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 would be helpful if the author included the US state that “King County” and “Burien” are located.
I often think about what a person like po might do if he learned someone he knew was plotting a terrorist attack. I’m sure there are Muslims who would do the tight thing and call the police. But, I just wonder WWPD. What Would po do?
In respect for Leslie Gore and to show the difference between American Women and the oppressed Muslim women. This is the mantra and song of MY youth. I still live by these words
What is a Liberal? I am a Liberal on civil rights. I believe that all migration from pirate territories be halted today. But, if some migrant is here that they be accorded due process of law. But, they act like they are in America and not Saudi Arabia or “out you go” – subject to due process. I think that the term “Saudi scholar” is a contradiction in terms if you are speaking of one who is Saudi rather than one who studies them. I agree with rounding up the Japanese in WWII but they should have been released after their interview if they passed. I would round up all of Tsarboy’s family right now. He is the one who did the Boston Marathon bombing. We need to seal our borders and employ navy seals in Texas to do this. Texas without borders is like the drain in a nasty toilet. Keep out the urdTays. As a Liberal I sort of put up with rules of civility like Word Press which is computerized censorship but I advise all to employ Pig Latin. If you have a real pig try it out on the pig. Harvard does not need road scholars or scholars from Rhodes. Harvard needs to teach and not in upscale lingo so that the rest of us think that their itShay does not stink. In this case it does. If she wants to stay in America she needs to go out, come back and come in as a simple simon not a Scholar. Simple itShay like this needs simple solutions. Next thing you know we will have some Saudi on the Supreme Court bench–Saudi Harvard grad. Harvard and Yale, nincompoops who belong in jail. Nuff said.
Exactly so.
“If Christians were beheading people and stoning rape victims, I somehow doubt there would be such an existential crisis in naming the problem.” Exactly. Yet in every thread like this one you will find the same crowd ignoring the subject matter at hand while crowing “all religious fundamentalism is bad.” Shockingly, these same people fail to shout “all religious fundamentalism is bad” when Professor Turley posts an article about something stupid that a Christan has done…they just gleefully condemn Christianity.
DBQ – that is a marvelous story about a community coming together to help.
The biggest problem with the internment is that innocent people lost their homes, businesses . . . everything. The government did not simply freeze everything until it could be sorted out. There was so much spying, they just put a net over everyone. And then innocent people lost everything and had to start over.
My German grandmother was a US citizen during TWO world wars. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her during those years. She was not interned, luckily, but her in-laws would have nothing to do with her, because she was German.
Nowadays the NSA just spies on everyone.
FDR’s Jewish Mafia cronies took over businesses and property owned by Japanese Americans while they were interred. I have said this before. We Americans are REAL nasty when people screw w/ us. If Muslims in the US don’t start dropping dimes on the jihadists in this country, and they do something big, I see new camps being opened. We are the last people you want to f@ck w/. I’m not saying this should be done, I am saying good chance it will be done. It’s gut check time for US Muslims. Either you’re w/ us or against us. That’s the way it works.
DBQ – the only current theocracies I can think of are Muslim, and Israel, which is sort of a combination of theocracy and democracy. So it’s pretty difficult to compare Muslim theocracies with any other. So what theocracy does Po think Muslim countries compare with, since it’s apparently unfair to compare it to a democracy?
Do you think Po believes women fare better in Saudi Arabia, where they are not allowed to drive, than in Israel?
Shirley you jest. They do not allow women to drive in Israel do they? What is the world coming to?
@ Paul
I know I have told this story, probably elsewhere, but it is relevant to the question of holding people accountable.
My best friend in elementary and high school is Japanese. Her father came over to the US as part of the 33 Chicago World’s Fair as a very young man in the Japanese military and as part of the Samauri exhibit. He was a master swordsman. While in the US he met his future wife and stayed illegally…..basically deserting from his country. Moving to a California agricultural area he had a business as a landscaper and general gardening company and was quite successful, employing several people. A popular man in the community.
When the internment camps happened, because he was still a Japanese national AND a former military officer, they were rounded up and sent to Tulelake. This did make some sense since we were at war and he was illegally here and could easily have been a spy. This is where my friend’s oldest sister was born. While they were gone, the his employees and friends had bought up his house and business and his assets and they continued to run the business. He paid them all back for their costs over the years after the war. He also didn’t want to discuss it. I don’t blame him.
When they were returned the good people who had done this for him gave him back his stuff and they all continued with the business. People couldn’t STOP the event but they did the next best thing and stood up for their friend and colleague. He was lucky to have good people around him. Others….not so much.
“I didn’t call anyone an Islamaphobe for remarking on “beheading people and whipping women”.”
I am not referring to or about Inga, and have no desire to, as she cheers anytime anyone says anything negative to or about me.
And as for the other direction of the thread, it is often said that criticism of Muslims for not condemning extremism is Islamophobic, or unfair.
However, the point is that the best way to combat extremism is for Islam to reform from within. Moderate clerics who speak against stoning are reformers, for example. It is not that people expect American Muslims to get a rifle and go fight ISIS. But reform works best from within. Any non-Muslim who criticizes Islam is often called Islamophobic, as can be seen on this very thread. In addition, often Muslims rush to excuse extremism, or the abuses of human rights under Sharia Law, or one woman threatening another with whipping under Sharia Law, or they attack anyone who criticizes the savagery done by Islamic terrorists. Excusing the behavior, and trying to silence critics, condones the behavior.
Doing nothing, or excusing, in the face of evil allows that evil to do great harm.
I followed the plight of women in the Middle East before it was “cool”. If Christians were beheading people and stoning rape victims, I somehow doubt there would be such an existential crisis in naming the problem.
on 1, February 16, 2015 at 6:30 pmDust Bunny Queen
@ Paul
I know. The State Dept and FDR have a lot to answer for.
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Chuckling….
po:
I bet you would look good with a full beard. Do you have a checkered scarf and an AK?
@ Paul
I know. The State Dept and FDR have a lot to answer for.
Po
English is likely your second language. So here are the top two definitions of the word witness.
1.to see, hear, or know by personal presence and perception:
to witness an accident.
2.to be present at (an occurrence) as a formal witness, spectator, bystander, etc.:
She witnessed our wedding.
If you meant as in testify, then that would put a different spin on it and you should have said so.
verb (used with object), testified, testifying.
4. to bear witness to; affirm as fact or truth; attest.
5. to give or afford evidence of in any manner.
You need to be precise.
If the right had its way, we too would be a theocracy.
DBQ says:
In the English language the word witness tends to mean that you have SEEN the evidence or the act being accomplished.
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Okay, DBQ, are you saying that witness is the same as watching and as seeing?
My challenge to pogo pits one religion against all others when it comes to treatment of women.
Your response pits islam as practiced in some countries with non-religious, democratic laws in the US.
And Karen’s response is the correct one because in the US we do not have a theocracy or a system where a religion or religious leaders determine the laws.
We are a secular country and what THIS woman did in the post to which we are all supposedly commenting upon is in defiance of the secular laws in this country.
Paul, you may be right, I just grew out a nice fluffy beard…and not the type of beard that turns Nick on.
Am I the only one who noticed how Nick is always reasserting how non-gay he is?
Karen
Please read the topics before coming to class. You are holding us back with your rants that are way off the topic.
My challenge to pogo pits one religion against all others when it comes to treatment of women.
Your response pits islam as practiced in some countries with non-religious, democratic laws in the US.
Are you okay?
Alright, alright, i’ll play: Even Pakistan had a woman head of state.