A Saudi court has sentenced a 13-year-old Saudi schoolgirl to 90 lashes and two months in prison after she was caught with a mobile phone equipped with a camera. The girl, who has not been named, is sentenced to 90 lashed in her school in front of her classmates followed by two months in detention. The sentences come after she was caught with a cell phone equipped with camera. The gadget is banned in girls' schools.
The austere desert Kingdom's use of such punishment has been widely condemned by human rights organizations.
The world has witnessed several cases of human rights violations. In 2006, a Saudi teenager was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she was the victim of a gang rape. The judge sentenced the female victim to more lashes than her assailants. A court had originally sentenced the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years.
Publicity and publication of the event changed the 19-year-old girl's situation. The court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes, but increased the punishment after an appeal, saying the woman had tried to use the media to influence them.
In March, 2002, at least fourteen schoolgirls died at a school in Saudi Arabia after religious police stopped them from fleeing a fire. The religious police maintained that they could not leave the building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.
Saudi Arabia appoints religious police, commonly known as mutaween, to patrol public places in teams to enforce the Kingdom's brand of ultra-conservative Islam.
In February, 2008 religious police arrested a Saudi psychology academic for having coffee with a female student. He faced 180 lashes for the act.
Contact between unrelated Saudi men and women in public places is severely restricted. It is an illegal act in the Kingdom which enforces a strict Islamic moral code.
In an April, 2008 report, Human Rights Watch documented that the guardianship system requires Saudi women to obtain permission from male guardians before they can carry out a host of day-to-day activities, such as education, employment, travel, opening a bank account, or receiving medical care. The report demonstrated the negative consequences for women whose guardians - fathers, husbands, brothers or male children - refuse to give such permission.