Mick Hartley

Back in July The Bold Red Line – a programme on the Saudi-owned Lebanese TV channel LBC, which specialises in probing the underbelly of Arab society by interviewing – *shock* – homosexuals and the like (oh yes) – ran an interview with a Saudi airline sales clerk called Mazen Abdul Jawad, who fancied himself something of a Lothario and gave advice on how to pick up girls, while describing his sexual exploits at some length and brandishing a sex toy. The reaction of the Saudi religious police was swift and predictable:

“The program presents anomalies and deviancy in society that are unacceptable and immoral and should be punished according to Shariah."

The wretched man – branded "the sex braggart" by the Saudi media – was arrested and has now been sentenced to five years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes.  

If you think that's bad…. it gets worse:

A Saudi female journalist said Saturday that a court has ordered her to receive 60 lashes for working at a television network that aired the sexual confessions of a man.

Rozana al-Yami said a judge in the Red Sea coastal town of Jeddah dropped all charges that she had been directly involved with the episode of a programme on LBC, a Saudi-owned Lebanese network, in July.

However, Yami said the judge sentenced her to 60 lashes for having been a part-time employee for LBC's Saudi operations. The judge mentioned LBC had lacked the appropriate operating licence, she said without elaborating.

"It's a punishment for all journalists through me," Yami told AFP by telephone.

"They just said the channel was illegal. But the Saudi minister of information himself appeared on LBC a couple of weeks ago," she said.

Saudi judges base their rulings on strict Islamic sharia law, but it was not immediately clear how the judge in this case reached the verdict.

Yami, 22, until recently a reporter for the Arabic women's magazine Roaa, said she did not know when her sentence would be carried out. She does not plan an appeal, saying she feared she could end up with a harsher sentence.

Her sentencing comes after Saudi airline sales clerk Mazen Abdul Jawad was convicted of offensive behaviour and sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes on October 7 for his appearance on the LBC show "Bold Red Line," in which he talked about picking up girls and having sex with them.

Three friends who appeared on the show with him were given two-year terms and 300 lashes each, while a cameraman who helped film the episode was sentenced to two months in jail.
Abdul Jawad's lawyer Sulaiman al-Jimaie expressed shock at Yami's sentence because she had nothing to do with him or the episode of the programme he appeared in.

60 lashes – and she had nothing to do with the sex braggart or the episode of the programme he appeared in. She is a woman, though…