Saudi girls' schools.

Instead of giving her a week of detention or making her write, "I won't bring my cellphone camera to school" on the chalkboard a hundred times, the kid was sentenced to 90 lashes with a cane.

Today's lesson: Be polite to your schoolteacher in Saudi Arabia.

Very polite.

The ruling has outraged Saudi Arabia's own state-sanctioned human rights organization  "The court should have looked for an alternative sentence," Saleh Al-Khaslan, a spokesman for the rights group, told CNN. 

Human rights groups have roundly condemned the use of such punishments. Saudi Arabia's Islamic Sharia law imposes mandatory flogging sentences for so-called moral offenses. According to Al-Watan, a judge in the city of Jubail also sentenced the young woman to two months imprisonment after her flogging.

In another ongoing case that has sparked international outrage, a Philippine guest worker in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 100 lashes after she was allegedly raped and impregnated by a coworker. 

The woman, a 35-year-old cleaner, was barred from leaving Saudi Arabia after a medical examination determined she was pregnant. 

The woman insisted to authorities that a Bangladeshi coworker had raped her, and that she failed to report the incident for fear she'd be accused of extramarital sex, a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. 

New York-based Human Rights Watch today issued a damning chapter on Saudi Arabia in a lengthy global report on conditions for minorities, prisoners and political dissidents in nations around the world. 

"Authorities continue to systematically suppress, or fail to protect, the rights of 14 million Saudi women and girls, eight million foreign workers, and some two million Shiites," the report says. "Thousands of people have received unfair trials or were subject to arbitrary detention. Curbs on freedom of association, expression, and movement, as well as a pervasive lack of official accountability, remain serious concerns."

-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Image said to show authorities flogging a person in Saudi Arabia. Photo credit: Daily Mail website

Comments

[Vinny]

If I hit somebody 90 times with a cane he'd be dead and the body would be horribly mutilated. So what are we talking about here? Do Saudis hit like little girls? What?

[Zubair Islam]

Thank you, you silly Wahabi/Salafi people who refuse to follow the true tradition of Islam, by following the Four Schools of Sunni Fiqh/Shariah, instead you arrogant people interpret the Quran and Haddith literature yourselves.

This sort of thing never happened during the 900 years of Ottomon Rule, and the Ottomons made sure the Wahabi's were kept silent and weak.

It was the Wahabi's that went against the Ottomon Empire and signed a Treaty with the British against the Ottomons.

[No More Political Correctness in U.S.]

D CarliselI, sorry I overlooked your point. 45 lashes is not OK either, please read between the lines, c'mon, I'm not for brutality, but it seems like this generation of kids (not ALL kids)are out of control we all know that. My parents are members of the "Greatest Generation", they got spanked to point of what we consider today child abuse. Please hear what I'm saying, I don't advocate child abuse. But my dad & uncles and their friends and my mom and aunts where upstanding honerable people who had RESPECT for their elders and respect for one another. Yes there was conflict, yes there was diagreement, but I never ever heard them disrespacting my grandparents or saying F... you to one another, lets get this right. The pendulum has swung the other way.

[No More Political Correctness in U.S.]

Jason Dean, I hear what you're saying, I'm not for government having this kind of power, I'm for parents having the power, but polical correctness and hyper-sensitivity has tied the hands of the people to chastise and correct their children. I lived in Seattle, and I knew too many of those brilliant progressive college degreed intellects that treat their kids with "compassion" and "kindness" and everyone and I mean everyone I knew had kids that were either on meth, alcohol, or other drugs and the disrespect for their parents was appauling, the Boys looked like Kurt Cobane and the girls looked like Amy Winehouse and acted like big mouth Jeannie Garafalo, bad mouthing their country. This is how we want our kid to be?

[Ted Grainger]

I think it's a good idea (although it doesn't go far enough), and we should adopt similar practices in this country.

Do you think the hooligans and snooty little princesses who run (and ruin) U.S. public schools would change their foul behavior if the consequences including a public bare-butt whipping? I do.

Too bad we're not even supposed to properly spank our kids in the privacy of our own homes anymore, according to today's child-rearing "experts."

A good bare-hiney roasting is just what that little brat in Saudi Arabia deserves, but she'll probably get off easy with a "symbolic" flogging over her burka. So don't cry for her.

[Jason Dean]

You people suggesting that, yeah sure it's extreme but I bet kids don't mouth off over there are hopelessly naive among other things.

Also, even if it's true, is that an acceptable trade off? Is your ego so fragile that you need to be spared a mouthy kid at the price of this kind of brutality?

Those of you who are Americans make me sick. I'm sad to share a country and a heritage with people who think it is ok for a government to have this much power over its people.

[D CarliselI]

In regards to the comment by:

No More Political Correctness in U.S.

You suggest 90 lashes is too extreme...so does that imply that 45 lashes would be acceptable then?

I have 6 children and I have never laid a hand on one of them. None of my children have ever raised their voice to me or my husband much less cursed at us. Two of my children are in college, 2 in high school, and 2 in grade school. My children learned to respect themselves, their peers, and their elders because that was the example that my husband and I set for them. The implementation of public floggings for American children is not the answer to disobedience. Children learn what they live. Perhaps it's time to stop blaming the kids and start looking at their role models. And FYI-there are MANY things that people don't do "in that part of the world". For example, in Saudi Arabia if you were caught stating an opinion in a public forum in support of a court ruling made in the United States, you'd be lucky to get off with 90 lashes. And if you think the ways of Saudi Arabia are so favorable, then I encourage you to go build your life there. Your statements are ignorant. I pray to God you don't have children.

[Tony Somera]

Even before reading the previous posts I was having trouble working up much sympathy for the girl. Those lashes have always been pretty half-hearted in videos of similar events. But if these previous posts are correct, this story is yet another sham being imposed on us hapless mainstream readers.

[No More Political Correctness in U.S.]

We need some of that in our country. American children has steamrolled over schools and parents. Pop culture has taught our girls to be little porn stars while our boys are becoming more and more like disrespectfull gangbangers. Yeah, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, 50cent and eminem are the rolll models of our kids. I know 90 lashes is too extreme but I bet girls don't call their mothers a b... or boys don't say f... you to their fathers in that part of world.

[mo]

actually what sultan said is true she is not 13 she is in her 20's .. she is in an illiteracy program .. here is the proof from the same paper that originally reported the story .. you can ask someone to translate it for you .. i am not saying that makes it ok that is a different discussion .. but just for the sake of accuracy you might want to edit your story based on this piece of information ..

http://www.alwatan.com.sa/news/newsdetail.asp?issueno=3404&id=133642&groupID=0

[sultan]

She is not 13, she is 20 years old.

and she was not slashes because the cell phone... she insulted the school teachers and said, I will kill you and she broke a heavy glass over the teacher head which kept her in the hospital for 5 days in very bad situation.

FYI, this girl caused 10s of problems to the school and other students and she was withdraw from the school for 1 year because of its troubles.

I live in the same city and I know the whole story behind it, The Daily Mail was not fare in this story at all.

[Muhammad Raza]

I just want to say that image is not from Saudi Arabia. I think that is from pakistan or india. The police in Saudi Arabia have a different uniform.

[B.Z. Burnbridge]

Our govt. is allowing this to go on, these close friends of the Bush regime & oil companies.

"Key International Actors:
Saudi Arabia is a key ally of the United States and the United Kingdom. US pressure for human rights improvements was imperceptible. UK efforts through the Two Kingdoms Dialogue to protect human rights had no tangible effect, if such efforts were made at all." --- HRW.org

http://Bombshelter.org