Amnesty urges release of Saudi facing flogging

By Guest Column —— Bio and Archives May 13, 2008

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RIYADH, May 11 (Reuters) - Amnesty International has urged Saudi authorities to release a Saudi university professor who is facing flogging and imprisonment for meeting a woman to whom he is not related for coffee in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a psychology lecturer at the university of Mecca, has been sentenced to 150 lashes and eight months in jail after the religious police caught him with a woman in a coffee shop, the rights group said in a statement. Justice ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Saudi Arabia applies an austere form of Islam which bans women from mixing with men to whom they are not related, voting and driving, and punishes men and women found guilty of illegal encounters, known as khilwa offences. More...