Dr. Hayat Sindi is a Saudi Arabian medical scientist and a woman who has earned respect for extraordinary accomplishments in a country that denies women basic liberties. She is not only an award-winning scientist but one of the first female members of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia. Ranked by Arabian Business as the 19th most influential Arab in the world and the ninth most influential Arab woman, it is not surprising that Harvard University has brought her to the country as a visiting scholar. However, a nasty lawsuit in King County has raised deeply disturbing allegations about Sindi’s efforts against women who she accuses of hacking her emails. According to counsel for one of those women, Sindi worked to have another woman flogged for writing on Facebook that she had had an affair with her husband. On the other side is Samia El-Moslimany, a women’s activist and photographer who lives in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, who is fighting to keep Sindi from forcing the disclosure of the women, who would face medieval Sharia justice in Saudi Arabia.
All of this began when El-Moslimany posted statements on social media in 2012 alleging that Sindi had had an affair with her husband. Sindi responded with a Saudi defamation case and, according to an affidavit submitted by El-Moslimany’s lawyer, she wanted El-Moslimany flogged. The effort backfired. A Saudi judge decided last year that El-Moslimany should spend four days in jail for the public defamation while Sindi should spend two months in jail for forming an illicit relationship with El-Moslimany’s husband. Neither has served their sentences.
Sindi however has continued to try to force disclosure of the names of the women commenting on the Internet under the claim that she was hacked. A King County Superior Court judge decided Friday not to sentence a Burien woman to jail or to levy a $500 fine for each day of withholding the names in light of the danger to these women.
Judge Mariane Spearman denied Sindi’s request to hold El-Moslimany in contempt of court because Sindi’s new lawyer could not specify which Facebook comments might be a basis for investigating any of the women.
The idea of a Harvard academic fighting to have women flogged for alleged defamation is deeply troubling. The fact that Saudi Sharia law allows for medieval justice does not excuse a demand for such justice over the exercise of free speech. Even if such speech was defamatory, it should not be a criminal matter subject to flogging. Whatever the truth of the adultery, it should not be relevant to Harvard or anyone else other than those involved in these families. However, flogging for posting matters on the Internet raises significant issues of due process and free speech.
Should Harvard be involved in such dispute when one of its faculty seeks to have women flogged under Sharia law or this is simply a private matter under the laws of another country?
It is as though you would let your children be eaten by hyena’s because the dinosaurs did the same thing.
I hope none of them are carrying any weapons today, they seem quite angry.
Paul C. Schulte
po – a Saudi judge is the one who decided she had the ‘illicit relationship’. Evidently the judge found the wive’s evidence of adultery persuasive. She sounds bitter that she was caught and is going to have to do 4 months in prison.
BTW, you seem to have a nasty streak that this subject has released.
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Paul, according to the rules of shariah law that Saudi Arabia claims, no judge can jail anyone on the basis of unacceptable evidence. The evidence, as required, must be as i stated above.
We don’t know the evidence the judge has, based on the post, he ordered jail time for both parties, one for false testimony and the other for adulterer. Beyond the fact that jail is not the prescribed punishment for those things, shouldn’t one guilt cancel out the other?
By nasty I hope you mean…freaky?! I blame DBQ for putting those thoughts in my head.
po – man up and accept responsibility.
I see it’s Ranting Islamaphobe Day on RIL again.
It is better that he expose himself as the typical “moderate Muslim” who follows the “Religion of Peace.” When he lets slip the mask we can get the real story of how these so called moderates will lie and obfuscate to excuse the murderous barbarity that is Islam.
With an added dollop of idiotic progressive fellow travelers who will excuse any excess to pretend there is some moral equivalence between things that happened a thousand years ago and things that happened yesterday.
I can say I agree with Darren here.
Precisely right Po. Fundamentalism wheteher it be Islamic or Christian or Jewish or whatever religion, is a scourge on the rest of the world. It’s extreme, unforgiving, hateful and wants to eradicate anyone who stands up to it, one way or another.
“DBQ is ISIS”, so sayeth po. He just jumped the shark. If po had any sense, he would avoid commenting on threads like this. He always has his zipper down and exposes himself, as it were.
“Should Harvard be involved in such dispute when one of its faculty seeks to have women flogged under Sharia law or this is simply a private matter under the laws of another country?”
~+~
This brings up an interesting legal concept, whether a Saudi citizen residing in the United States is able to initiate an action against another person in Saudi Arabia that would constitute a violation of civil rights here should be subject to a revocation of tenure and dismissal.
Had the professor committed a conspiracy here in the US to have this other woman flogged she would be criminally and civilly liable and definitely could be terminated in her employment. But, in this case it is alleged to be in accordance with the laws of her country.
The adultery accusation did not involve students of the university so I do not see this in itself being under the purview of the school. But calling for a person to be punished in what would be in some states a felony assault should be a serious breach of ethics at the very minimum. She may be a Saudi citizen, but she is in the United States therefore subject to our laws and our expectations of university faculty members.
Tough call on what to do with the professor but I am leaning toward the option of not renewing her contract. I think for political reasons Harvard will not immediately let her go but a non-renewal would be a safer option for them.
Dust Bunny Queen says:
1/I am merely responding to your statement that FOUR people have to actually WATCH a person having sex, like in some sort of porno situation, in order for whatever in Sharia law.
2/The more I hear about the twisted concept of Sharia and the more I see the sub humans in ISIS and other things associated with Islam……I begin to think that perhaps another Crusade wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
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DBQ
!/ These were my words above “ …4 reliable people should have witnessed the act of coitus and testify to it in order for the accusation to stand.
Noticed the word witnessed, not the word watched. Thanks for substituting one for the other in your vile attempt to make me say what I did not. Typical, dusty! 🙂
2/ Thank you for finally making yourself plain and clear…One will veil themselves with language just so much…ultimately, what we really hold within will come to light. Thanks for confirming your extremist bent, the same extremist bent that drives ISIS and their ilk.
You prove my point that beyond religion and politics, a fundamentalist is a fundamentalist, whether they be found in California or in Iraq.
Pogo, I “may” be Superman. You “may” be a billionaire. When I interviewed people, those who used weasel words like “may” were a huge red flag. Just ignore people who use weasel words.
Pogo, I assumed nothing. Read more carefully.
We need to start the rumor they were gay Christians that were beheaded, then the WH and cultists will care. Statistically, decent chance one of them was.
In which Inga assumes facts not in evidence.
Again.
Those three young people in Norh Carolina where Muslim. They didn’t seem to be mind being associated with Islam, although it may have gotten them murdered by a rabid Islamaphobe. I wonder what their families think about having another Crusade.
DBQ
You are digging too deeply into this, perhaps reflecting your own state of mind re porn and voyeurism.
No Po.
I am merely responding to your statement that FOUR people have to actually WATCH a person having sex, like in some sort of porno situation, in order for whatever in Sharia law.
The more I hear about the twisted concept of Sharia and the more I see the sub humans in ISIS and other things associated with Islam……I begin to think that perhaps another Crusade wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
You see the were just a bunch of folks who happened to decide to go to the beach that day.
Statement by the Press Secretary of the United States on the Murder of Egyptian Citizens
The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens. ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.
This heinous act once again underscores the urgent need for a political resolution to the conflict in Libya, the continuation of which only benefits terrorist groups, including ISIL. We call on all Libyans to strongly reject this and all acts of terrorism and to unite in the face of this shared and growing threat. We continue to strongly support the efforts of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General Bernardino Leon to facilitate formation of a national unity government and help foster a political solution in Libya.
http://www.barenakedislam.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/0012211554.jpg
Reading this column and the comments reminded me of the 1977 execution of a 19 year-old princess from the royal Saudi family. I think both she and her lover were single. She supposedly confessed 3 times in court, but some have questioned whether there was a confession, or even a “trial”.
Her lover was beheaded just after he watched her execution. In 1980, PBS aired a docudrama called “Death of a Princess”.