Saudi Arabia is set to punish 75-year-old woman with 40 lashes, imprisonment and deportation for being in the company of a young man she once breastfed

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 19, 2009 – A 75-year-old woman is set to be given 40 lashes, imprisoned for four months and deported to Syria after Saudi religious police caught her in the company of a young man she once breastfed and who claimed to have been bringing her bread.

Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, 75, and two younger men, known only as Hadyan and Fahad, were found guilty of violating a sex-segregation law known locally as khilwa.

Sawadi has claimed that the sex segregation law should not apply as she breastfed Fahad when he was a child.

The international human rights group Amnesty International has called on Saudi Arabia to stay the sentence.

"This punishment amounts to torture and extreme human degradation," Lamri Chirouf, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Amnesty International told The Media Line. "It's in direct contrast to international human-rights standards that protect human dignity."

"These people have not done anything wrong beyond being together," he said. "This is their private life and it shouldn't constitute a crime under international law. It's as simple as that."

"Whenever they catch people together who are not immediate relatives, they punish them," Chirouf added. "The problem in Saudi Arabia is that the criminal justice system is very secretive. Cases of floggings and amputations happen all the time but they are rarely reported."

The threesome were arrested on April 21, 2008, by the Saudi religious police, known as the Mutawa'een and officially dubbed the Commission for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.

At the trial in March, Hadyan stated that the two men were delivering bread to the elderly woman, while Fahad argued that he had not violated the khilwa sex-segregation law as Sawadi was a relative who had breastfed him when he was a child.

The elderly Sawadi, originally Syrian, was sentenced to four months imprisonment, 40 lashes and deportation to Syria. Fahad was sentenced to 40 lashes and four months' imprisonment and Hadyan to 60 lashes and six months imprisonment. The verdict was upheld by an appeals court.

After the Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Interior Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz ordered the immediate imprisonment and lashing of the threesome.

Many expect the sentence to be carried out this week, as floggings are usually held on Fridays.

"I think she'll die," Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi businesswoman and rights advocate told The Media Line. "She's a very old woman and I don't think she can handle 40 lashes."

"She has done nothing wrong and nobody deserves this," she added. "I don't know if anybody can stop this but I wish they could."

But Eman Al Nafjan, an influential female Saudi blogger, argued that an age-based distinction should be made in cases of physical punishment.

"I think lashing and physical punishment is appropriate for people who are healthy and it won't affect them in the long term," she told The Media Line. "It frees up jail cells and we shouldn't have to pay to accommodate people for years."

"But this case is different," Al Nafjan said. "Even if they could prove that she did something wrong, I don't think a 75-year old should be physically punished."

Al Nafjan said that with the extensive gossip surrounding the case it was difficult to discern exactly what the elderly woman was accused of.

"It's just not clear at all why this woman is getting the lashes," she said. "In Islam if you breastfeed a child for more than two years they become your son, but the court said that she can't prove that she breastfed him. How can anyone prove that you breastfed someone - there are no papers."

"Also a lot of people I've been speaking to say that this woman had previous convictions, and some people say that she had a young woman in the house whom she was pimping out," Al Nafjan said. "But if that were true, why didn't they officially say that she was involved in prostitution? If they are going to give lashes to a 75 year old woman, they should say clearly what she is accused of."

Source: The Media Line, December 15, 2009

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