HRW describes the implement used as "a bamboo whip about 7 feet long". This difference in approach is supposed to reflect the idea that Saudi floggings are intended primarily as symbolic humiliation rather than intensely painful retribution, and is in line with a rule in the Koran that the operator is required to keep a copy of the holy book under his arm, so that he will not swing the whip from the shoulder but only from the elbow. Saudi Justice Through British Eyes Western human rights campaigners gave more muted reactions. How are you and the children? he asked. And, as is common in the Arab world, the prisoner keeps all his clothes on. I need to tell you something, I said, and tried to find the right words. On 7 January 2015, two masked men stormed the editorial offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris and shot 11 journalists. It is meant to be more of a humiliation, said Mr. Coogle of Human Rights Watch, adding that he had not heard of reports of injuries. You cant stop them doing that. Its better if they find out from you, Robert, the social worker, tried to convince me. for bringing liqueur chocolates into the country. He looked thin. Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is a legal penalty. By Diana Garrisi Its important that we think together about how to ensure that your children dont suffer any harm from this. BEIRUT, Lebanon For decades, if someone in Saudi Arabia got drunk in public or wrote an article that provoked the kingdoms ultraconservative judges, that person could have been flogged in a public square. (UPDATE: but see video clip below.). Cites a Human Rights Watch claim that "judges routinely issued sentences of thousands of lashes as punishment, often carried out in public". The kingdoms most famous flogging case was that of Raif Badawi, who ran a website that published material criticizing Saudi religious figures, lauding Western legal systems and arguing that atheists should be free to state their views without being punished. Dont be either particularly curious or overly kind or even sympathetic., And you must also use today to talk to your children. US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices for 2006 Its a scandal, they wrote. They often undertook a sort of training to learn how to flog, using a tree trunk as a body. 2023 Cable News Network. Badawai is not the only Saudi activist to have faced punishment over exercising his right to freedom of speech. Here, in an excerpt from her new book, Raif Badawi, The Voice of Freedom: My Husband, Our Story (Other Press), she describes learning that his sentence would begin, and how she told her children of their fathers fate. Saudi Arabia abolishes flogging as punishment 'Convicts who have been sentenced to the lash will from now on receive fines or prison terms instead' April 25, 2020 10:38 pm | Updated 10:40 pm IST Dont worry. Saudi blogger receives first 50 of 1,000 lashes. I surely hope he intends to go after the whole justice system, because it is very flawed in both regulations and implementation, Mr. Coogle said of Prince Mohammed. Thanks for coming, she said to me. 25 Feb/23. Floggings tended to be done with a wooden cane, the swift blows going up and down the backside of the sentenced person. Propaganda page by the Saudi government. One of the most high-profile cases internationally, it began when Badawi was arrested for. When would the prison warders wake him? (In other countries where JCP is used a lot, such as Singapore and Malaysia, there are still very many court sentences that do not include caning.) States that at least 27 individuals were sentenced to flogging in 1996. Then I turned on the television and waited for the lunchtime news. The jurys verdict, given on 4 August 1846, was that Frederick John White died from the mortal effects of the flogging that he had received at Cavalry Barracks in Hounslow. Various references to flogging, including a 1996 case in which two secondary school students were whipped for assault in front of their fellow-pupils and teachers. This implies that the Saudi authorities draw a distinction between "moral" offences to do with sex or alcohol, punished by caning, and political or religious crimes, punished by flogging with a leather strap. Copyright 2023 IBTimes UK. He gave me a note saying that Im not yet fit enough to be whipped again. Thank God, I said. Thats impossible, I struggled to say. The lack of a unified penal code gives judges great leeway in sentencing, and flogging was most often part of the punishment for so-called moral crimes such as public drunkenness or what judges deemed to be inappropriate contact between unrelated women and men. Tennessee becomes first state to outlaw drag shows on public grounds, near schools. Hundreds of lashes could previously be ordered for a variety of offences, including murder, extramarital sex and breach of the peace. However, some observers, notably Amnesty International (see external links below), reject these claims as mere propaganda by the regime; they say this Koranic rule is by no means always followed, and suggest that the floggings, at least in some cases, do in fact cause injury to the recipient. If only I could have done something for him! As part of his plans to diversify the economy and open up society, he has taken the power to arrest away from the kingdoms religious police and expanded entertainment opportunities by opening movie theaters and bringing in rock concerts, professional wrestling tournaments and monster truck rallies. Never before seen Amazon tribe filmed by drone, Camera catches mailman stealing family's tomatoes, Video shows self-driving Uber hit pedestrian, Racist chants caught on camera at university, Policemen catch child falling from balcony, Camera captures kangaroo collide with cyclist, Surveillance shows Turpin siblings' escape, Million-dollar jewel heist caught on camera, See terrifying boat crash caught on video. By now some of my Facebook friends were referring to it. Another Amnesty International report (1998). All rights reserved. A post shared by News Stand (@smartandstuck). Your email address will not be published. Everythings great, but the prison warders are very bad people. HRW has sometimes been prone to exaggeration in the past, but if this is true, I should think it must make Saudi Arabia pretty well unique in the world. Tomorrow theyre going to start enforcing my sentence. SAUDI Arabia's medieval punishments are in the spotlight as the country's investment fund looks to set to take over Newcastle United. In 2014, a former colleague of Badawi, Su'ad al-Shammari, was charged with "insulting the messenger and the hadith" on Twitter. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. They have hurt him very badly. appreciated. A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. They sulked a little but accepted it. According to reports, the lady who is assumed to be in her late twenties was caught seriously been chopped by a Sudanese who lives in the same house with her. I saw Raifs delicate frame from behind, in the middle of a big crowd of people. In the past, they were often carried out in public, adding a social stigma to the physical pain inflicted. Amnesty International Report 1997 It is evident that practice in Saudi Arabia is far from uniform. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Now, as part of his effort to reshape how the kingdom is run, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has done away with flogging as punishment, and perhaps dampened the international condemnation that came with it. "Flogging and other forms of corporal judicial punishment violate the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment. HRANA News Agency - A prisoner identified as "A-B" was executed on charge of murder in public on the boulevard of Goharbaran in the Surak city, of Mazandaran Province, on 4 th January, and the following video report shows this execution.. HRANA News Agency again invites citizens to get involved in reporting and improving the human rights situation in Iran, by sending observations, photos . John White was not the only person who had died after a flogging but this was the occasion on which the explanation for a dynamic relationship between superficial marks and injuries left on the body and internal organs of the punished was used as a political argument against corporal punishment. The Flogging of liberal blogger Raif Badawi has placed a spotlight on Saudi Arabia's justice system Lashes for liberalism, prison for female driving, death for dissent are among recent. "I told our children about the news last week so that they would not find out about it from friends at school. The document casts doubt on past claims that these are relatively lightly administered and meant as a symbolic humiliation rather than as serious pain. Amnesty International Report 1998 If (as seems probable) the nurses did not actually do the crime, the question of punishment is irrelevant. A very conservative version of Koranic law is in force in this exceptionally backward, corrupt and repressive country, a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship run by an absolute monarchy. The men I had seen in the video might as well have put me in a square and flogged me. (I suspect they are wrong about that. The Saudi Media Debates Flogging by the Saudi Religious Police According to the press, 1846 recorded an unusually hot summer and this might have impaired the ability of White to recover. Since then our little flat in Sherbrooke has turned into a campaign office for Raifs liberation. Did he get medical treatment for his wounds? Amnesty International document. I didnt sleep that night. One of the prison warders told me. It took me a moment to understand what he was telling me. Raifs face smiles from the banner over our sofa, while we get together to make posters for the next demonstration. He was convicted on multiple charges, including "breaking allegiance" to the Saudi ruler, "inciting disorder" and seeking to disrupt state security, Amnesty International said. Something bad happened this weekend. Is it about Dad again? Dodi asked suspiciously. I would not call it a breakthrough, said Adam Coogle, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who tracks Saudi Arabia. Men 'Behaving Like Women' Face Flogging A few days earlier, White, under the effects of alcohol, had had an argument with his sergeant and, during the fight he had stroked the sergeants chest with a metal bar. At all events, this punishment is being inflicted by officials in uniform, who are presumably police or judicial officers of some sort. And I didnt want to burst out crying in front of them. When flogging in the army was legally abolished in 1881, a few people knew it was still in law. @HRHPSalman, Amnesty New Zealand (@AmnestyNZ) January 15, 2015, Today front of Saudi embassy in Germany Berlin, Amnesty stand for #RaifBadawi pic.twitter.com/Os850JtRyX, (@raif_badawi) January 15, 2015, today front of Saudi embassy in Paris for #RaifBadawi pic.twitter.com/ISc0l6ahiu (@raif_badawi) January 15, 2015. Hundreds of Saudis were flogged every week, according to this January 2004 report from MEMRI, which gives a flavour of the debate inside the country at that time. IBT UK Morning Brief - Let the best of International News come to you. However, no news reports to that effect have come to hand. Saudi Arabia is one of the worlds few absolute monarchies and administers justice based on Shariah law. Saudi officials hailed the flogging ban as part of these changes. The decision to replace flogging as a punishment with jail time and fines was made sometime this month and announced internally by the kingdoms top court, Reuters reported. Once I got home, I called the children together in the sitting room again. I felt the pain they were inflicting on Raif as if it was my own. June 2001 article in The Guardian (London), largely recycling information from Amnesty reports, including a first-person account of being flogged. "Raif called me. 1.6k. today front of Saudi embassy in Paris for #RaifBadawi pic.twitter.com/ISc0l6ahiu, - Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme, IBT UK Morning Brief - Let the best of International News come to you. 02:28 - Source: CNN. Saudi judges can still order the beheading of murderers and drug dealers, but lower-level offenders will now be spared the rod and will get fines or jail time instead. Then all of a sudden we received the call we were so desperate for. Copyright C. Farrell 2006-2021 How was Raif now, I wondered. The farriers used the cat o nine tails, a tool made up of nine knotted thongs of cotton that could be found in veterinary shops. punishment." Saudi Arabia has sentenced people convicted of homosexuality and "sodomy" to a range of penalties including corporal In 1998 judicial floggings continued to be imposed "routinely". After performing an autopsy within Hounslow Barracks, the medical army officers declared that his death was in no way connected with the flogging he had received almost a whole month earlier. Repeat offenders can lose both hands, and legs are sometimes taken for other offences. The same information is repeated in the 2002 USSD report. In July he was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment and a fine, followed by deportation . I told the children that we were going to have a few media-free days because they were watching too much television and spending too much time on the internet. A regimental farrier kept on flogging until the fiftieth; he then handed over to his colleague so that he could have a rest. The most high-profile instance of flogging in recent years was the case of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes in 2014 for "insulting" Islam. If authorities ignore widespread criticism and unashamedly continue with the flogging of Raif Badawi, Saudi Arabia would be demonstrating contempt for international law and disregard for world opinion. Drinking alcohol is a criminal offense, and drug trafficking often a capital crime. Paragraphs 587 to 589 of this 1995 UN document refer to various Saudi flogging cases. Some reports (e.g. His voice was weak, but he was trying to make it sound firm. Oh, great! said Dodi, who is very fond of the creatures. Saudi blogger receives first 50 of 1,000 lashes. Saudi lawbreakers face rough justice But they remained persistently silent, even among themselves. Thomas Wakley. Flogging sentences are normally combined with imprisonment. International pressure is crucial, I believe if we keep up the support it will eventually pay off. A circular issued by the Ministry of Justice and sent to the courts of the kingdom reports an abolition demanded for years by human rights organizations, which, however, harbors a small print: lashes will continue to be applied in crimes such as adultery, attack on . Wilson, by analysing the cutaneous layer and the organs underneath, argued, in times prior to the discovery of the effects of bacteria in the bloodstream, that there was a connection between the external lacerations caused by the lashes and the internal state of the organs. November 1997: Behind Closed Doors: Unfair Trials In Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabian blogger and activist, Raif Badawi, is due to face his second round of 50 lashes on Friday (16 January) after being accused ofinsulting Islam. Some sources suggest that hundreds of these flogging sentences are imposed every week, mostly without press publicity. I simply couldnt imagine the authorities going ahead with it. 00:46. Theyve beaten your father, he told the children. Andrew Buchan and Leila Farzad 'touchy-feely' on . This happens "sometimes". On Sunday evening, however, the subject was still in the headlines, and I wondered whether I would even be able to send the children to school the next day. Saudi Arabia's human rights record is once again in the headlines after news that a British pensioner living in the country will be publicly flogged for possessing alcohol. 02:28. This is the shocking moment a Saudi Arabian blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes for 'insulting Islam' was publicly flogged in front of hundreds of 'cheering' crowds. I managed to keep the children away from the internet, from television and from the newspaper kiosks in Sherbrooke all weekend. Last month two gay men in the Saudi city of Al-Bahah were convicted of sodomy and sentenced to 7,000 lashes each. Will you promise me that youll be brave and not tell the children? Yes, of course. I sat down on a kitchen chair. Had they already started? 10 A public execution by beheading in Saudi Arabia Credit: Rex Features The inquest into the Hounslow case sparked a national outcry. He was wearing a white shirt and dark trousers, and his hair hung down to his shoulders. It can be seen clearly that the official administering this whipping does not have a book under his arm (see commentary above). Neither of them checked the soldiers pulse. Cites press reports that Saudi flogging (which the USSD seems to think is something different from caning) is administered with a "thin reed" by a man holding a book under his arm. Video: Women 'thieves' receive 30 lashes each on the orders of a sharia judge. The whole day was one big nightmare. As a result, the Martial Court had sentenced White to 150 lashes. Did you encounter any technical issues? In April, a Yemeni blogger living in Saudi Arabia was arrested for advocating for equality for LGBT people. According to unconfirmed reports those condemned to die this way are given tranquilisers, before being taken to a public square after midday prayers. appreciated. Several press reports of notable JCP cases during 2005 are summarised, all of them already covered by me in The Archive. In the morning, before the children woke up, I confiscated all the computers, tablets and telephones in the apartment, and I unplugged the television. Ensaf Haidar, wife of Saudi blogger and human rights activist Raif Badawi. He is being held up (somewhat incompetently) against the back of a police van and punished with what is either a somewhat rigid whip or an extremely flexible long cane. But now hes better again. My children reacted very strangely to this new revelation. 1994: Unwelcome "guests": The plight of Iraqi refugees In the above video, IBTimes UK explains five of the most barbaric punishments you can receive in Saudi Arabia. The new year began with an act of violence. Travelers show off decked out RV and tours the world full time. They didnt go to school for several days. Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse Getty Images. Copyright Ensaf Haidar, Andrea C. Hoffmann. This November 2005 court sentence is probably typical for a fairly routine and minor case.