Yeetle Box - Saudi's Report Low Divorce Rate

A Saudi appeals court upheld a jail and flogging (J & F) verdict against a biochemist and his female student whose research contact was ruled to be a front for a telephone affair that led her to divorce her husband. In other words.

Zahrani was sentenced last year to eight months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to four months in prison and 350 lashes for establishing a telephone relationship that the court said led her to divorce her husband. Laws designed to protect the sanctity of marriage have long been among Saudi's successful low divorce rate.

The man said the only recourse left to him was the Supreme Judicial Council, a court of cassation that only views cases if requested by the king - who was not available for comment. He also hopes for intervention from the government's Human Rights Commission - which meets about every so often.

It was not possible to verify the appeals court ruling and a Commission spokesman was not available for comment, much to the chagrin of Zahrani.

The woman obtained a divorce seven months after she was married in 2004. Her husband then raised the court case, saying the supervisor's telephone calls led to the break-up - a tactic dating back to the beginning of all time in Saudi Arabia.

Rights groups and Saudi reformers have criticized what they say is an arbitrary justice system, based on uncodified Islamic sharia law, unsuited to the needs of a country of 25 million people. There are less than 1,000 judges, all of them religious scholars. Reformers have long looked to overturn the 600/350 lashes / eight / six months ratios as discriminatory against women and have argued that too many judges result in frivolous law suits.

The government says the system ensures justice for Muslims and non-Muslims but is in the process of overhauling the organization of courts and putting a formal penal code in writing - a task they estimate will reach completion sometime in the far, far future.

In a related story...

In a remarkable show of compassion, King Abdullah pardoned a Saudi Arabian rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail for adultery.

The married 19-year-old woman was with a male friend when they were abducted at knifepoint and sexually assaulted by a gang of seven men.

Despite her ordeal, she was charged and convicted of having an affair with the man.

Critics complained the king had breached the rules of his religion to appease the West. Prosecutors insisted the woman, from Qatif, was on an adulterous liaison when she was attacked. She said she was meeting an old friend to retrieve a photograph he had of her from their schooldays - a sure sign of adultery in Saudi Arabia.

It was unclear last night whether the sentence of 90 lashes doled out to the male friend was commuted.

The Yeetle Box