Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry successfully convinced a Saudi court to overturn the death sentence of a Sri Lankan maid accused of adultery in Saudi Arabia. The accused woman, whose name has not been disclosed by Saudi and Sri Lankan officials, was involved in an affair with a Sri Lankan migrant worker, also living in Saudi Arabia.
The 45-year old married mother of two and the man in question had been found guilty in a Saudi court in April; while the Saudi court handed down a death-by-stoning sentence to the maid, her male counterpart was given a mere 100 lashes. However, after intensive lobbying by the Sri Lankan government, the court agreed to reopen the case.
The court claimed—according to a “Sharia” Law decree by the country’s clerics–that the reason behind the less severe punishment was because the man was unmarried, and therefore subject to a less severe punishment compared to a married woman and mother of two. Apparently, adultery for a married individual in Saudi Arabia merits a death sentence, whereas an unmarried culprit caught engaging in premarital sex receives 100 lashes.
However, in actual practice, male culprits are often spared punishment, even lashings, when caught engaging in premarital—or even extramarital—sex…..as long as the male is Saudi, and of a certain class. In a case that made international headlines, a group of Saudi males were accused of violently gang-raping a woman and were given minor custodial sentences, while their victim was severely punished for appearing in public without a male guardian. In this case, the man in question was an impoverished foreign worker, and Saudi Arabia’s atrocious record of migrant abuse is well-documented.
Of course, it’s no surprise that the Saudi government freely and openly engages in sexism and institutionalized racism while hiding behind the mask of Sharia law. This very punishment reveals the intersectional relationship between class and gender in the Saudi justice system, where a woman’s “sin” is prone to a harsher punishment than a man, and the male culprit’s sentence is influenced more by his class and ethnicity than the nature of the crime itself.
Saudi Arabia, one of the US government’s closest allies, commits human rights abuses daily, but is rarely held accountable by the international community. In fact, Saudi Arabia was granted the honor to serve as chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in September, even though they actually REFUSED to sign and ratify both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Refugee Convention. The irony and hypocrisy in this becomes clear for anyone who is aware of Saudi Arabia’s archaic punishments, arbitrary sentencing, and separate legal system for Saudi males and vulnerable minorities. As the current chair of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia’s position on executions has barely shifted. Instead, according to Amnesty International, the country has “executed more than 150 people this year, mostly by public beheading, the largest number of executions in 20 years”.
Harsha de Silva, Sri Lanka’s deputy foreign minister, expended a considerable amount of effort in raising pressure on the Saudi government to overturn the Sri Lankan woman’s death penalty. The maid’s punishment was downgraded from death by stoning, to serving three years in prison, which was viewed as a victory by the Sri Lankan foreign ministry.
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Image: Softpedia
The title of the article is misleading and not to be supported by the facts of the case. The woman was spared the punishment due to the request, intervention, and pressure from the Sri Lankan government. It was not because she had sex outside of marriage with a single man, and not a married man.
The headline could have been… Sri Lankan woman cries and escapes execution while Saudi women face death for same. – That would have been more factual and a place to cast criticism if someone wanted to. Have at it. Sure, even here in the US some are pardoned while others are left to how the court finds them.
Any unequal application of the law can be reported and demand to be corrected. But the sentence or reprieve had nothing to do with being merely a female. There is no need to see everything so scenically especially where in truth there is none to be had on the claims that are being made.
yeah I don’t think they understand sharia very well here. it has nothing to do with stoning the woman and only lashing the man. it is stoning the adulterer and lashing the fornicator.
Narrated Abu Huraira: A man came to Allah’s Apostle while he was in the mosque, and he called him, saying, “O Allah’s Apostle! I have committed illegal sexual intercourse.'” The Prophet turned his face to the other side, but that man repeated his statement four times, and after he bore witness against himself four times, the Prophet called him, saying, “Are you mad?” The man said, “No.” The Prophet said, “Are you married?” The man said, “Yes.” Then the Prophet said, ‘Take him away and stone him to death.” Jabir bin ‘Abdullah said: I was among the ones who participated in stoning him and we stoned him at the Musalla. When the stones troubled him, he fled, but we over took him at Al-Harra and stoned him to death.
[24.2] (As for) the fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them, (giving) a hundred stripes, and let not pity for them detain you in the matter of obedience to Allah, if you believe in Allah and the last day, and let a party of believers witness their chastisement.
I think that if the women might be American or Russian and the men also belonging from these countries then the situation would have been different. They would have been let off with mere warnings. It’s all country specific criteria, if you’re from advanced country then your treatment could be different in Muslim countries while poor countries citizenry is left to the whims-n-fancies of the rulers or the diplomatic pressures.
it is odd that sri lanka would have this kind of pull.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/asia/indonesia-saudi-arabia-executions/index.html
Well, even the Indians didn’t used to have any say when they are caught for any violations according to Saudi laws. Earlier the situation was dire however, it seems to me the circumstances improved after the late Saudi King during his last days decided to change his stance towards India and thought it as on friendlier terms just 5-6 yrs. back. Now, in most of the cases, Indians are deported back instead of getting beheaded or rot in jails for life.
yeah they claim king abdullah was a reformer. he even built a co-ed university. i think i saw him interviewed by barbara walters when he became crown prince and i swear he said he wanted to let women drive. this new guy salman is supposed to be more conservative. did you see they beheaded 47 people the other day, including the top shia cleric. and they ran a $100 deficit this year. i think that is the third year in a row for deficits. the frackers may bring down the house of saud?
I think something fishy is going on there. It seems politically motivated killings, and no I didn’t watch the video as they’re kinda gruesome, remember watching the other video of Taliban beheading and playing soccer with the severed heads of the people in Pakistan. Regarding King Abdullah, I think he was starting to think in the lines of Gorbachev of USSR earlier bringing reforms (Perestroika). Now, the Kingship is all murky, some say the present King is just nomenclature as he’s old and weak/diseased, the real power is run by troika of princes-n-others in coterie. Nevertheless, they’re pursuing dangerous hunger games in ME. Maybe, they wanna incite the Iranians to go crazy and thus murky the situation there to jack up the oil prices. It will be worthwhile to see the next development, if it escalates then so many will sense the benefits, if it doesn’t then it’s just the usual Arabian way-of-life. Here bottom-line is the escalation, although devilish thought but everyone benefits from it.
yeah all the guy who are next in succession to the throne are 75 or 80 plus. they are going to turn though some kings he pretty quickly unless this generation steps aside. and there are lots of princes. so many half brothers it is kind of amazing they have held it together this long. but i guess when you have enough money to spread around, you can appease a lot of people. but who knows, internal struggles may bring them down yet.
yeah a mob in iran stormed the saudi embassy. kind of supprised the Iranian security forces pushed them back. too soon to let the mob have them i guess? the grand ayatollah says there will be ‘divine revenge’, so i guess he is counting on that?
Well, they say it’s the younger sons of King Salman who’re turning into upstarts starting war with Yemen and creating mayhem in Syria-Iraq. Some say, the young Prince is likely to overthrow the King if the drubbing in Yemen and other areas starts to invite too much criticism. Regarding, the Iranian mob, I don’t think that was mob at all, it was all stage-managed dramatics. The mob was Revolutionary Guards in disguise, the same sort of mob which stormed the American embassy in the past. All these ransacking of the KSA embassy was done at the behest of the political/Mullah bosses. Mob in Iran or people don’t do these things, as simply for the fact that they don’t have the powers to do that, everything is done by the govt. and its various hydra like outfits comprising secret police, military and other outfits.
yeah it is certainly a ‘government sanctioned mob’. the green revolution was a real protest and that was shut down pretty quickly.
i see muslim girl ran an article on this. little heavy for them? looks like no comment section.
Well, if they aren’t looking for Zakat from KSA, they might consider to open the comment section, after all Shiite people are also Muslims.
are the words shiite and shia interchangeable? i’ve always thought so, but she used shiite 3 times and shia when preceding identify the cleric? is there a reason for that? or was she just flip-flopping for no reason?
I didn’t know exactly, when I type Sh i a it always says that it is wrong spelling in spellchecker while the proper word is Shiite which allows the comment to pass. You mentioned “She” for whom..?
I think it was a female who wrote the muslim girl article. that is who I was referring back too. yeah in America we always said Shiite. but the brits are creeping their language in 😉 plus I read the bbc so I use shia mostly now.
Well, in the Indian subcontinent it is also read as Shia. And hey, I looked at your profile just now to find out the “She”…(wink). I thought that there’s a lady you conversing these days unlike the Ahmadi one earlier, she seems quite conversed with you.
the “she” is the author of the story on muslimgirl, sabha abour.
“Among those executed were Shiite activists and Sunni members that were allegedly associated with Al Qaeda. The ministry reports that many were beheaded and others were shot via a firing squad.
One of the Saudi men executed was a Shia Cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent vocalist and activist for the marginalization of Shiites and anti-government protests. Sheikh Nimr established a large following among young Shites who experienced marginalization by Saudi Arabia.”
that ahmadi woman went to spain and never commented again. peacelover1618? I hope she didn’t take a trip to paris, it was at the same time of the shooting? she was a Canadian of Indonesian descent. nasreen is a Texan of Pakistani descent. she claims no adherence to madhab. would have made for two interesting perspectives. will have to do with just one for now.
Liked the Ahmadi lady despite not agreeing with her. Hope she’s all well too. Don’t know much about this one, I guess she didn’t face the usual ire of El Cid as being Ilisha or CAIR plant.
Regarding Sheikh Nimr, he was caught for just being the Shia cleric in Saudi lands, seems all planned stuff. Chinese also do such things, recently they jailed some Pu.something Journalist guy for merely saying some mocking 2 words in private conversation with one of his acquaintance. They just picked him up as they wanted to teach the might of Chinese empire to anybody who wanna mock the all-intelligent-one. Seems this Sheikh execution is in the same vein, just to send a message.
yeah he was a vocal critic of the rulers. that is a dangerous thing in much of the world. I see some guys burned modi in effigy for his surprise visit to Pakistan. no backlash I hope for that. although they are probably the far right in his own party or the rss.
Well, it wasn’t the RSS or his own party, it’s the opposition party Congress which took that thing. Usually, it happens in India, the moment one party goes in opposition, roles change, whatever the ruling party do or intend to do is always criticized in absurd fashion, more so prominently just for TV footage these days.
However, it seems that his move is somewhat backfiring already, Pakistan trained terrorist have entered one military installation and created some killings. All these overtures are turning nothing, the situation will become back to old times.
yeah, i saw a shooting at and Indian base the other day. so your opposition protests in the streets, the Pakistani opposition (assuming) shoots up and Indian military base. y’all might not be too far behind the israeli/palestinias in hopelessness. at least y’all are making some economic gains, that always helps.