At the age of 14, Ali al-Khawahir was sentenced to 10 years in prison for stabbing a friend in the back causing him to be paralyzed. Today, Saudi Arabia wants to carry out a sentencing of paralysis for this young man. Media reports state that Khawahir could be paralyzed from the waist down if he cannot pay his victim £250,000 in compensation. The judge that is on this case reportedly interpreted the Islamic law of qisas, or retribution (which means it is punishment that is considered to morally right and fully deserved), that Saudi Arabia follows as meaning that he in turn could be paralyzed. This recent sentencing is the latest example of Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law attracting international criticism.
Stated by Amnesty "If implemented, the paralysis sentence would contravene the UN convention against torture and the principles of medical ethics adopted by the UN general assembly. Ann Harrison states " Paralyzing someone as punishment for a crime would be torture. That
such a punishment might be implemented is utterly shocking, even in a
context where flogging is frequently imposed as a punishment for some
offences, as happens in Saudi Arabia.
"It is time the authorities
in Saudi Arabia start respecting their international legal obligations
and remove these terrible punishments from the law." Saudi courts normally sentence people to forms of corporal punishment, which in some cases have included eye gouging, tooth extraction, and death.
This case presents how officials are doing unethical things, abusing their power and the law, and violating human rights. Khawahir has already done his 10 year sentence, so going beyond the punishment and paralyzing him just because he did it to his friend seems an extra unnecessary punishment that will violate laws as well as effect his life more than it already has been effected from his crime. In the article it states how Saudi Arabia's corporal punishments include eye gouging, tooth extraction, and death. Those can be violations of human rights because unless it is stated in the law that corporal punishments can been done after serving the sentence in jail, authorities are going beyond what they should be just for punishing a person. Agreeing with the article, this paralysis sentencing is torture. There needs to be new laws for the types of punishments after serving sentences in prison for the individual who committed the crime, that does not violate human rights, as it is in this case.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22029881
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/04/saudi-arabian-paralysis-sentence-grotesque
Tiara Paylor
4/4/13 8:49 pm
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