Saudi Court Upholds Sex Braggart's Verdict - Updated

(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) Unfortunately, a Saudi appeals court has ruled that the conviction and punishment of Mazen Abdul Jawad will stand. So Jawad must endure five years in prison and 1,000 lashes.

Poor sap. He apparently wasn't taught that a gentleman should never kiss and tell. Now he's going to pay.

Regarding the potential lethality of 1,000 lashes, it's assumed that they are not all administered at once. Prisoners probably get a daily ration of lashes which keeps them in pain but alive.

* * * * *
Woman Gets Lashes for Working at Wrong Place - Updated
[Previous 10/26/09 post]
(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) Here's a development related directly to the case of the Saudi man sentenced to prison for bragging about his sexual exploits.

A Saudi court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes in a case brought after a Lebanese television channel she worked for aired the sex confession of a Saudi man, the reporter and a lawyer said.

Rosana, 22, who did not want her full name disclosed, said a court in Jeddah convicted her on Saturday on grounds that the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) she worked for did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom.

The ruling follows the sentencing by the same court of Mazen Abdul-Awad to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes earlier in October after he appeared on an LBC show and talked about his sexual exploits. [...]

"I had nothing to do with Mazen Abdul-Jawad's show. The verdict was just because I cooperated with LBC," the female journalist told Reuters.

Pretty harsh, eh? Sixty lashes just because she worked at the wrong place. It's probably a good thing she wasn't caught stealing office supplies. In any event, I wonder if being a woman had anything to do with her prosecution.

[Update 10/26/09]
The woman sentenced to flogging, Rosana Al-Yami, has been pardoned by Saudi King Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud.

"In this case, the flogging has been dropped," Abdul-Rahman al-Hazzaa, an information ministry spokesman, said.

He said that the case of al-Yami and another journalist would be transfered to a ministry committee for possible disciplinary action.

With King Abdallah immediately negating the decision of the Saudi Sharia court, one must wonder if there isn't a bit of tension between the royal family and the hardline Muslim clerics.

* * * * *
Saudi Gets Prison, Lashes for Bragging About Sex
[Previous 10/8/09 post]
(Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) In August, a 32-year-old divorced father-of-four, Abdul-Jawad, was arrested after appearing on a Lebanese television program and shooting his mouth off about his sexual exploits. In addition to boasting of his premarital sexual episodes, he also discussed his pick-up techniques and even displayed some sex toys and lubricants to the viewers.

This week, a Saudi court sentenced Abdul-Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes (not a typo) plus he will have his car and his phone confiscated. When released from prison, he will be barred from traveling, presumably forever.

Lawyers say Abdul-Jawad could have been given the death penalty. Judges, who are clerics of Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi school of Islam, have wide powers of discretion.

Abdul-Jawad's brother said it would be difficult for him to be accepted back into society.

In other news, late-night entertainer David Letterman admitted this week to having engaged in extra-marital sex with female members of his staff. As a result, Letterman's program saw an increase in viewership.