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.
The debate over the controversial practice of child marriage in Saudi Arabia was pushed back into the spotlight this week, with the kingdom’s top cleric saying that it’s OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.
“It is incorrect to say that it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. “A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she’s too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her.”
“… The judge required the girl’s husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.”
Wow. I grew up a liberal believing everyone should be treated equal, but should this apply to government and religion? Honestly, this is one of America’s ALLIES, how fucked up is the rest of the middle east?
David Anderson: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!After struggling for days to get OpenOffice to download and work on my Mac Mini, only to find that the official version only works on the Intel model...
Chile: Thanks for your advice Andre. I followed what you suggested and it appears that you were right. Since the IR sensor is deep purple itself I thought the IR filter was present already but no....
Murano Glass: My main browser is Firefox because I like the feature that they offer remembering the username and passwords that you have registered or key in the browser. The second best browser...
