More from the Indian forum I’ve been discussing recently – this time, descriptions of punishments at teacher training colleges:

Vihsal: We had corporal punishment even in our college. I did my B.Ed course in a women’s training college in Karnataka. Some teachers and hostel matron used to pinch and cane us occassionally. Once a teacher pinched my thighs severely for making mistakes in the chart I prepared for seminar. Another day she caned my buttocks in her room for wearing saree as I had to wear churidar as uniform on that day. some days our matron visited our rooms with cane . We had to suffer these at the age of 20 to 24.

Maju: Similar happening to me… I am doing B.Ed. from Women Training college. Our teachers punish us in the kids way. They make us touch toe.

Elsabu: I am also doing BEd. I thought such punishments are in our college only.We don’t tell these to anybody. I got cane four months ago for writing on library book. I was sent to class incharge. She held my saree tightly wrapped around my thighs and slashed cane.

From the Khaleej Times, 8 July 2009:

Riyadh – A Saudi judge sentenced seven young men and four women to up to 700 lashes and jail terms ranging up to 10 months for attending an ‘immoral’ party, a Saudi newspaper reported.

The 11 revelers, including two Iraqis and nine Saudis aged between 18 and 37, received sentences of between 400-700 lashes and between 4-10 months in prison, Saudi Arabia’s Al Watan newspaper said. The group had been arrested in the northern Saudi district of Al Ha’il in late June on charges of drinking alcohol at a mixed- gender party.

Police said they had kept the group of young men and women under surveillance for days before arresting them as they drove away from one of their ‘debauched’ late-night parties. They said they had found araq, a strong alcoholic beverage made from dates, hidden in soft-drink bottles in the car.

Alcoholic drinks are banned in Saudi Arabia. The punishment for drinking alcohol is a public lashing. Private meetings between unmarried men and women is also severely punished.

From Reuters yesterday:

A Saudi court sentenced a teenage girl to 90 lashes and two months in jail after she thumped her school principal on the head with a cup, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

The incident happened last year in the eastern city of Jubail after the headmistress confiscated the girl’s mobile phone because it had a camera which is banned in Saudi schools, Al-Watan newspaper said.

The principal asked the court to order the flogging to be carried out inside the school “to educate” the pupil, the newspaper said.

The newspaper did not give the age of the girl.

An AP report from Feb 2007:

Judge sentences foreigners for partying, alcohol, unmarrieds mingling

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The defendants were among 433 foreigners, including some 240 women, arrested by the kingdom’s religious police for attending the party in Jiddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz said. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place.
Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to prison terms of three to four months and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes, the newspaper said. They have the right to appeal, it added.

The prosecutor general charged the 20 with “drinking, arranging for impudent party, mixed dancing and shooting a video for the party,” Okaz said. The paper said the rest of those arrested were awaiting trial.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which it bans alcohol and meetings between unrelated men and women. The religious police, a force resented by many Saudis for interfering in personal lives, enjoys wide powers. Its officers roam malls, markets, universities and other public places looking for such infractions as unrelated men and women mingling, men skipping Islam’s five daily prayers and women with strands of hair showing from under their veil.

In May, the Interior Ministry restricted the powers of the religious police to just arresting suspects, because the police sometimes had held people incommunicado and insisted on taking part in ensuing investigations.

(From this free punishment gallery)