Posted on 03/20/2005 7:33:03 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
RIYADH— The case of a Saudi writer who was sentenced by a Shariah court in Riyadh to 275 lashes and four months imprisonment after being accused of being “corrupt” by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has returned to the Ministry of Culture and Information yesterday after the intervention of the ministry, Arab News has learned.
The case is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Ali Al-Mizeini, an Arabic language professor at King Saud University, was charged by the commission with allegedly questioning the religious institution’s abilities and knowledge in an article written by him in Al-Watan newspaper. The commission was represented in court by another professor at the university, Abdullah Al-Barak from the Islamic Culture Department.
The accusers demanded that Dr. Al-Mizeini be tried according to Shariah for his writings. Dr. Al-Mizeini was later summoned to a court hearing.
Dr. Al-Barak argued that his suit against Al-Mizeini was a private matter and that he relied on a regulation from the Ministry of Justice dated Oct. 16, 2004, after some persons complained about several articles published in the media. The regulation issued by the minister of justice states that “whatever offends Shariah or Islamic ethics or contradicts anything in the Qur’an or Sunnah (the Prophet’s sayings) or is an accusation of a person toward another which demands a religious punishment of lashes or imprisonment according to the nature of the crime is a matter that concerns public courts.”
The regulation continues: “Public courts or primary courts which are given cases that deal with offenses concerning moral issues or attacks on Shariah that demand religious punishment should not transfer it to other concerned lawful bodies to look into it”
Judge Suleiman Al-Fantooh of the Shariah court sentenced him to a four-month jail term and 275 lashes.
The judge’s ruling violates the Royal Decree No. 37 of the publication law in Saudi Arabia issued in November, 2000, which states that Shariah courts in the Kingdom should not intervene in trying journalists or writers and that all matters concerning the media and publications should be dealt with through the Ministry of Information.
The judge, however, ignored the law and proceeded with his ruling.
According to Al-Hayat newspaper, the Royal Court issued an order to form a committee comprising officials from the Ministry of Information to deal with matters that concern publication of articles in local newspapers and that all complaints concerning publications should be confined to the ministry alone.
The Arabic daily also said that the Ministry of Culture and Information called editors of Saudi dailies and informed them of the new Royal Court regulation by phone. It said that the ministry intended to send a telegram to the Ministry of Justice opposing the court ruling because it violates the publishing law announced by the government last week.
Al-Mizeini’s article angered many Islamists when he said that the method used by the Supreme Judiciary Council in determining the beginning of Ramadan and Eid was “primitive” that still relied on the naked eye’s vision of the moon at a time where the crescent can be determined by telescopes as well by Saudi astronomers who are experts in the field.
Meanwhile, another Saudi writer is being tried by a religious court in the Kingdom for criticizing the commission in another Saudi daily, Al-Jazirah.
Abdullah Al-Bikheit, the writer, published many articles in the daily criticizing the approach of the people who work for the commission. Arab News contacted the writer who revealed his story. “In the beginning, I got a call from the police department to appear in the station to deal with a case filed by a person I did not know,” he said.
“When I went there and asked who my opponent was, I was told that ‘it did not matter and that I will have to appear in court’ which I did,” he added.
“When I appeared before the judge, I found out that the case filed against me was not signed by a certain number of people...I asked the judge again who my opponent was, but he did not give me an answer. He told me that the Public Prosecutor wanted to intervene in the case. I replied that the case had no basis since it concerned publications and that the case was not within their purview.”
“The Sheikh from the Public Prosecution office later came, and I found myself yet dealing with another person. He told the judge that ‘we want to punish him if the charges against him are proven correct’”.
“I later found out that 80 percent of those who filed the case were members of the commission who were angered by my writings in the daily,” he said.
He said that the court has asked him to reappear on April 12.
Asked by Arab News if anyone from the Ministry of Information intervened to help him, Al-Bikheit said that he was sure that the media was closely following his case. He also said that Turki Al-Sudairi, the head of the Saudi Journalists Association, promised him that he would help. Al-Bikheit said that he has not sought the help of the National Society for Human Rights in the court hearing since he has already told the judge that the case is out of the court’s jurisdiction.
“However, if a ruling is made against me in the next hearing, I need not go to the human rights body to complain. I will go to our leaders to complain starting with King Fahd, then the Crown Prince,” he said.
Al-Bikheit said that he criticized the commission in the Saudi daily as “any other government body that has its shortcomings.” He said that he replied to the negative feedback to his articles in the letters to the editor column of the paper which did not “please the commission’s members”. He intends to publish a book with all the 17 articles he has published in Al-Jazirah.
Ping
Four months in jail after 275 lashes seems very optimistic that he will survive, but that's the beauty of sharia, all is the will of allah. Saudi Arabia hasn't progressed from the Code of Hammuribi, king of Baylon, seventeen hundred years BC.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM
You know you're stuff, Fred. Excellent viewpoint.
Some of the Laws of Hammurabi sound exactly like sharia, no surprise, mohammad never had an original thought, he just added his women-hatred to whatever else he plagiarised. Sharia is nothing but the enshrinement of barbarism, laws from more than 3500 years ago.
Well, but consider: aren't a few lashes properly due to Dan Rather, for isn't he likewise corrupt? I'd say there might be something to it.
This is the kind of bullsqueeze you get in a theocracy.
Now, who wants to let the far-right Christians run the show here?
No there's nothing likewise about it. Rather used forged documents to spread a lie...this fellow is trying to tell the truth in Saudi Arabia...but you were joking, right?
But but but...you do have a Constitution, don't you?
Rather would've been beheaded with a dull blade. I'm totally serious.
Hokey smokes! A telescope? 275 lashes ain't enough for a heretic like this - he oughta be burnt at the stake along with this Copernicus fella, whoever he is...
Yep, he's lucky we progressed from the Code of Hammurabi!
There are times when I think with nostalgia of the good old days when punishment fitted the crime...his head in stocks, splattered with rotten vegetables would be nice, or tar and feathering...keelhauling? Or that charming practice of throwing them into a river, if they sank they were guilty, if they floated, they survived.
Rather would be feeding the fishes...he would have sunk like the proverbial stone.
Brno.
"...accused of being 'corrupt' by members of the Commission..."
Now Hitler would have said "crimes against the state!" - "guilty!"
What's the difference?
There is no difference.
Sure....
But we have already seen how easy it is to subvert the Constitution.
I have neighbors that would like to give me 275 lashes for dancing with my wife, or drinking a cold beer.
Sorry, need to correct the spelling. Bruno.
Giordano Bruno.
I live in Australia, don't envy you your neighbours one bit! Strange people, who are they?
Now now, as much as I would like to make an exeption for Rather, think of it, the next time you tell a little fib, it's your tongue that might come out! Or you might be wrongly accused and then no one can put it back. LOL!
I live in the southern US state of Georgia, which is part of the "Bible Belt".
My neighbors are known as: Fire-eating, foot-stomping, on-fire-for-Christ Southern Baptists.
Don't get me wrong; I am a Christian, but I am firmly in the belief that our government should be secular and tempered by moral imperatives.
When you let one groups religious principles override the rights of others, you have a theocracy. Just look at Europe during the Inquision.
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