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Saudi Religious Cops Toss US Exec in Pokey

Her crime? Sitting with a male colleague at Starbucks

By Katherine Thompson,  Newser Staff

Posted Feb 7, 2008 8:25 AM CST
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(Newser) – A 37-year-old American businesswoman says Saudi Arabia's religious police swooped her out of a Riyadh Starbucks and bundled her off to jail, where she was strip searched, humiliated, and bullied into signing confessions, reports the Times of London—all for sharing a table with a male colleague when the Internet in her office went out.

The woman, who is of Jordanian descent but grew up in America, says her husband used political contacts to release her, but other women aren't as lucky. Under the country's strict Islamic moral code, women may not appear in public with non-related men. Religious police told the woman she had committed "a great sin," and would "burn in hell."

Saudi women cross a street in Hofuf city in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi women cross a street in Hofuf city in Saudi Arabia.   (Getty Images (by Event))
An unidentified Saudi doctor is seen in this Oct. 23, 2007, file photo taken in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, hospital. Some Saudi women, including a woman divorced against her wishes and her husband's, are frustrated with the kingdom's judicial system _ one based on Islamic law in which judges have broad...
An unidentified Saudi doctor is seen in this Oct. 23, 2007, file photo taken in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, hospital. Some Saudi women, including a woman divorced against her wishes and her husband's, are frustrated...   (Associated Press)
The issue of women's rights remains a troublesome one in Saudi Arabia.
The issue of women's rights remains a troublesome one in Saudi Arabia.   (Getty Images)
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Husband likens her treatment to 'being kidnapped by thugs'
AFP

 
Saudi Arabia • Starbucks • women's rights • taboo • Mutaween • religious police • Islamic moral code

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