Man in Saudi Arabia to face 300+ lashes for possessing alcohol

[HermioneWeasley]

Clearly this is an insane and barbaric punishment, particularly on top of 12 months in prison.

But part of me thinks that if you choose to live in such a repulsive regime and break the law, don't you have to accept it?

Should the British government intervene in another country's sanctions?

Yes, I need my husbands permission to travel. But what about me wanting to leave the UK with the kids to go on holiday. Is it not recommended I carry a letter from their father???

You really can't see the difference there?

I cannot understand people who choose to live there for the tax position. Dessert's post is a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance - look how she tries to justify and minimise and ignore to make it OK in her head that she condones the practices by living there.

Surely it is possible to think that a punishment is barbaric while at the same time saying that someone who knowingly breaks the laws in a country where the punishment for doing so is severe is a bit of an idiot really and is bloody arrogant to think that the British government should get him out of jail.

There is a vast difference between someone being beheaded for daring to protest against the regime in his country, and someone being given lashes for carrying illegal alcohol in the boot of his car.

I have little doubt that the seventeen year old who is about to be beheaded and then crucified knows exactly what punishment he would face, and possibly even protested prepared to pay with his life for his right to freedom of speech. Is that ok? no it isn't. But he isn't the first and he certainly won't be the last who has knowingly paid a high price for his beliefs but is prepared to do so. Unlike someone who goes to live in a country for the financial benefit (let's face it no-one goes to live in Saudi for anything other than money), knowingly breaks the law there and then seeks support from the government of the country whose taxes he has sought to avoid paying for the past 25 years.

How many local Saudi's have been given lashes for having alcohol over the past year? How many of them are we protesting for? none. This Brit should not be exempt because he is a Brit, in an ideal world those punishments would not exist, but they do. So if you don't want to face them, then don't go and live in a country where they exist and then start complaining about them when you knowingly break the laws which apply to them.

I cannot drive, correct
Why can't you drive?

Yes, I need my husbands permission to travel
Why do you need your husbands permission to travel?

Simple answers please.

Desert, you live in a country where women are deemed too stupid to drive, you have to have permission from your husband (your superior) before you can travel and you can't even have a tipple.

Sounds a right barrel of laughs living there!

The 17 year old was 14 at the time. I doubt he had any idea of what would happen to him. He was a child. Still is. A normal everyday teenager. Yes the cases are very different.

As for this recent case, calling him arrogant for wanting his own government to intervene to halt a punishment that will probably kill him is callous in the extreme and insulting to this well loved family man. His family are beside themselves and worried sick. I have signed the petition on change. I hope David Cameron does something brave and that the UN reassess the farce that is the Human Rights Council. If Saudi are not prepared to look at their practices then they should not be a part of it.

there are 1001 taxis, if you are fortunate enough to have the money.

Fortunately most expats will have the money but what if you don't?

Typical, posters open up and others make it personal.

Even decades ago expat FAMILIES could have a fantastic life down in the Gulf, as living within the likes of international company compounds provide everything you need - or outside Saudi Arabia (that could have the same facilities) the Beach (or Equestrian) Clubs.

A parent that works up until lunch time (tax free), children at company paid for international schools, all spending time TOGETHER in the afternoon around pools and/or the sea EVERY DAY if they so wished.

And here with 'Tax Freedom Day; around early JUne, parents work most of the day, commute the rest of it, while the majority of children have a bolt standard education, and if lucky, get to spend time with their parent(s) before they fall asleep on the sofa - looking to get around a beech 2 out of 52 weeks..

No one said they CAN'T ever have a tipple, even in Saudi Arabia, what you don't do is transport it around as there are traffic spot checks throughout the Gulf - but if alcohol on tap 24/7 is more important than a tax free life around the beach, with the family, as children get a world class education - in a country that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on a made up dossier, then people can take that 'high morals' road.

but if alcohol on tap 24/7 is more important than a tax free life

I don't think anyone here has advocated alcohol on tap 24/7, stop being so ridiculous.

CallaLilli ... still sore about not knowing the the indigenous difference between South Africa and Saudi Arabia, huh? lol

"what if you don't have the money (for a taxi)"

What a ridiculous question THAT was, what do people do here, they certainly won't be running a fecking car TO drive - so adapt, get a bus, whatever. Duh.

But seriously, based on the morals logic I'm reading here, how can anyone live in the UK KNOWING that some government spin doctor MADE UP a dossier on Iraqi WMDs as an excuse for war, that TO THIS DAY was the cause of countless dead, maimed, homeless?

Our hypocrisy is so pure/great, we not only still live here, we still even VOTE for them.

Isitme, you are making this post all about you, you have made it personal about how wonderful it is to be living out there. You are entirely missing the point and I feel being deliberately obtuse. Our government should interven in human rights abuses in Saudi, especially when one of our own citizens is facing this punishment. Yes our government is complicit in it. There in lies the problem. Of course there is hypocrisy in accusing Saudi of hypocrisy. Countries that are vocal about human rights abuses certainly choose to turn a blind eye to their own and Saudi's when it suits them. And the UN seems completely hamstrung by its own competing interests. Its just all so bloody depressing.

CallaLilli ... still sore about not knowing the the indigenous difference between South Africa and Saudi Arabia, huh? lol

Yes that's it entirely. The rest of us bow down to you for your great knowledge.

Though you do know that many of us protested against the Iraq war and many of us did not vote for those who took us to war, right?

Meanwhile the mother of the boy set to be beheaded has pleaded with international leaders. Should she just kept her mouth shut instead of trying to save her son?

Isitme, you are making this post all about you, you have made it personal about how wonderful it is to be living out there.

Our government should interven in human rights abuses in Saudi, especially when one of our own citizens is facing this punishment.

The problem with this thread is that people refuse to accept the facts, THEY are right and don't even like it when others answers on Saudi life don't fit their preconceptions.

So what if the Saudis have had the same laws since the 18th century, so what if THEY think that it binds their society together, so what if everyone knows the rules, how can someone live in that society and keep their morals intact - let us "intervene" on those laws and tell them they can't have them, so says the judge and jury in a UK that had an Empire, to those that were mainly Bedouin less than a century ago.

A British citizen makes it our business, their religious laws on those who chose to live in their county, are not.

READ about their branch of Islam, it is severe, and we are not going to change that - and anyone who thinks they can, bearing in mind the religious war going on between Shia and Sunni within that region - are seriously deluding themselves.

There is a difference between going to war illegally - which the UK did although I exercised my free speech, joined millions in protest against it and didn't need to ask permission from my partner nor was I flogged, beheaded and crucified for it.

Our society isn't perfect but we live in a democracy that allows you To go online and criticise it.
Later I will be joining my male colleagues for a drink and a chat - western freedoms.

I believe that this sentence won't be carried out. Raif Badawi more at risk, sadly.

I disagree with the punishment but I find it really telling that people are only prepared to campaign and be all horrified when it is a rich white man who is being punished.

I do think it's good that it's being campaigned but I have to wonder how many Saudi nationals have been in a similar position, without any comment or even awareness from most of the world.

CallaLilli ... re your "I don't think I've ever read such tosh as what you're spouting isitmebut".

"Yes that's it entirely. The rest of us bow down to you for your great knowledge."

Not necessary, but if someone want to dish attitude, best they're able to take it as well.

I wasn't coming back, but when the 'gang' decides to personally attack someone who LIVES in Saudi and tries to enlighten them on everyday life, it got my non slaughtered goat up.

Ubik1 ...yada yada yada you are 100% right, you keep flying that flag insisting others have to live like you - wasn't that what the Empire was all about, civilizing others - getting plundered along the way.

We are what we are over centuries of reforms etc, others will change at their own speed. IMO.

Anyhoo ...talk amongst yourselves.

Well I think we have a flouncer. Will she be back again? Who knows.

Anyhoo. You make a good point BertieBotts, I suppose the reason is that if it's not a Saudi national it tends to make headlines around the world so more people here about it. Is it right? Probably not. But the cases of Raif Badawi and Ali Mohammed al-Nimr have also been picked up by campaigners so I guess that's a start.

hear, not here!

At least you acknowledge that change is needed

So what if the Saudis have had the same laws since the 18th century, so what if THEY think that it binds their society together, so what if everyone knows the rules, how can someone live in that society and keep their morals intact - let us "intervene" on those laws and tell them they can't have them, so says the judge and jury in a UK that had an Empire, to those that were mainly Bedouin less than a century ago.

^^
Really? So all the Saudis think extreme religious laws bind their society together? I hadn't realised it was so democratic. Interesting that.

I think you make our point very well - democratic society has progressed massively within the last centuary - which is why the legally supported flogging of a pensioner, execution of a child and oppression of women as 18th centuary chattels is seen as ethically dubious by many in this thread, and since we have the political freedom to campaign for those in Saudi without voices, we struggle to understand why someone would build their own tax-free haven on the misery of others simply because it's 'legal'.

Yes, I need my husbands permission to travel. But what about me wanting to leave the UK with the kids to go on holiday. Is it not recommended I carry a letter from their father???

DesertorDessert, thank you for acknowledging that where you live, you are the legal equivalent of a child/infant with your husband having control and custody. It is good that your eyes are open to the horror of the legal regime under which you live.

I cannot drive, correct. But there are 1001 taxis, if you are fortunate enough to have the money.

Sorry, this is actually laughable. 'I'm deemed too stupid/evil/weak/unimportant/whatever to drive because of my genitalia, but that's OK because there are taxis'.

Someone else has already commented on the screamingly huge gulf between a letter from the children's father being recommended and needing one's husband's permission to travel, so I won't reiterate it. But FFS.

Didn't Cameron basically admit that he's doing nothing about either of these cases because Saudi gives us secret intelligence that he doesn't want to lose? And of course, that notwithstanding, there's a money aspect to it too. He's too scared to try to stand up to them.

What a fucking world.

I think what brought it home to me about life for an ordinary woman in Saudia Arabia is that I knew a woman who went with her family who loved cycling and is passionate about it as am I. If you love cycling it feels like a freedom like no other. She cannot cycle outside the compound where she lives. She may have lots of money but I can cycle where I like. It was her and her families choice I guess but for ordinary Saudi women I cannot imagine what it is like not to be able to just "do what you want".