Posted on 07/05/2004 3:09:22 PM PDT by MadIvan
A POPULAR Saudi newsreader has pardoned her husband for beating her almost to death, allowing his release from prison after less than three months.
In a case that has broken Saudi taboos and prompted a tightening of laws to protect women, Rania al-Baz, a presenter with Saudi Television’s Channel One, withdrew her right for monetary compensation. She also waived the right under Sharia (Islamic law) to inflict a beating of equal severity on her husband, Mohammed al-Fallatta, and requested his release.
The television presenter was savagely beaten on April 4 because she kept answering the phone at the family home. Mr al-Fallatta repeatedly punched his wife in the face then smashed her head against a marble floor while throttling her. When he thought she was dead he put her in the family car, apparently with the intention of burying her, but she regained consciousness. He panicked, dumped her at the entrance to a hospital and drove off.
Mrs al-Baz suffered 13 facial fractures and is still undergoing reconstructive surgery.
The beating would have remained just another sad case of marital abuse if Mrs al-Baz had not decided to go public. She released photographs of her badly bruised and swollen face and granted interviews from her hospital bed.
Her plight caused outrage throughout Saudi Arabia. Although wife-beating is thought to be widespread, the kingdom’s strict Islamic society generally ensures the subject remains taboo. Islamic law provides women with protection from abuse but courts tend to rule in favour of men.
Saudis have an aversion to public debate and scandal, preferring instead the timehonoured tribal practice of deciding matters behind closed doors.
“It has caused a sensation in that this is a private society yet she went on television and spoke about it and campaigned against violence to women . . . she is a ground breaker,” said Khaled al-Maieena, a columnist with Saudi Arabia’s Arab News English-language daily.
Saudi Arabia remains a profoundly conservative country despite mounting calls for reform, generally pitting intellectuals, the business community and the more cosmopolitan populations on the east and west coasts against the powerful religious establishment and the traditionally conservative desert heartland.
Mrs al-Baz has not said why she has decided to forgive her husband, but it is believed to be part of a divorce deal that will allow her to keep custody of their two children.
Mr al-Maieena said: “What she has done will make errant or violent husbands rethink their ways.”
Mr al-Fallatta, who disappeared after the assault, turned himself in when the case attracted huge media attention. He was initially charged with attempted murder but the charges were later reduced to severe battery. He was sentenced to six-months in prison and 300 lashes of the whip, a punishment that was considered lenient in view of the severity of the crime.
He has been in trouble with the law before. He is suspected of drugging and kidnapping his sister, Hannan, a popular singer, from her home in Beirut two years ago.
She doesn't have a choice. In extreme Islamic society, women are seen as less than human; they're property. When he gets out of prison, this creep gets possession his wife back, and I use the word possession advisedly. While the court is willing to punish him for trying to kill her, she has a little leverage she can use to secure a divorce, and a window of safety for herself and her kids.
I suspect she will soon leave Saudi, but she will spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder for agents hired by her husband, or the Saudi government, coming to kidnap her kids.
That's the way it is.
If he had killed her, all he had to say was he suspected her of having an affair. The cops would apologise for wasting his time, and that would be the end of it.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I don't know about mental deficiency. A lot of of it stems from cultural and monetary issues, never mind fear.
Of course if your head can find a wall stud faster than some gizmo from Home Depot, I guess you could bring up mental deficiency. Your solution about angry male relatives with baseball bats is excellent, however women in Middle Eastern countries don't give a you know what about their female relatives.
I think she cut a deal. Remember, a woman doesn't get custody of her kids should she live long enough to get a divorce over there.
Women=men. My bad, and scratch that extra "of".
They claim to have one (single) informant that says 15 and 16 year olds were "beaten and tortured". Examples of torture they cite include: removal of clothing, dousing in water, smearing in mud.
For 30 years ARD never ran a story on Abu Ghraib when people were really being tortured there. The German press never gave a damn about a suffering Iraqi, when Saddam was the one making 'em suffer.
Maybe that's because they were too busy counting the Deutsche Marks that Saddam paid German industrialists for German technik on poison gases. Or the Deutsche Marks that Saddam paid German industrialists for his Führerbunker.
I guess the bottom has fallen out of the Zyklon-B market since April 2003, and you can't blame the Germans for being a little bit upset.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
"I looked at the German article -- it's a promo for a TV show."
"Mehr über die Vorfälle im Irak heute um 21 Uhr im ARD-Magazin "Report Mainz"."
Yes but it was today at 9 P.M.
We have already 6th July 1 A.M. in Central Europe.
Informations in Polish were posted at 10.30 P.M. so after that show.
Here you have the best parts :
"Arab journalist Suhaib Badr Al-Baz who has spent 74 days in Abu Gharib said that he heard cries of beaten 12 years old girl" or "They poured(?) water on 16 years old boy and then despit chill they transported him around the city"
People in forum on that Polish page have real fun that he only heard, but he know that she was 12 years old or that it may be cold in Iraq :)
How did those Saudi princes die a year or so ago, 2, 3 or 4 of them within a short period? This honey will die in a car wreck or be shot by an extremist intruder. Her husband will be in Bahrain at the time, but she won't last through July.
Sharia actually has such a law? Does it mean that she has to carry out the beating herself, or can she hire six infidels to do it?
Have you ever heard of sutee?
Cant say I have...
While the British outlawed this custom, it still exists to this day.
Yes, as a matter of fact I do recall something like that. But India for the most part has joined the 21st century. The followers of Allah just refuse to.
I'm assuming you're trying to be delicate about describing this, because I'm sure you know it is NOT circumcision (which implies cutting off extraneous skin).
It is actually genital MUTILATION, where they cut out the woman's clitoris... which is the equivalent of cutting off a man's penis. They want to be sure the woman doesn't enjoy sex. Isn't that special?
You're quite right, I was trying to be delicate. Partially, because I understand some FReepers have difficulty with sexual content even in context.
"The television presenter was savagely beaten on April 4 because she kept answering the phone at the family home. Mr al-Fallatta repeatedly punched his wife in the face then smashed her head against a marble floor while throttling her. When he thought she was dead he put her in the family car, apparently with the intention of burying her, but she regained consciousness. He panicked, dumped her at the entrance to a hospital and drove off."
Just another day in the life of endentured and battered Saudi women. I'd like to meet her master .... er uh husband, then push him off a cliff.
Thanks Grzegorz. Polish is difficult for me (not impossible as I speak Czech) but it was easier for me to read the German article, I read German same as English, and of course the original story is the German ARD network.
The ARD article did accuse interrogators of stripping clothes off a 16 year old girl.
I had the cold water trick done to me in interrogation, and was put out in the weather. In Maine (northern USA) in winter, as part of survival training. To compare, temperatue in Iraq right now is about 130F during the day which I think is almost 50 C. I think I should like to be soaked in water in that case.
But yeah, these are examples of interrogators making a person uncomfortable, because he (maybe she?) is holding information back. To call this torture -- well for an Iraqi or a German, means not knowing history of your own country.
Let me guess, this "journalist" was in Abu Ghraib because Paul Bremer didn't like his columns?
Soon the prison will be back run by Iraqis. Then there might actually be torture again. I hope not but many Iraqis are very bitter towards the Baathists and the terrorists.
I'll follow your link to the Polish story and see what our good allies in the War on Terror, the Poles, are saying... if I can figure out their language.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
"Saudi Arabia remains a profoundly conservative country despite mounting calls for reform, generally pitting intellectuals, the business community and the more cosmopolitan populations on the east and west coasts against the powerful religious establishment and the TRADITIONALLY CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS HEARTLAND"
Oh, THAT'S where we should bomb.
I know. And yet we're supposed to be adults here. Sad, isn't it? (But maybe if we don't TALK about it, then it doesn't exist, right?)
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