In Qatar The Price You Pay For Drunk Driving Resulting In The Murder Of 3 People Is Negligible

At least, if you are Shafi Ali. A Qatari National was just sentenced in absentia (meaning he skipped the country between the time of the offense and his sentencing) to only 9 months in prison (6 for drinking and 3 for the traffic violation). He and his insurance company will split up the blood money to be paid (from the Gulf-Times):

Shafi Ali, a Qatari national in his 20s, had 13 previous convictions, including six alcohol-related incidents, bounced cheques and an escape from legal detention.The judge noted that he had been lashed and jailed for the previous offences – none of which had served as any future deterrent.

The fatal accident occurred on May 4 last year after Ali drove from his home in Manaseer to a car wash in Waab. He admitted to police that he had been drinking beer at home before he left, and as he approached a set of traffic lights close to the Hyatt Plaza, they changed to red and he kept on driving – causing an on-coming vehicle to swerve into the car carrying the three victims. Medical tests proved he was drunk. Ali suffered only slight injuries in the accident. A 26-year-old pregnant woman, her 35-year-old friend and their 23-year-old driver all died.

I don’t get it. How can someone with this kind of record be out on bail to begin with so he can skip the country? Well, actually I do get it…. I wonder if he’ll return now that he knows that the 3 lives he so callously took are only worth a total of 9 months.

I’m utterly disgusted.

P-ewwwww!

The ramifications of Safa’s hubbex’ actions are still being felt by the cuckolded husband of MM and this is turning into a stink-fest (excerpted from The Star where you can read the full article):

When Boutaya read Rigby’s story in the Star a week ago, he realized he was reading the story of his own life. Ismail hadn’t sought a widow, a divorcee, or a woman in need of financial or emotional support when he married Boutaya’s wife –conditions that would justify polygamous unions under Islam. Instead, he married a woman who wasn’t even legally divorced yet. Just a month earlier, Boutaya and his wife had filed for separation in family court.

“This is not Islamic. Nothing about this marriage was Islamic,” said Boutaya, who now has sole custody of his two children. “They used Islam to hide their affair.”

Boutaya said he is shocked a religious man like Aly Hindy, the imam at Salahuddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, would support such a marriage.

“What he has done has destroyed two families,” said Boutaya. “Why does he still have the licence to marry people?”

Officials with the registrar general’s office investigated Hindy last year, when Boutaya brought this case to their attention, but were unable to prove the allegations.

And there’s more:

More than two years after his wife left him, Boutaya remembers every detail of the moment of revelation he has relived in his mind many times since. The former civil servant came home early from a job-hunting trip to Ottawa to surprise his wife and two children, picking up a cake on his way. When he arrived, he found Ismail sitting at the dinner table, eating comfortably, as if he was in his own home.

“I asked him, `What are you doing here, my friend? You should not be here alone with my wife when I am not here,’” said Boutaya.

“What’s the problem?” Boutaya said Ismail replied. “She is my wife.”

This is the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about — until it happens tp you. Hats off to all those who are coming out of the closet and exposing this farce for what it is.

It’s Not Enough That They Are Underpaid, Overworked, And Have Horrendous Living Conditions

Now the poor laborers in Qatar have to worry about having their labor camp set on fire because some landlord decides he wants them off his property. Rather than go to the court he decides to burn them out. From The Peninsula:

DOHA • A criminal court here has sentenced a national to a year in jail for putting a house he owned on fire to oust tenants. The house near Madinat Khalifa was rented out to a company which was using it as a labour camp. The convict had been asking the company to vacate the premises but the latter refused to oblige. Interestingly, the convict was just out of prison having served a three-year term for drug peddling. The man was so upset with the refusal of the company to vacate the house that he decided to take the law into his hands. 

It was winter and one day early in the morning, he drove to the place breaking the main gate of the compound of the house open. He later broke into the house, shattering glass panes of some windows. The labourers were fast asleep inside since it was 2am. They were, however, woken up by the loud noise, but before they could realize what was happening, the intruder put some blankets lying around in an inside room on fire.

He then began quarreling with the workers. They panicked and called in the police. A police party soon arrived on the scene and prevented the man from causing further damage to the property. He was taken into custody and his car, which was lying outside having been deliberately run into the main gate, was seized by the cops as a piece of evidence.

During interrogation, the desperate property owner told the police he was just out of jail having served a three-year sentence for drug peddling. “This house belongs to me. It is rented out to a company which is using it as a labour lodging. I asked the company to vacate it but its officials refused,” he said. He, however, confessed to having intruded into the house and caused severe damage. The court headed by Judge Salah Al Sharif took a serious note of the offence and sentenced him to a year in jail.

There was an easy way out of this. It is illegal to put a labor camp in a residential area. I know because I used to live in a residential area that had an illegal labor camp next door. The poor men were kept in abhorent conditions with about 25-30 men living in a one story house that couldn’t have had more than 3 rooms. I complained to my landlord for their sake but he said that if we filed a case against their landlord, they might get sent back home because their company wouldn’t want to pay more for a suitable property.

Personally, I don’t find one year in jail a very serious sentence for trying to burn people out of their housing….

Sectarian Injustice In The Magic Kingdom?

In an article entitled The Crime of Qatif Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi have expounded on what I alluded to earlier in discussions about the Qatif rape victim:

The rape took place a year and a half ago. Although much has been said and written outside Saudi Arabia about the case, few foreigners have noticed the cultural and sectarian background of these crimes. Qatif is a center of the large Shia minority in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and the victim herself was Shia. Her attackers were Sunnis. The so-called religious police or mutawiyin, who are brutal in any case, were also acting here in support of Sunni domination over Shias in Qatif.

Al-Lahem [the victim's lawyer] has correctly denounced the whipping of his client as a violation of Islamic legal precedent. But the court decision illuminates three injustices prevalent in Saudi Arabia:

Discrimination against women.

Discrimination against Shia Muslims and other religious minorities.

Arbitrary procedures in the Saudi legal system.

A Shia woman suffers further in such a case, because it is likely the aggressors in the incident, aware of her minority identity, knew that they could act with relative impunity, as a crime against a Saudi Shia will not be considered as grave as the same crime perpetrated against a Sunni victim.

Sure sounds like a hat-trick for the misogynist, repressive Saudi legal system. But on another note, it also may signal the death throes of a woefully backward judicial system:

The attention to the crime of Qatif has had some salutary effects. First, Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, who is believed to be aligned with King Abdullah in seeking reforms that would make the country more respected, criticized the sentence against the rape victim, on Monday, November 26, as a “bad judgment.” Second, also on Monday, White House spokesman Dana Perino condemned the Saudi court action in sharp language that is all too rare in Washington when it comes to atrocious official acts in Saudi Arabia. “I don’t think it matters if you’re a female or a male. I think that the situation is very discouraging and outrageous,” Perino said. “There is an appeals process, and we hope that the verdict changes. It is certainly not consistent with the judicial reforms that the Saudis have said that they would undertake.” Third, her courageous lawyer’s outspokenness is a hopeful sign. Al-Lahem was quoted in the Washington Post on Thanksgiving: “That verdict signals the death throes of the judiciary’s old guard. They can see the end is near I saw that the overkill in that verdict was a sign of desperation.” Regarding his suspension from the bar, Al-Lahem said, “I will have time to document the details of the last five years. They have changed the social and judicial history of Saudi Arabia.”

Will there be fireworks in the Magic Kingdom? One can only hope and pray.

Update: Qatif

This is from Arab News:

JEDDAH, 27 November 2007 — The lawyer for a victim of kidnapping and rape who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison said yesterday he would file a complaint that states the Ministry of Justice defamed his client. The defamation suit would be filed through the Ministry of Culture and Information because the defamation of his client occurred through a statement the Ministry of Justice issued through the Saudi Press Agency on Saturday. The lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, is disputing claims made by the ministry, including that his 19-year-old client had confessed to the moral crime of having an “illegal affair” with an unrelated man.

Arab News has made several attempts to get the Justice Ministry’s reply to this case, but since the ministry doesn’t have an official spokesperson all media requests are submitted by fax. Replies, if they come, take weeks, making it difficult to get the ministry’s response to breaking news. A fax with questions regarding the case was sent to the ministry’s Public Relations Department last week requesting a reply by today due to the urgency of the case.

On Sunday, Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, a former judge and current member of the Saudi Fatwa Committee (responsible for issuing religious edicts), represented the ministry on a program aired on Lebanon’s LBC network. Al-Lahem faced off with the sheikh as the two debated the course of this case. The victim’s husband also called in and confronted the sheikh. (The victim and her husband have signed a marriage contract but have never lived together because they have not had a public wedding yet, which is the final step of marriage under Saudi custom that allows them to live together.) The lawyer and the husband reject claims by the ministry that the young woman had confessed to her moral crime. They said the judges were using witness testimony by the men who were found guilty of abducting and gang-raping not only the woman but the man she was with at the time. “The ministry’s official statement, concerning the girl, was cited directly from the assaulters’ testimony,” Al-Lahem said during the program on Sunday.

On Saturday the Ministry of Justice said the basis of the decision to punish the woman was because she had arranged to meet the man to “exchange forbidden affairs through illegal khalwa … they both confessed to doing what God forbids.”

“All she said during the police investigation and her only testimony in front of the judges was that she went to meet that guy to get back the pictures with which he was blackmailing her,” the woman’s husband told Arab News. “It’s obvious now that they published this because they wanted the husband to feel ashamed and shut up.”

Al-Lahem said because this is a defamation complaint, the Ministry of Culture and Information would receive his objection in accordance with a royal decree that assigns media disputes to that ministry.

The local Arabic press has marginalized the story and have published only the ministry statements verbatim. One headline declared “Ministry Reveals Qatif Story” while some newspapers headlines have called the rape victim an “adulteress.”

Avoiding the words “rape” or “adultery”, Sheikh Al-Obeikan blamed the girl for “what has happened” and underscored the court’s belief that she committed a crime of illegal affair and “stained the matrimonial bed” and thus deserved the punishment she received.

At that point Al-Lahem interrupted and objected to the ambiguous language being used by the sheikh. “What illegal affair are you accusing her of? Khalwa is a minor crime in Shariah,” said Al-Lahem.

Sheikh Al-Obeikan repeated what was said in Saturday’s ministry statement: “Doing what God forbids.”

“Are you accusing her of adultery?” asked Al-Lahem.

Al-Obeikan: “We all know what forbidden act. The ministry does not want to announce that word.”

Meanwhile, Al-Lahem has not yet received a copy of the verdict from the court as required for the appeals process to go to the Court of Cassation. The husband was scheduled to receive the documents on Saturday.

“I went to the court on Saturday, but they told me (the document) is not ready and I can get it after a week,” said the rape victim’s husband, who added that throughout this last trial he has not received any documentation regarding his wife’s case: “Not even a copy of the police investigation records.”

Apart from all that is happening in this case, the victim of kidnapping and gang rape is recuperating with her family in deep distress after last week’s sentence, according to a source close to the case. The young woman, who was an 11th-grade student at the time of the rape, had dropped out of school because of the distress. Her family has not told her about the latest developments in the case to avoid further distress.

Please note I am not taking sides but some of this contradicts some of what Abu Sinan has stated through anecdotal accounts from his wife’s family. I do think the lawyer has a lot at stake if he supports his client lying, so I tend to believe him.

In the Process of Trying To Clean the Mud off Themselves, Saudi Ministry of Injustice Flings a Lot of It on the Qatif Victim

According to the Arab News:

The Ministry of Justice issued a statement yesterday providing more details regarding the charges against a 19-year-old woman who was gang-raped by seven men in Qatif. The statement, which the ministry says is a response to media scrutiny of the ruling, said that the rape victim confessed to having an illegal affair with the man who was caught with her.

“She went out with him without a mahram, a legal guardian, and exchanged forbidden affairs through the illegal khalwa,” the statement said. “They both confessed to doing what God forbids.”

The ministry said: “The first verdict of 90 lashes was made according to Shariah. The woman and her husband were convinced and agreed to it on 10/10/1427.”

The statement refers to the first sentence issued by the Qatif General Court before the Higher Court of Justice increased the sentence last week to 200 lashes and six months in prison. The statement went on to accuse the woman and the man of causing the crime.

“They are the main cause of what happened, the woman and her companion, as they exposed themselves to this horrible crime and violated the rule of Shariah,” the statement said. “That’s why the sentences were increased for everyone due to the dangerous nature of the crime.”

The ministry also claimed that the woman violated the sanctity of marriage. “She knows that ‘khalwa’ with an unrelated man is forbidden by Shariah and by doing this she has broken the sacred matrimonial contract,” the statement said. “The woman mentioned in her signed confession that she called from her husband’s house using her cell phone asking for a forbidden ‘khalwa’ in front of a shopping center,” the statement said.

The matrimonial contract that the ministry refers to is known as “qiran”. In Saudi Arabia the “qiran” is viewed as a contract of betrothal, similar to marriage except that the woman and man must live with their families until they come out to society with an official wedding ceremony. Arab News learned yesterday that the rape victim and her betrothed had signed a “qiran” contract; they have never lived together as husband and wife.

The sentence of the two rape victims is based on the Saudi interpretation of “khalwa”, the principle that an unrelated man and woman cannot be in seclusion together. The interpretation of “khalwa” under Saudi law — which judges say is the proper interpretation of the Sunnah — includes unrelated men and women being together even in public. The judicial interpretation of “khalwa” in Saudi Arabia also includes an unrelated man and woman inside a vehicle.

The ministry claimed the woman was “in a state of indecency, having thrown off her clothes” and the two were abducted in a “dark side of the (Qatif) corniche” by the attackers after they saw the couple in this alleged state of indecency. The woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, had said in a previous interview with Arab News that the police investigation records states that the two victims were abducted in a public place, in front of a shopping mall.

The statement claimed that the two victims of the gang rape hid the incident for three months until an e-mail was sent to the woman’s betrothed “informing him what happened to his wife, and her betrayal.” A source close to the case that wishes to remain anonymous told Arab News that no e-mail was sent and that the woman’s betrothed didn’t find out about the crime until he was told by his friends that the rapists were bragging about the crime in the small community of Qatif.

At the end of its statement, the Ministry of Justice directly addressed the media scrutiny of the case. “Any judicial sentence in any case is not made until the judges have proof hearing from all parties, and all needed details, investigations and confessions,” said the statement. “We are sorry that some media have been circulating news about the woman’s role in the case, stirring up wrong information and wrongfully defending the woman, which has raised doubts on the course of the case.”

Does this even slightly smell to any of you? I detect the distinct odor of red herring here….

In Her Own Words: The Woman from Qatif

Raped by Kathe Kollwitz (1907)

From ABC News:

In a December 2006 interview in Khobar, Saudi Arabia the woman gave a full account of her testimony to Human Rights Watch, describing the incident as she did before the court. She was meeting a male acquaintance, a former boyfriend, when the attack took place.

“I [was] 19 years old. I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship. Because of the threats and fear, I agreed to give him a photo of myself,” she recounted.

“A few months [later], I asked him for the photo back but he refused. I had gotten married to another man. He said, ‘I’ll give you the photo on the condition that you come out with me in my car.’ I told him we could meet at a souk [market[ near my neighborhood city plaza in Qatif.

"He started to drive me home. …We were 15 minutes from my house. I told him that I was afraid and that he should speed up. We were about to turn the corner to my house when they [another car] stopped right in front of our car. Two people got out of their car and stood on either side of our car. They man on my side had a knife. They tried to open our door. I told the individual with me not to open the door, but he did. He let them come in. I screamed.

“One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I didn’t see anything since my head was forced down.”

“They took us to an area … with lots of palm trees. No one was there. If you kill someone there, no one would know about it. They took out the man with me, and I stayed in the car. I was so afraid. They forced me out of the car. They pushed me really hard … took me to a dark place. Then two men came in. They said, ‘What are you going to do? Take off your abaya.’ They forced my clothes off. The first man with the knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don’t even know where I would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn’t. [Another] man … came in and did the same thing to me. I didn’t even feel anything after that.

“I spent two hours begging them to take me home. I told them that it was late and that my family would be asking about me. Then I saw a third man come into the room. There was a lot of violence. After the third man came in, a fourth came. He slapped me and tried to choke me.

“The fifth and sixth ones were the most abusive. After the seventh one, I couldn’t feel my body anymore. I didn’t know what to do. Then a very fat man came on top of me and I could no longer breathe.

“Then all seven came back and raped me again. Then they took me home. … When I got out of the car, I couldn’t even walk. I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door. She said you look tired.’ I didn’t eat for one week after that, just water. I didn’t tell anyone. I went to the hospital the next day.

“The criminals started talking about it [the rape] in my neighborhood. They thought my husband would divorce me. They wanted to ruin my reputation. Slowly my husband started to know what had happened. Four months later, we started a case. My family heard about the case. My brother hit me and tried to kill me.”

Ya Allah! And on top of it all her idiotic brother wants to punish her more, no doubt for his “honor”.

I am sickened.

So Much I Want To Say

From Darat Al Funun in Amman, Jordan, Lebanese artist Mona Hatoum strikes a nerve:

So Much I Want to Say was recorded as a satellite transmission of a slowscan exchange between Vancouver and Vienna in 1983. A voice repeats the title line at regular and consistent speed, while the image on screen, of a woman’s face being gagged by a man’s hands, freezes still and then updates in a top-to-bottom sweep every eight seconds. The delay between sound and image reinforces the work’s strong sense of dislocation, of communication breaking down, failing to connect, or getting stuck in the throat, the words too numerous or overwhelming to ever be fully expressed.

And across the divide women are rising to the challenge to inspire justice in the case of the Saudi rape victim sentenced to lashing. In the Arab News Abeer Mishkhas writes:

The case of what has come to be called the Qatif girl is the talk of the media in Saudi and abroad; it is full of issues that we need to examine closely. To begin with, it raises questions about the country’s legal system, the fear of the power of the media and the secrecy that courts prefer to shroud cases in. There is also the social ruling against the girl, which is another important issue that has to be thoroughly looked into.

To put it bluntly, the picture that emerges is that justice is absent from so many court cases in our country. This girl’s case and the way it has gone shows us that the verdict was reached from day one. With no regard for evidence. The verdict was a given and that was that; any proceedings happening afterwards seem to have been only a formality. Otherwise, what possible explanation is there for the increased sentences after the first ruling? And how can we come to grips with the possibility that yet another increase in the sentence is just around the corner merely because she refuses to accept the second one?

The Minister of Justice has commented that people who have a problem with any ruling should appeal, instead of “stirring up agitation through the media that may not be objective and cannot grant anyone any right as much as it can negatively affect the other parties involved in the case.”

I beg to differ with the minister here, because as citizens in this country, we have the right to voice concerns about a case that could apply to any Saudi woman. Not everyone can go to the court and appeal. Add to this that these trials are not accessible to the public which makes it the role of the press to discuss the issues — and if the ministry finds the coverage “emotional” and “not objective,” then there is enough space in the same papers for official statements explaining the misunderstood implications of such rulings.

The ruling in this case, and the minister’s statement, obviously say much about the relationship between official bodies and the media. According to those bodies, the media people are ignorant of the facts, inciters of public anger, and naturally emotional. So the solution in this instance is that the media stop covering such cases, and let society enjoy its peaceful — and ignorant — sleep. Unreported or hidden facts do not hurt anyone or so they like to think.

The media, according to the judges, were also to blame. The girl was actually sentenced to extra lashes for going to the media with her story, and her lawyer got his share of blame and actual punishment for talking to newspapers about the case. The girl was also punished for something that is not actually a crime. She was out with a male friend in front of a shopping center so it was in a public space — not a secluded private one — and there were passers-by and shoppers all around. The mere implication that she brought this on herself by being out with a stranger only rubs salt into the wound. Basically, what those judges are saying to the girl is “You deserve what happened to you!” which is a very cruel and unjust way to think.

To say that for being in a public street with a man she deserved to be raped 14 times is simply beyond belief. But even if, for the sake of argument, we allow this comment to pass, how could it apply to other cases of rape in the Kingdom? We have simple questions to put to those judges: Were all the rape victims in other cases out with strange men? What about boys who are raped in similar circumstances? Boys do not have to stay at home nor do they need a chaperone. If they are raped, will those judges say to them “You deserved this”? And what about the girl’s companion in this case who was also raped?

To add to all of the above, we know that the girl’s husband has supported her throughout her ordeal and this says volumes about who has the right to be upset about her meeting another man. Does anybody care to respond to what I have asked? Maybe because I am from the media my comments will be taken as the “emotional stirring of agitation.”

You can contact the author at abeermishkhas@arabnews.com

One Face of Justice. Are There More Out There?

The latest according to the Arab News:

JEDDAH: The lawyer representing a Saudi rape victim in Qatif has criticized the second ruling issued by the Kingdom’s Higher Court of Justice doubling the woman’s punishment to 200 lashes and six months in jail, saying that the ruling “sums up the major problems that the Saudi judiciary faces.”

Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, 36, also criticized the General Court in Qatif for confiscating his license to practice law. On Wednesday the Qatif General Court announced the Higher Court of Justice’s verdict. Al-Lahem had previously asked the Ministry of Justice and the Human Rights Commission to review the first ruling issued by the General Court in Qatif, which had ordered the rape victim be given 90 lashes.

“Basic Islamic law states that an appeal shall not harm the person appealing,” said Al-Lahem, adding that lodging an appeal is the right of anyone accused of a crime and something crucial for a just trial. “Once this rule is ignored, then people who appeal verdicts are only left terrorized. From now on people will be apprehensive to appeal fearing they might be punished or have their sentences doubled. That’s exactly what’s happened to the rape victim, who only wanted justice,” he said.

The lawyer said that the Higher Court claimed that the woman being with a non-related male in the first place was the reason behind her rape. According to Saudi law, non-related men and women are not permitted to meet in private, a concept known as “khalwa.”

“This does not make sense at all,” said the lawyer, referring to the Higher Court ruling. “The police investigation records clearly state that the girl was with a non-related male friend in a public place when they were both abducted and later raped. This no doubt clears the girl from accusations that she was in khalwa,” he said.

The victim had met her friend to receive some photos of her that he had taken from a relationship with her when she was 16. She contends that the man had initially threatened to distribute the pictures to shame her. “The picture was even given to the police after that. We were hoping that the Higher Court would take all that into consideration when issuing its verdict, but unfortunately none of that happened,” said Al-Lahem.

Speaking about the revocation of his law license, Al-Lahem said that when he entered the General Court in Qatif he was asked to leave by Judge Saad Al-Mohanna, who said, “Get it back (the license) from the Ministry of Justice in Riyadh.” He also added that Al-Lahem was “arguing with falsity.”

“I did not say anything at all. All that I said was Assalamu alaykum and that’s it. I have human rights activist Fawziya Al-Oyoni, the girl and her husband as my witnesses,” said Al-Lahem. Incidentally, Al-Oyoni was also asked to leave the courtroom.

“The Saudi judicial system states clearly that such cases have to take place in public. That only shows that the judges underestimate the Kingdom’s legislation, which is in place to protect the rights of citizens,” he said.

Al-Lahem said that he has never disobeyed court orders. He recalled that last Ramadan when the Qatif General Court received from the Higher Court of Justice the second verdict, Judge Al-Mohanna insisted the girl be present to hear the verdict herself, in spite of the presence of the girl’s seven attackers.

“I told Sheikh Saad Al-Mohanna that according to Saudi legislation lawyers have the right to represent their clients even if they are absent unless the case involves a major crime like murder. It’s obvious that this is not the case here. I told him I would never allow my client to attend any hearing while her rapists are there,” he said.

“She is a rape victim, she is still suffering. That’s totally inhumane. Plus the hearing was not to take more testimonies but was only meant to announce the new verdict,” said Al-Lahem, adding that the judge said that the legislation does not apply here and postponed the hearing.

Al-Lahem said denying him his right to practice law at this sensitive time is a denial of his client from the right of having a defense. “Asking me to appear in front of a disciplinary committee at the Ministry of Justice on Dec. 5 is a punishment for taking human rights cases against some institutions that over time have gained some sort of immunity from questioning,” said Al-Lahem, referring to a recent case lodged by him, on behalf of a Saudi woman, against the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

He added that the law is clear that lawyers are not to be stopped from practicing without first being handed an official warning. “None of that happened,” he said.

“I’m still hopeful in Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s reforms that are taking place right now. We have to hope for a better future,” he said, adding that he is determined to submit a list of objections to the Cassation Court.

Qatif General Court declined to comment and said protocol demands that all press queries are handled by the Ministry of Justice in Riyadh, which is closed until Monday like all government offices due to the OPEC summit.

I have decided to make it a point to regularly highlight those fellow Muslims who are working for justice in the Muslim world. In that way this blog will not only raise the call among Muslims in regard to the problems that we are facing but also help to record the efforts made to respond to them. If you come across news items that you think will interest me please consider forwarding them to me.

Your Shariah Working for You: Plucked from the Headlines

From the Gulf News:

JEDDAH: An Egyptian man accused of practicing “sorcery” was executed in Saudi Arabia on Friday. The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that evidence of witchcraft such as books on black magic, a candle with an spell “to summon devils” and “foul-smelling herbs” had been discovered in the man’s house. The Egyptian was reported by a neighbour, who said he was using magic to try and separate him from his wife. SPA reported that the man had ‘confessed to adultery with a woman’ and had desecrated the holy Koran by placing it in the bathroom. Human rights activists have condemned the execution.

“This is a sad day for justice in Saudi Arabia. This execution is a clear indicator of the medieval character of the Saudi judicial system,” said Ali Al Ahmed, a Washington-based rights activist of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite Muslim minority. Executions are usually carried out in public and people are beheaded with a sword for murder, rape, drug smuggling and armed robbery.

From the Gulf Times:

DOHA: A 26-year-old Qatari woman has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment after she was found guilty of beating her Sri Lankan maid to death. The 24-year-old maid, who came to Qatar two months before her death, was admitted to the hospital on October 26, 2005 with severe injuries and succumbed to her wounds in the hospital three days later. The court also ordered the convict to pay QR150,000 to the family of the deceased as blood money.

According to Article 306 of the Qatar Criminal Code 11/2004, an attacker can be given a maximum of 10 years in jail for “causing death without the intention of killing” the victim. But if the family of the victim agrees to accept blood money, the maximum jail term will be three years. “Considering the gruesome nature of the crime, the court has decided to give the accused the maximum penalty so as to serve it as a deterrent to others,” the presiding judge, Abdullah bin Mahmoud al-Omar, said.

According to court sources, the convict has challenged the verdict in an upper court. During the hearing of the case, an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department told the judge that the accused had confessed to attacking the maid with her hands “on several parts of her body to teach her a lesson because she was lazy and non-obedient”. The Public Prosecution said the accused also told them that the maid was “unclean and used to dress indecently in front of her husband” and therefore she used to beat her up. She denied using any weapon to attack the victim.

“The accused said that she pushed the maid against the wall repeatedly after discovering a local telephone number on her person.” According to the prosecution, after finding the maid lying on the toilet floor, the accused informed her husband. Since he could not come home because he was on duty, his sister called the ambulance which took the victim with multiple fractures to the hospital. The investigating officials later learnt that the maid was isolated from the outside world by her employers. She was once in a while sent to a nearby grocery, they said.

An Indonesian housemaid who worked for the sponsor’s neighbour told the police that she once saw the accused ramming the maid against the front door. Though the Indonesian left Qatar before she was summoned as a witness, the court admitted as evidence her statements made before the public prosecution. The court said the confessions of the accused were recorded in reasonable conditions and “without any coercion”. “It is clear that her gruesome behaviour was the direct reason for the death of the victim,” the judge said in his verdict.