“Illegal Mingling”: Seventy-Five Year Old Woman Sentenced to 40 Lashes and Jail for Merely Speaking With Two Young Men

Khamisa Sawadi, 75, is a Syrian widow of a Saudi man still living in the Kingdom. She has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for simply being seen speaking with two young men who are not her relatives. After being flogged and jailed, she will then be deported for the crime under Sharia law. She was convicted of “illegal mingling.”

Sawaid reportedly asked the two 24-year-old men to bring her five loaves of bread. One of the men, Fahd al-Anzi is the nephew of her late husband and the other is his friend and business partner. Both men will also be flogged and jailed. Amazingly, it was al-Anzi’s father who accused Sawadi of corruption. The court ruled “Because she said she doesn’t have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed.”

The trial itself was perfectly medieval. Sawadi claimed that she breast fed al-Anzi as a baby (under Islamic tradition, breast feeding creates a degree of maternal relation) and thus could treat him as her son. The court, in a type of CSI Sharia ruling, found a lack of evidence of breast feeding.

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