Criminal Code
Traditionally, the legal system of Saudi Arabia has mostly consisted of the product of royal decrees and the legal opinions of Muslim judges and clerics. Much of the subsequent written law has focused on the areas of economics and foreign relations. Reformists have often called for codified laws, and there does appear to be a trend within the country to codify, publish, and even translate some Saudi criminal and civil laws.
In 1928, the Saudi judicial board advised Muslim judges to look for guidance in two books by the Hanbalite jurist Marʿī ibn Yūsuf al-Karmī al-Maqdisī (d.1033/1624). Liwat (sodomy) is to be "treated like fornication, and must be punished in the same way. If muḥṣan (i.e. having had legal intercourse) and free, one must be stoned to death, while a free bachelor must be whipped 100 lashes and banished for a year." Sodomy is proven either by the perpetrator confessing four times or by the testimony of four trustworthy Muslim men, who have been eye witnesses to the act. If there are fewer than four witnesses, or if one of them is not upstanding, they are all to be chastised with 80 lashes for slander.
It is unclear how many people have been executed for sodomy. Some of the official news reports on persons convicted of sodomy seem to provide conflicting opinions.
In 2000 the Saudi government reported that it had sentenced nine Saudi men to extensive prison terms with lashing for engaging in cross-dressing and homosexual relations. That same year the government executed three Yemeni male workers for homosexuality and child molestation.
In April 2005, the government convicted over a hundred men of homosexuality, but none were sentenced to be executed. All those men were given prison sentences with flogging because they were at a private party that was either a same-sex wedding ceremony or a birthday party. Yet, not long after a gay foreign couple was sentenced to death for homosexuality and allegedly killing a man who was blackmailing them for homosexuality.
In May 2005, the government arrested 92 men for homosexuality, who were given sentences ranging from fines to prison sentences of several months and lashings. Likewise, on 7 November 2005 Riyadh police raided what the Saudi press called a "beauty contest for gay men" at al-Qatif. What became of the five men arrested for organizing the event, is not known.
In October 2007, British human rights activists protested recent reports that the Saudi government was sending British mosques material urging the killing of gays and subjugation of women.
Persons caught living in the kingdom illegally, are often accused of other crimes, involving illegal drugs, pornography, prostitution and homosexuality. Several such police crackdowns were reported in 2004 – 2005. Another similar raid in 2008, netted Filipino workers arrested on charges of alcohol and gay prostitution. The Arab News article on the arrests stated, "Gay rights are not recognized in the Middle East countries and the publication of any material promoting them is banned".
International protests from human rights organizations prompted some Saudi officials within the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington D.C. to unofficially imply that their kingdom will only use the death penalty when someone has been convicted of child molestation, rape, sexual assault, murder or engaging in anything deemed to be a form of political advocacy.
In 2010, Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir al Saud was charged with the murder of his male companion while on holiday in London. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to a long prison term. According to the prosecutor, the Prince sexually and physically abused his servant as well as paid other men for sexual services.
A gay Saudi diplomat named Ali Ahmad Asseri applied for asylum in the United States after the Saudi government discovered his sexuality.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In Saudi Arabia
Famous quotes containing the words criminal and/or code:
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