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?
Tim Russert would’ve called you folks out for what you are and it probably wouldn’t be what you’d want to hear, lol.
LOL!!!
Paul, the whole family stopped arguing with my brother because he uses the same (il)logic you do… is it you Ali?
po – Thanksgiving must be fun at your house. My prayers (agnostic though they are) go out to your brother Ali. 😉
Oops, forgot to say Amen!
Inga
Po, the only thing that got “exposed” today has been extreme fear and ignorance, through flying spittle and snarling lips of Islamaphobes.
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O Allah, please let some of Inga’s wisdom find a path into these small and shuttered minds! Just a bit, for I know, and You know that more than a bit would not find room in it.
po – Allah has given us much wisdom about you today. Wisdom is knowledge plus experience. Today we got more knowledge. Most of us have lots of experience.
po – by offering you the same challenge (in reverse) that you offered Pogo, I showed the fallacy of your argument. You did not even start to defend Islam.
Paul, Politicians are the kings of weasel words, and the cultists who adore them follow their lead. When interviewing, I very calmly and unobtrusively take the weasel down a path that seems harmless. All of sudden, they realize they are in quicksand. They try the weasel words, but it’s too late. They already exposed themselves and it’s on tape. I can’t watch most TV interviews of politicians because the reporters are incompetent or sycophants, never using those techniques to expose politicians. Tim Russert was good @ exposing weasels.
Nick – you cannot expose weasel words if you do not ask follow up questions. That is why Obama keeps all his interviews to 5 minutes and pre-checks the questions.
Nick he is not sweating. He is perfectly serene basking in the admiration of the anti-semitic left that is part of a new unholy alliance of the progressives and militant Islam. The evil that brought us the Holocaust is back and cutting off the heads and shooting not just the Jews but Christians as well.
Remember when the rallying cry was “Never Again?’
Well it is back again and you can see who stands against it and who excuses and covers up for it.
And if they truly care so deeply about the poor Egyptian Coptic Christians that were beheaded by ISIS, I suggest they go to ISIS territory and put their principles where their mouths are, because I suspect when it came down to it, they would be the last to actually do so. Talking big and is easy.
Po,
Why is it that the women are the ones who seem to always get the 80 lashes or stoned to death? Shariah Law is antiquated and needs to be thrown in the fire. Your law, you, and the judges have no right to use corporal punishment on men, women, or children. Let God be the judge in these cases, and God alone.
The only fate we can wish for ISIS and their supporters is the same fate that befell Lord Grantham’s dog.
Po, they suffer from a dangerously closed mind. I’m afraid there may be no hope for them.
I hope the Pope isn’t armed. LOL!
Po excuses ISIS and is a fellow traveler. He is the smooth face of the murderous
body. There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
The people who killed those Egyptian Coptic Chrisrians were Fundamentalist extremist Muslims. Intelligent people should be able to tell the difference between moderate Muslims and extremists.
The Pope is angry and condemned ISIS.
Be angry at ISIS, not moderate Muslims like Po.
Liberals are the jihadists best friends. They specialize and covering up and excusing their crimes.
I tried to post additional photos of the handiwork of these acolytes of the “Religion of Peace” but they were censored. Let that photo of the most recent atrocity of the murder of Coptic Christians serve to illustrate the fate of all of those who have fallen victim to these barbarians.
Some here “may” not.
When 21 people are beheaded the appropriate response is anger. If you have a heart or soul, anyway.