Saudi Arabia Urged Not to Paralyze Man as Punishment for a Fight

- Saudi Arabia was urged by a human rights group not to deliberately paralyze a man as punishment for injuries he inflicted during a fight.

Saudi media reports indicate that authorities have contacted several hospitals to ask if they would be able to sever the man's spinal cord. One of the hospitals has indicated it is able to perform the operation.

The authorities are seeking the punishment at the request of the man's victim in the fight. The victim, Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, is able to make a request under sharia law, since he himself was left paralyzed by the fight.

Such cases of qisas (retribution) are not unusual in Saudi Arabia. Other sentences that have been passed include gouging a convict's eyes, extracting their teeth and even death

sentences as punishment for murder.

To sever the man's spine "amounts to nothing less than torture," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's acting director of the Middle East and North Africa Program, said in a statement. "Intentionally paralyzing a man in this way would constitute torture, and be a breach of its international human rights obligations."

The man, whose name has not been public, reportedly stabbed his victim in the back with a large knife in a fight more than two years ago. The injuries he inflicted paralyzed his victim, who later lost a foot as well, BBC News reported.

The retribution punishment proposed would violate the UN Convention against Torture, to which Saudi Arabia is a party, as well as the UN's Principles of Medical Ethics, Amnesty said.

"Under international human rights law, the use of this sentence would constitute a violation of the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," the human rights group said. ...

"We are asking for our legal right under Islamic law," his brother Khaled said, according to Sky News. "There is no better word than God's word -- an eye for an eye."

via Saudi Arabia Urged Not to Paralyze Man as Punishment for a Fight.

Saudi Arabia. Origin of all but one of the 9/11 hijackers, human trafficking, kidnapping our kids,  public be-headings, religious zealots, oil, friends with Bush.  Really good friends. Saudi Arabia.

... in the Arab world, affection among men is common, and without sexual connotation. ... "Holding hands is the warmest expression of affection between men," said Samir Khalaf, a sociology professor at American University of Beirut in Lebanon. "It's a sign of solidarity and kinship."

In fact, if a man chooses not to touch another in a greeting, it can be interpreted as a sign of distance or disdain. Kissing cheeks, long handshakes and clutching hands are meant to reflect amity, devotion and most important, equality in status, noted Fuad Ishak Khuri, a social anthropologist, in his book, "The Body in Islamic Culture" (2001). Strangers, on the other hand, do not kiss or hold hands, and the strong do not kiss the weak, wrote Mr. Khuri, who died in 2003. And because the sexes are segregated, men rarely have the chance to touch or show affection toward a woman.

"Arab culture has historically been segregated, so emotions and feelings are channeled to the same sex," said Musa Shteiwi, a sociology professor at the University of Jordan. "Men spend a lot of time together, and these customs grew out of that."

via New York Times

If you've read Gilgamesh, this tradition of powerful human male leaders kissing and holding hands goes way back. Personally, it grosses me out, but I was raised by a women and my best friends have always been women.