TIMESONLINE: A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail – for having coffee with a girl.
The man, a prominent and well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the religious police after he angered some of their members at a training course, his lawyer said.
The academic has not been named by the local media, which have given his case wide coverage, but one senior Saudi journalist told The Times he was Dr Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children.
“He is highly respected and above-board. Nobody believes the religious police’s version of what happened. The whole of Jeddah (the main city near Mecca) is in uproar about this. Everyone believes he is innocent and was set up,” the journalist said.
Contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited in the austere desert Kingdom where religious police, commonly known as mutaween, patrol public places in teams to enforce the Kingdom’s brand of ultra-conservative Islam.
Usually bearded and often wielding canes, they ensure women are not harassed, sexes do not mix and shops close for prayers. They are under the command of the Kingdom’s Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Abdullah Al-Sanousi, the academic’s lawyer, told local newspapers that his client had drawn the ire of some of the Commission’s staffers for speaking at length during a training session about how important it was for them to be polite to the public. Some of the trainees also wanted revenge because they had failed the course while others were not happy with their examination results.
Mr Ruzaiz is said to have received a call from a girl purporting to be one of his students who asked to meet to discuss a problem that she did not want to talk about over the phone. The professor agreed to meet at a family café provided she brought along her brother as a chaperone.
When he arrived, he was surprised to find the girl alone, and was promptly surrounded by religious policemen who handcuffed him and hauled him into custody. He was accused of being in a state of khulwa – seclusion – with an unrelated woman. Saudi professor faces lashes for having coffee with female 'student': Psychology academic says he was framed by religious police who had grudge against him >>> By Michael Theodoulou
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