We recently discussed the latest outrage a protest by Malak Al Shehri, who decided to do what most women around the world do without a second’s thought: she went out into public without covering herself up with a veil or hijab. Malak then posted herself on a public street. The result was outrage with some calling for her to be beheaded or “thrown to the dogs.” Now she has been arrested under the medieval Islamic Sharia system — religious orthodoxy masquerading as a legal system and imposed by “judges” who are little more than clerics coercing citizens to adhere to their religious views.
A student from Dammam using the name of Sara Ahmed shared the shot showing Malak wearing a black coat over a calf-length dress. Sara captained the picture in a way that captured the absurdity of the situation for modern women: “A Saudi woman went out yesterday without an Abaya or a hijab in Riyadh Saudi Arabia and many Saudis are now demanding her execution.”
The calls for Malak’s arrest were heeded by the Saudi officials who acted on complaints brought by the religious police.
Various people posted demands that she face the ultimate punishment for daring to assure her right to shed the medieval cover imposed on women. A police spokesman said that Malek was also accused her of “speaking openly about prohibited relations with (non-related) men”. She will be tried for “violations of general morals” under Sharia law.
The arrest is the latest outrage of the Sharia system that forces people to adhere to a religious code under the threat of punishments that can include death. As discussed earlier, these young women (and those fighting for the right to drive and leave their homes without male approval) are the Saudi “Seneca Falls” generation of courageous human rights advocates. We will continue to follow and highlight their struggle. They are a reminder that the rights that we take for granted remain only aspirations for many around the world.
Breaking News! Other cultures do not share our cultural norms!
I can just see JT’s opposite number in Mecca, or wherever waxing wroth because we didn’t execute an adulterous woman or something, or blow a gasket because Europe allows brothels to flourish without an Imam on hand to marry, and then divorce, the girl and her client.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Her ankles are not showing owing to the rather high leather shoes she is wearing, but her legs, too much of her legs, are showing. That is also not permitted in Saudi, at least not in public. The dress needs to be below ankle level so as to cover the skin. Furthermore, the coloration and pattern of the dress are designed to “attract,” attention, which is also not permitted. Her hands are mercifully stuck down into the pockets of her coat, but when she withdraws them to walk, her wrists will likely show. That is also forbidden. Much better to wear what ever one wants, even this outfit as pictured, but to then cover it all with an ABAYA! Simple!
Fidel was such a “Bad Guy” but these Saudi’s could show him how it is done, the “American Support Way”.
Exxon is one of the largest supporters in the state of Saudi Arabia.
Define ‘support’.
Meant investors….. Do investors that help keep a government propped up support? You decide.:)
Investors bring in capital and employ people. That’s it. They’re not responsible for public policy in the state in question, here or there. While we’re at it, there is no indication (see the Pew Research) that there is widespread discontent with standards of modesty enunciated in Saudi law.
Fidel Castro engaged in mass seizures of property, executed thousands of political opponents, essentially imprisoned his public (allowing only about 200 departures a day), completely ruined any autonomous public life, and constructed a political economy which did not allow people to support themselves on their own account or engage in ordinary transactions conducted on terms not dictated by state planners.
Saudi’s have on the books ordinances which define indecent exposure in ways David Noe disapproves of, so clearly they can give Fidel lessons in brutality.
I’m sorry to hear that, and was worried about what would happen to her.
Remember this, when Liberals call for Western women to wear the hijab out of solidarity with Muslim women, or when they claim that it’s Republicans calling for a war on women, while proposing unlimited migration from areas where abusing women is the norm. There are so many women suffering under abusive regimes like this, and so many who have been brainwashed into thinking it’s right.
Steve G – je suis prest. Is there a Go Fund Me account to set up that would fund a merc op to get her out of there, because I’m thinking she would seamlessly fit right in here in the US. If they don’t want a chic fashionable lady or their men can’t control themselves unless women wear an abaya, then bring the girls who want freedom and equality here. Rather than just blanket immigration, I’d rather have those who yearn for Western freedom and are open minded about tolerance.
Malak, je suis disponible.
Who is Malak and why do you keep saying you are available?
J’ai parlé trop vite. Désolé
They have a lot of ugly women. Better to cover their faces first and worry about the rear ends later.
Here we need to outlaw tatoos on women. That! is ugly!
I suppose you think yourself a babe magnet?
He must have either a lot of money and pay in advance or be from the most eastern part of the Czech Republic:
I don’t see what the problem is! These are the laws of that land and the people of that country should be able to punish people who break the law no matter if people around the world disagree!
Yes, because rights are granted to people by the state, huh? How are people this ridiculous? It was the law of the land to murder Jews (and many others) not so long ago in Germany.
Saudi Arabia has forbidden any Jews from setting foot in the country. They will not issue a visa. Period. The anti-semitism is quite strong there, as well as strange ideas about women.
Isaac – yes, we are the most free nation in the world. And yet, prominent politicians like Hillary Clinton advocated for blasphemy laws. I dearly hope we don’t fling the freedoms away that our founders paid for in blood and grief. This is why I wish that Professor Turley would get nominated to the Supreme Court. He would protect us from either side running amuck, and protect our liberty.
What if people in that country don’t think the laws are fair, and there is really no democratic way to change them, and the women cannot leave the country without their male guardian’s permission and chaperone?
Just…have a really miserable life and stop complaining?
There is one aspect of society greater than the law, and that is the creating, changing, adjusting of laws. This is what makes the Western World the most socially advanced and in the eyes of any creator the most evolved. The mindless power mongering employment of laws as is practices in some Islamic societies is an example of a backward people. The West can only influence by stating its revulsion at these obscene practices and moving forward, working on the details, now that the basic freedoms have been recognized.
Wow! A comment sans Trump or Bush. Kudos.
Snooze. There are provisions in the New York State Penal Law which proscribe ‘public lewdness’ and ‘indecent exposure’. Among those who impose penalties for these offenses are town justices and village justices, who are commonly laymen. The utility of these provisions of the code is that Lena Dunham cannot traipse around Manhattan topless without having to answer to a municipal judge.
So, your complaint is that Saudi Arabia maintains strict standards for ‘indecent exposure’. And how large a wager would you be willing to place contra the proposition that the vast majority of male and female Saudis are at home with such laws? Pew Research undertook a survey of respondents in Saudi Arabia and 74% defined ‘appropriate dress’ for a woman in a public place as consisting of a burqa or a niqab. The niqab shows the eyeballs and the burqa provides only a screen for a woman to look through. Now, a great many of these people may simply adhere to this standard as aspirational and be willing to let it slide as a matter of law, but that survey is indicative of what people’s sensibilities are in Riyadh and Jeddah, like or lump it. A grand total of 3% of the respondents to that Pew survey said that uncovered heads were appropriate.
So, you’re telling us all its outrageous that Saudi law does not reflect the tastes of 3% of the Saudi public. Here’s a suggestion: stay out of Saudi Arabia. Works for me.
Toads – although I agree with your take on the morality codes of municipalities, however they cannot serve up the death penalty. They are usually limited to a year in jail (not prison) and fines. And they really want the fines because it pays their salary.
Come again? Budgets for JP courts are set by municipal governments. I’m not aware of the balance of revenue sources. I’m told by a fellow I correspond with in metro St. Louis that JP courts there are fine happy, but I never found that to be the case where I’ve lived in New York.
As far as I am aware, in Saudi Arabia the death penalty is imposed (with discretion) for homicide, rape, terrorism-related offenses, and (on odd occasions), sodomy. Would not apply in this woman’s case.
Toads – in Arizona JP courts are county courts and the budget is set by the county. However, they are expected to pay their way.
It is also applied for blasphemy offenses. Flogging is also used as a punishment for dissent of offending Islam or the hous of Saud! Flogging is often nothing more than a long term death penalty.
http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/country-search-post.cfm?country=saudi+arabia
Apostasy, not blasphemy. There’s a long list of offenses in black-letter law. That does not mean that penalty is ever actually applied.
Step –
Who are these “common laymen” of which you speak? Can you name even one, please?
I have NEVER known a “town justice” or a “village justice” to NOT be an attorney-at-law, which is an officer of the court. And, as such, they are completely fluent with the penal code.
These black-robed thugs are just as quick to evade those same codes as the superior beings they believe themselves to be, as they are to impose their penalties on us lowly plebes.
In New York municipal court judges (which you have in New York City, general cities, second class cities, and the districts of Nassau county) are required to be attorneys. In suburban townships, they are also so required to be, in certain contingencies (if I’m not mistaken)
The vast majority of town and village justices are exurban, small town, or rural not required to be (though sometimes local lawyers run for the post). In a country township or village, it’s fairly common for there to be no more than a couple of lawyers resident, so you really cannot require the JP to be an attorney. Per a friend who is an assistant state attorney-general, they’re quite variable in quality: either meticulous and capable or horrid. A faculty member I once new at a small town college in New York said he sent his students to see the village justice at work, so they’d get a taste of the 3d world at home. These local JP’s are commonly part time and have sessions once or twice a week where they process traffick and parking tickets, undertake arraignments, administer fines for violations of local ordinances, hear small claims cases, hear landlord-tenant disputes, hear misdemeanor and submisdemeanor violations, &c. Since Indecent Exposure is a class b misdemeanor, they’d hear that complaint too if there weren’t any felonies on the bill.
The fellow from the Attorney-General’s office had a funny story about tracking down one such character at the New Berlin Motocross.
I think there’s some sort of training program they have to attend before they can be sworn in if they’re laymen, run by the Secretary of State.
Toads – in Arizona everyone has to go to Judge’s School.
It is the luck of the draw to be born a women in a liberal western society. I’m terrified for her, but grateful for having born here in the US. I find it perplexing why people are so negative about the US when such things are happening around the world. I find it equally perplexing why third wave feminism defends this a cultural diversity. They’re defending their own oppression.
Malak Al Shehri, won’t survive. With any luck she will become a footnote for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.
I bet she gets hit with a modest fine.
Their country, their laws. If we do not like it, we do not have to deal with them.
How’d we end up with abortion on demand in this country? Well, the law professoriate and their collaborators on the appellate judiciary thought it ‘outrageous’ that the laws were written in response to vernacular opinion and not their opinion, so they pretend that such laws are ‘unconstitutional’. Prof. Turley gives us all an example of the mentality.
Sadly however we do more that “deal” with them. We arm them and do their dirty work in the Middle East.
What dirty work?
As discussed before in these comboxes, arms sales to Saudi Arabia by American manufacturers are quite modest nine-figure sums.
Paul — obviously our rulers aka 1% don’t mind it; otherwise they would treat Sharia-law countries differently. What you or I want is irrelevant.
Guess I have the same mental disease as Professor Turley.
Under Sharia law, the woman arrested can now be repeatedly raped while in custody.
Or was that a mental disorder of the creators of Sharia law too ?
You miss the point, BR The mental disorder is the compulsion and fervor of the liberals/leftists to IMPORT the proponents of Sharia Law and other abuses into civilized nations, and then to complain about the inevitable results of their actions.
Prof. Turley continues on with his hypocrisy. He denounces typical Islamic conduct, and then he attacks Israel for its refusal to to permit individuals from attempting to eradicate Israel and replace it with another Islamic state that will implement Sharia Law. But I guess this is to expected from someone steeped in liberal/leftist ideology. There’s a good reason why they say “Liberalism is a mental disorder.”
Ad hominem does not work, Mr Adamo.
The term ‘ad hominem’ does not mean what you think it means.
JJ, how is my criticism personal and devoid of logic? Ad hominem requires that those things be present. For example, the following is an ad hominem:
“My opponent suggests that lowering taxes will be a good idea — this is coming from a woman who eats a pint of Ben and Jerry’s each night!”
Is the difference clear? If not, hit the books, study, and get back to me later if you’re still confused.
Just for the record, this is not the Ralph Adamo who lives in New Orleans and is not an Islamophobe..