Do NOT Smoke on Saudi Arabian Airlines
February 5th, 2009 by SilvioA passenger on a flight from Kurajat in the north of Saudi-Arabia to Dschidda, located at the red sea, refused to stop smoking during the flight and will have to face some serious charges for not giving into repeated requests of the staff to finish his cigarette.
Apparently Saudi-Arabia is a bit more concerned about the health of its citizens than other countries. Why else would they want to punish the guy with a serious whipping? And by whipping I actually mean the punishment will be 30 hits with something that looks more or less like this:
After he found out in court, the authorities will actually go through with this, the man tried to apologize for his awful crime. He even tried the line of, “I just can’t help myself…can’t I go to rehab instead?”. No luck Ace. The whipping is still on.
I guess the lesson here is, a country known for its brutal and unusual justice system is not the place to start an argument about laws on, well, anything really. No matter how badly you need a smoke…
Saudi Student Gets 12 Years for Possession
December 11th, 2008 by Perry
Just when you thought the drug laws were tough in red states, Malaysia puts any mandatory minimums Kansas could impose, to utter shame.
Muhamed Tariq Sadaquah Abualjadeil, a Saudi business student living abroad in Malaysia, was recently sentenced to 12 years and 10 rotan strokes (also known as “caning”) for marijuana possession.
Ahmad was caught with five pounds of marijuana nearing a housing complex at 1:00 am on Nov. 18, 2006. His lawyer said the marijuana was for medical purposes and pleaded for a second chance for his client, which he apparently received.
Deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin submitted that Tariq should be thankful that the prosecution offered him a lower charge and thus escape the mandatory death sentence.
Steer Clear of Egyptian Princesses
October 29th, 2008 by Perry
Things often seem frustrating when you hear the continual stories about the government either arresting minor offenders, lying about drug statistics and pushing ridiculous PSA campaigns down our throats.
However, it could be a lot worse.
An Egyptian doctor is stuck in jail because a Saudi Princess he prescribed painkillers to is now addicted to those sneaky pills.
Raouf Amin’s son alleges that the princess came in and picked out exactly what medicine she wanted (after she was treated in the U.S. with a similar painkiller) and his father was hardly at fault.
Rouf’s sentence is particularly harsh. He was ordered to receive 70 lashes a week until the number 1,500 is reached, then he’ll serve 14 years in jail. So far, he has received his first set of 70 lashes and is on schedule for the same amount next week. By my math, he only has 19+ weeks of lashings to endure after the 2nd set.
Local doctors and Amnesty International have expressed outrage, but it seems outrage isn’t enough to spring innocent doctors in Egypt.
[via DoseNation]
