A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man, Jeddah resident Mazen Abdul Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes for speaking openly about his sexual escapades on television.
During an appearance on the talk show of a Lebanon-based television channel, LBC satellite TV network called "Bold Red Line" in July, the 32-year-old airline employee and divorced father of four described his first sexual experience at age 14 and the ways he approaches women on the street.
On the program, Abdul Jawad is also shown in his bedroom, where he holds sexual aids up to the camera. The episode ends with him cruising the streets of Jeddah in his car looking for women.
The episode caused an uproar in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, where sharia, or Islamic law, is practiced. Pre-marital sex is illegal, and unrelated men and women are not permitted to mingle.
Saudi Arabian authorities shut down two of the Lebanese channel's offices in the kingdom and arrested Jawad shortly after the program aired on charges of "publicizing vice."
Speaking about promiscuous acts "is a violation of the sharia regulations on the one hand and against Saudi customs on the other," police spokesman Suleiman Al-Mutawae told Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia.
Before Jawad's detention, Arab News reported that he initiated a damage-control campaign, apologized for his comments and was considering filing a complaint against the show's producers for presenting him "in the worst possible manner by taking two hours of footage and condensing it down to a minutes-long segment."
Source: VOA
I feel so sorry for him. Going to jail for speaking freely. Imagine if Linda Ikeji lived in Saudi...with the way I talk and write, I would have gone to prison ten times over. lol. We thank God say na omo Naija we be...:-)
But seriously speaking, what do you say to something like this?
