Jail, flogging for men in Saudi harassment case

RIYADH - A Saudi court has sentenced 10 men convicted of harassing two women in Riyadh to jail and ordered them to be flogged, newspapers reported yesterday.

The case has gripped conservative Saudi Arabia since the men were arrested three months ago because of the use of mobile phones to distribute pictures of the incident on the internet.

One of the men, whose ages range between 17 and 26, was given 10 years in prison and 600 lashes for using his mobile phone to record the incident, the newspapers reported.

The 10-year sentence is seen partly as a victory for powerful clerics who have tried to clamp down on modern technology, in particular mobile phones, in strict adherence to an austere version of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

The other men were jailed for charges that included speaking to the women and giving out their phone numbers.

One cleric said that the men's punishment could have been the death penalty.

Though details of the incident are sketchy, photos published in newspapers and the internet showed at least one man laughing as he prodded a figure veiled in black from head to toe, prompting outrage in country.

A lawyer for three of the men said he would appeal the rulings, citing a lack of evidence. "The verdict rested on emotions provoked by public opinion," he was quoted as saying in al-Riyadh newspaper.

Clerics in Saudi Arabia fear liberal influences are loosening a strict social system that maintains strict gender segregation and women to be accompanied in public by a male relative.

- REUTERS