“Dramatic episode of Saudi student’s lashing sentence”
A story from yesterday’s Saudi Gazette clarifies the position regarding the 90 lashes handed out “to a schoolgirl”, as reported last week:
Things are getting a little out of hand in Jubail. Apparently a public school Al-Kabirat education program for young women to obtain a high school diploma is at the center of an international uproar over the lashing and prison sentence of a young woman found guilty of assaulting the school’s headmistress.
Originally it was reported in the media that the young woman was a 13-year-old girl sentenced to 90 lashes for bringing a mobile phone to school. But, no, that wasn’t true. Then it was reported the girl assaulted the headmistress for taking away the phone. Well, that’s sort of true. Now it turns out the girl is not a girl, but a 20-year-old woman and she cracked a drinking glass over the headmistress’ head while the student’s mother stood by and watched.
Frankly, I’d like to turn this student over my knee and give her a good spanking for acting like the misbehaving toddler she is. This student understood the rules of her school, knew the consequences, and decided to ignore them anyway. She deserves to be punished, but the reactions are way over the top…
The Arabic-language press not only got the woman’s age wrong but also muddled the facts over whether the lashing sentence was for having a mobile phone on campus or for assaulting the headmistress. Amnesty International made matters worse by announcing the girl was 13-years-old.
Inevitably, Saudis start complaining about sloppy reporting by the Arabic-language press. The complaints are justified, but a lion’s share of the blame also goes to the school for not providing the necessary information to paint a complete picture. Lack of transparency usually leads to erroneous reporting. The international community will only remember that a young girl was flogged for bringing a mobile phone to school. Nobody cares that it was an adult who attacked another woman with a deadly weapon.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this incident is that the attack appears not to have occurred in the heat of the moment, but rather after some time had passed and cooler heads should have prevailed. After the headmistress confiscated the phone, the student went home and returned to school with her mother. It was during the meeting between the three women that young woman picked up a drinking glass and struck the headmistress with it.
No doubt the mother was shocked at her daughter’s behavior, but one has to wonder where the daughter learned that violence solves such small problems as the confiscation of a mobile phone. It’s a dangerous thing to break a glass over someone’s head. This student possesses an undeserved sense of entitlement that the rules don’t apply to her and she is not subject to the same consequences as her colleagues if she breaks those rules.
The headmistress, though, could have stopped this runaway locomotive of a public relations disaster. She could have nipped the controversy in the bud by forgiving the student to spare her the lashing. But the headmistress had her own temper tantrum by refusing to take the high road only exacerbates the controversy.
There’s plenty of blame to go around here. It certainly doesn’t end a spoiled brat’s confrontation with school authority.
