Man gets 90 lashes, 4 years in prison - for kissing woman in mall

[Prometheus Bound]

Man gets 90 lashes, 4 years in prison - for kissing woman in mall
BY Paulina Reso
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Thursday, June 10th 2010, 1:53 PM

Locked up for lip locking?

A Saudi court sentenced a young man to four months in prison and 90 lashes for kissing a woman in a mall, government-run daily Al-Yom reported on Thursday.

The Saudi religious police cuffed the man, his "accomplice" and a woman with them after the trio were spotted on mall cameras "engaging in immoral movements in front of other shoppers," according to Al-Yom.

The man, who is in his 20s, was caught hugging and kissing one of the women, according to the police report. It has not yet been determined what the other woman was doing.

In accordance with the country’s strict enforcement of Islamic law, which calls for sex segregation, the man has been charged with three batches of 30 lashings and jail time. He will also be banned from the mall for two years.

His not-so-lucky lady has yet to be tried in another court.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/10/2010-06-10_saudi_court_sentences_man_to_four_years_in_prison_90_lashes_for_kissing_woman_in.html



Saudi and foreign Muslims eat fast food inside a shopping mall in the holy Muslim city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Man gets jail, 90 lashes for kiss in Saudi Arabia mall

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi court convicted a man and sentenced him to four months in prison and 90 lashes for kissing a woman in a mall, a government-owned daily reported Thursday.

Saudi religious police arrested the man and two women after seeing them on mall cameras "engaging in immoral movements in front of other shoppers," the Al-Yom newspaper said.

The man, who is in his 20s, was seen with a woman "sitting on one of the chairs, exchanging kisses and hugs." It was unclear what the other woman was doing. Neither the man nor the women were identified by name.

The kingdom's powerful religious police, under the control of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, enforce Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam, which prohibits unrelated men and women from mingling.

Zealous officers routinely jail unrelated couples found sitting together in restaurants or coffee shops.

The policemen also patrol public places to ensure women are covered and not wearing makeup; shops are forced in most places to close several times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

Such kissing busts have increased as economic pressures have made it harder for young couples to marry and as the ultraconservative kingdom grapples with a push to relax its strict social mores.

Young men often must pay more than $50,000 in dowry and gold before their brides' families will accept marriage -- a huge burden in a country where economists put male unemployment at over 20 per cent.

More: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20100610/jail-kiss-saudi-arabia-100610/

Also at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Kiss-at-mall-gets-Saudi-jail-and-90-lashes/articleshow/6034836.cms

http://www.bnd.com/2010/06/10/1288081/saudi-convicts-young-man-for-kissing.html

http://english.pravda.ru/news/society/11-06-2010/113771-kiss-0

[Hannah Bell]

1. And in the enlightened US, we put children in prison. heal thyself, physician.

Across the United States, thousands of children have been sentenced as adults and sent to adult prisons. Over 2200 juveniles nationwide have been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Children as young as 13 years old have been tried as adults and sentenced to die in prison, typically without any consideration of their age or circumstances of the offense.

http://www.eji.org/eji/childrenprison


oh, the horrible muslims!

[JI7]

5. what did those children 13 and older do ? kiss a girl ?

[Fumesucker]

8. Maybe they had a common weed growing in their yard..

That's enough to get you in a hell of a lot of trouble in "the land of the free"..

[JI7]

9. i agree with that , but i don't think any children have been sent to die for that

[Hannah Bell]

14. "condemned to death in prison" = life without parole. and yes, there are kids in prison for

non-violent & non-homicide offenses. until the recent sc decision, without possibility of parole.


The report, The Rest of Their Lives: Life Without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States, also finds that:

•A survey found that 59% of the convictions were for first time offenders.
•Black children are sentenced to LWOP ten times more often than white children.
•An estimated 26% of child offenders were convicted of "felony murder", which holds thatanyone involved in the commission of a serious crime during which someone is killed is also guilty of murder, even if he or she did not personally or directly cause the death.
•The 26 states with mandatory LWOP sentencing account for the overwhelming majority of child LWOP cases.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/child-life-without-parole/page.do?id=1102094

They're in prison with adults.

and the states with the greatest racial disparities aren't in the south, but in the north: california, pennsylvania, connecticut, wisconsin, nebraska & delaware

[Hannah Bell]

12. EJI has documented 73 cases where children 14 years of age or younger have been condemned to death

in prison. Almost all of these kids currently lack legal representation and in most of these cases the propriety and constitutionality of their extreme sentences has never been reviewed.

Most of the sentences imposed on these children were mandatory: the court could not give any consideration to the child’s age or life history.

Some of the crimes charged against these children do not involve homicide or even injury. Many of these children were convicted for offenses where older teenagers or adults were involved and primarily responsible for the crime. Nearly two-thirds of these adolescents are children of color.

http://www.eji.org/eji/childrenprison

[Obamanaut]

6. self delete

[Prometheus Bound]

7. To be fair, I don't see anything in the articles that implies Muslims are horrible.

[aquart]

10. Yes, and we forbid women to drive or go out without a brother or father.

The Saudis are saints who happen to be Muslims.

Not every Muslim is a Taliban although you are righteously defending the SAUDIS as though we claim all Muslims to be fanatic assholes.

The Saudis are fanatic assholes and they bred murderers who happily killed thousands of Americans for which they received no punishment of any kind.

Saints they are. You go defend them.

[Hannah Bell]

13. "who happily killed thousands of Americans"

and the us bred murderers who happily killed hundreds of thousands of iraqis, afghanis, pakistanis, africans, etc.

like americans have any, any, high moral ground *at all* from which to judge anyone else.

the us kills more people than any country on earth at the present time.

you defend them.

[Toasterlad]

16. You Should Go to Prison For Hijacking This Thread.

[nomorenomore08]

21. I dunno... Moral equivalency is a tricky thing, and perhaps, a slippery slope, but I do think

we Americans tend to be a bit too pat-ourselves-on-the-back when stories like this come up. So maybe a reminder that our justice system often carries out punishments that many people elsewhere in the world would consider atrocities - and that's not even getting into the issue of average Joes wishing rape and torture on certain despised inmates - lends itself to a necessary humility on our part. :shrug:

[Toasterlad]

23. Pointing Out That a Country That Tortures and Jails Someone For a Kiss Is Fucked Up...

...does not equal "America rules!"

You can find fault with other countries' ridiculously oppressive, totally batshit insane religious laws without claiming that America treats everyone great. As a gay man, I'd be the first to tell you that America is NOT great. I'd also be the first to tell you that being a marginalized and victimized second-class citizen in the US is better than being dead in Saudi Arabia.

Not so tricky, not such a slippery slope.

[nomorenomore08]

24. I don't disagree with this post one bit.

I was simply speculating on Hannah Bell's intentions in "hijacking" the thread. :shrug:

[Toasterlad]

26. I Wouldn't Presume To Know Why Hannah Felt It Necessary to Point Out America's Faults...

...in a thread dealing with religious barbarism in Saudi Arabia.

I just find it inappropriate. There are dozens of threads on DU at the moment dealing with America's many, many faults. Why chose this one to rant about the American justice system?

[Aristus]

2. Ah yes, Saudi Arabia, our ally in the "War On Terra." Isn't it nice of them to help us

get rid of that scary ole bad mans Saddam Hussein?

If only he'd been more like the Saudis, we would have left him alone...

:sarcasm::eyes::sarcasm::eyes::sarcasm:

[left coaster]

3. "His not-so-lucky lady has yet to be tried in another court."

You already know her punishment will be far more brutal than his..

[JI7]

4. is that cinnabon ?

[Prometheus Bound]

11. I'm sorry, the headline is wrong. It was four months, not years.

I just cut and pasted without checking. I did wonder about the 2-year ban from the mall when he had a 4-year sentence though.

[no_hypocrisy]

15. Reminds me of a high school in Pennsylvania in the seventies . . . . . . .

[Chulanowa]

17. I saw the title, and I thought maybe I'd see a thread about India

Saudi Arabia was runner-up.

I guess Hindus and their insane fucking vice laws don't play so well to an American crowd.

[nomorenomore08]

20. "Hindu fanatic" just doesn't elicit the same Pavlovian response from Americans that "Muslim fanatic"

does. Not to say there aren't valid reasons for this disparity - 9/11, most obviously - but of course the news media knows what sells. So we won't be hearing nearly as much about the Indian couples punished for PDA.

[Hannah Bell]

28. precisely. the stream of stories like this serves a propaganda purpose;

not simply neutral reportage.

and (as is often the case), the headline is false; sentence was 4 months, not years.

[ladjf]

18. The $50,000 "gifts" to family sound like slave trade to me. nt

[burnsei sensei]

30. The slave trade is still

alive and well in many Muslim countries.
The religion of peace strikes again.

[stray cat]

19. Thats one place many in the US could go for their better life

since the US is such a fascist state :sarcasm:

[Hubert Flottz]

22. I've heard it called a lot of things but never a mall.

[Nye Bevan]

25. Gotta love that Strict Islamic Law

Kiss a woman in a mall = 90 lashes + prison.

Commit adultery = get stoned to death.

Perpetrate murderous terrorist attack on the US or Israel = unlimited sex with 72 virgins.

I guess the difference is that the sex with the 72 virgins takes place post-mortem. And not in a mall.

[Lucian]

27. And someone tell me again why religion is good?

[liquid diamond]

29. Not every aspect of it is bad. But keep cherry picking.