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Saudi Arabia Abolishes Flogging as a Punishment for Crime Saudi Arabia Abolishes Flogging as a Punishment for Crime
(about 7 hours later)
Saudi Arabia has abolished flogging as a punishment, the state human rights commission said Saturday, hailing it as a “major step forward” in the reform program launched by the king and his powerful son. BEIRUT, Lebanon — When judges in Saudi Arabia convict someone of a crime, they now have one fewer punishment to hand down. As of this month, they can no longer have people flogged.
Court-ordered floggings in Saudi Arabia — sometimes extending to hundreds of lashes — have long drawn condemnation from human rights groups. The decision to ban flogging, which the state-run human rights commission confirmed on Saturday, removes one aspect of the kingdom’s justice system that has often generated criticism abroad.
But rights groups say that the headline legal reforms overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have brought no let up in the conservative Islamic kingdom’s crushing of dissent, including through the death penalty. While Saudi officials hailed the move as a bold reform by the kingdom’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, Western human rights campaigners gave more muted reactions.
Other forms of corporal punishment, such as amputation for theft or beheading for murder and terrorism offenses, have not yet been outlawed, Reuters reported. “I would not call it a breakthrough,” said Adam Coogle, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who tracks Saudi Arabia. “I would call it a positive step.”
The state human rights commission said that the latest reform, which was reported by Saudi media including the pro-government Okaz newspaper, would ensure that no more convicts were sentenced to flogging. Dampening his enthusiasm, he said, were what he called the many other aspects of the kingdom’s justice system that remain problematic, including the ability to hold people for months without charge, execution by beheading and the lack of a unified penal code.
“This decision guarantees that convicts who would previously have been sentenced to the lash will from now on receive fines or prison terms instead,” its chairman, Awad al-Awad, said. “I surely hope he intends to go after the whole justice system, because it is very flawed in both regulations and implementation,” Mr. Coogle said of Prince Mohammed.
Previously, the courts had powers to order the flogging of convicts found guilty of a range of offenses including extramarital sex, breach of the peace and murder. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s few absolute monarchies and administers justice based on Shariah law. Drinking alcohol is a criminal offense, and drug trafficking often a capital crime. While stoning as a punishment for adultery and the amputation of limbs for theft remain technically on the books, they are rarely, if ever, carried out.
In the future, judges who would have chosen flogging will have to choose between fines, jail sentences, or noncustodial alternatives like community service. The lack of a unified penal code gives judges great leeway in sentencing, and flogging was most often part of the punishment for so-called moral crimes such as public drunkenness or what judges deemed to be inappropriate contact between unrelated women and men.
The most high-profile flogging in recent years was of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes in 2014 on charges of “insulting” Islam. Some of those offenses are now seen as less grave in Saudi Arabia because of changes pushed through by Prince Mohammed. As part of his plans to diversify the economy and open up society, he has taken the power to arrest away from the kingdom’s religious police and expanded entertainment opportunities by opening movie theaters and bringing in rock concerts, professional wrestling tournaments and monster truck rallies.
He was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought the following year. At least in Saudi cities, it is much more common to see women socializing openly with men and not covering their hair or faces than it was a few years ago.
The abolition of flogging in Saudi Arabia comes just days after the kingdom’s human rights record was again in the spotlight following news of the death from a stroke of imprisoned activist Abdullah al-Hamid, 69. Saudi officials hailed the flogging ban as part of these changes.
Hamid was a founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association and was sentenced to 11 years in jail in March 2013, campaigners said. “This reform is a momentous step forward in Saudi Arabia’s human rights agenda, and merely one of many recent reforms in the kingdom,” Awwad Alawwad, the president of the kingdom’s human rights commission, told Reuters.
He was convicted on multiple charges, including “breaking allegiance” to the Saudi ruler, “inciting disorder” and seeking to disrupt state security, Amnesty International said. The decision to replace flogging as a punishment with jail time and fines was made sometime this month and announced internally by the kingdom’s top court, Reuters reported.
Criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has grown since King Salman named his son Prince Mohammed crown prince and heir to the throne in June 2017. Floggings tended to be done with a wooden cane, the swift blows going up and down the backside of the sentenced person. In the past, they were often carried out in public, adding a social stigma to the physical pain inflicted.
The king has launched ambitious economic and social reforms, allowing women to drive and sports and entertainment events to be staged in the kingdom. “It is meant to be more of a humiliation,” said Mr. Coogle of Human Rights Watch, adding that he had not heard of reports of injuries.
However, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 and the increased repression of dissidents at home have overshadowed the prince’s pledge to modernize the economy and society. Reports of public floggings have grown rare in recent years, either because they were being administered in prisons or not at all.
The Saudi authorities put a record 184 people to death last year, according to figures released by Amnesty International on Tuesday. The kingdom’s most famous flogging case was that of Raif Badawi, who ran a website that published material criticizing Saudi religious figures, lauding Western legal systems and arguing that atheists should be free to state their views without being punished.
“Saudi Arabia’s growing use of the death penalty, including as a weapon against political dissidents, is an alarming development,” the human rights group said. That angered Saudi conservatives, who denounced him.
The Saudi authorities arrested Mr. Badawi in 2012 and put him on trial on charges that included cybercrime and disobeying his father. In 2014, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, fined more than a quarter-million dollars, and ordered to endure 1,000 blows with a cane in weekly installments over several months.
But a video of the first installment, in front of a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, set off international outrage and Mr. Badawi was never caned again. While he remains in prison, he has been embraced by some in the West as symbol of the kingdom’s intolerance of freedom of thought and expression. In 2015, he was awarded the European Union’s top human rights award and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.