Only recently, the Saudi police arrested an American businesswoman who sat down at a Starbucks next to a man who was not a family member. Now, a university professor has been sentenced to eight months in jail and 180 lashes for having coffee with a female student in Saudi Arabia. He was arrested by the religious police for being in a state of khulwa – seclusion – with an unrelated female.
The married professor of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, insists that, when the student called to ask to meet on a question, he asked that she bring a brother as a chaperone. (In Saudi Arabia, women are expected to be accompanied by men — even younger brothers — to meet with any non-family member male). When he found her alone and sat down, he was promptly arrested.
It is a scene much like the recent outrage over the arrest of an American businesswoman at a Starbucks, click here.
To make matters worse, the professor alleges that this was a “honey-trap” — a set up by the religious police. He reportedly taped the woman and has evidence of a sting by the Saudi Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
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