She had been sentenced to 60 lashes because she had participated in a television show during which a man had spoken of his sexual experiences. Rozanna al-Yami was the first woman to undergo a sentence so harsh. The news went quickly around the world and this morning King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz overturned the ruling made by the Saudi court.
The king wanted to send another signal to his subjects against the practice of flogging, which is so dear to the Islamic courts of his Kingdom.
The journalist, just 22 year old, had not wanted to appeal the ruling. She said the sentence was "a conviction for all journalists," but she was afraid that a new trial could bring only more severe penalties.
The sentence seemed immediately disproportionate to the international world, even because al-Yami, who has always defended herself by saying that she did not take part to that specific episode, could not possibly know what the guest in the studio would later recounted. Mazen Abdul Jawad, this is his name, described in detail his sex life and he has already been sentenced, in early October, to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes. According to Sharia (strict Islamic law in force in Saudi Arabia), his behavior was considered "immoral". The sentence arrived for three of his friends, too, who took part to the show and had been sentenced to two years in prison and 300 lashes each.
The tv show had aroused the wrath of thousands of conservative Saudis and in early August the authorities had announced the closure of the Riyadh headquarters of the Lebanese television station. Then, a few days ago, the court had inflicted 60 lashes to the journalist as a "deterrent." Rozana al-Yani was the first woman to receive a sentence like that in Saudi Arabia, where the Wahhabism, the most uncompromising doctrine of Sunni Islam, survives.
The sentence "for the mere fact of being a dependent of the tv station" was described as "brutal, inhuman and unjust" by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). "It indicates disregard for freedom of expression and free journalism.- denounced the Federation - It also shows how Saudi Arabia is out of the modern world".
It is not the first time that King Abdullah stepped in to block such judgments. In November 2007, the king had blocked enforcement of a sentence of 90 lashes to a rape victim guilty of being alone in the car with a man, who was not a relative, shortly before being raped.
Marianna Lepore
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