Divorced Against her Will

Monday, 29 January 2007

By Sabria S. Jawhar
The Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH

Fatima Al-Timani, 34-year-old Saudi woman who has spent seven months in prison protesting against her forced divorce by her half-brothers, has lost her battle and her husband.
An appeals court in Riyadh endorsed a lower court ruling which granted divorce to Fatima from her husband Mansour Al-Timani, 37, in absentia and against her will.
Fatima’s lawyer Abdul-Rahman Al-Lahem said the court backed the divorce on the basis of the man’s family background.
“The appeals court in Riyadh has supported the divorce because of ‘inappropriate lineage,’” he said in a statement.
Fatima’s family began legal action in 2005, saying her husband was not of sufficiently prestigious tribal stock to marry her, and had lied about his tribal background.
Justice Ibrahim Al-Farraj divorced the couple in absentia in the northern city of Al-Jouf.
The couple, who married four years ago, fled to Jeddah to escape the implementation of the ruling, but they were arrested.
Fatima and her two children – 2-year-old Noha and 1-year-old Salman – were allowed to return to her blood-family. But she refused to leave the prison in protest, saying, “I will leave prison only to go back to my husband.”
Mansour, too, was imprisoned. But he was allowed to go. First he refused to leave the prison in protest. But thinking that he could mount a better legal battle from outside, he left the prison.
After two months, prison officials granted Mansour the custody of 2-year-old Noha. He was allowed to visit the prison every Saturday to meet his son, and let Noha play with her mother. His contact with Fatima was through phone. That too was later stopped by prison officisals, who said that since Mansour was no longer Fatima’s husband he cannot talk to her.
The issue was dramatized in a popular comedy show aired in October that ridiculed the idea of tribal superiority.
Now, with the final judgment Fatima’s fate seems to have been sealed.
Will she remain in prison in protest for the remainder of her life?
Sameera Bitar, a Saudi businesswoman who closely followed the case, said that she was shocked by the news.
“Saudi Arabia is a country that built its judicial system on the Islamic principles that oppose all kind of discriminations,” she said, demanding the right to information on the circumstances upon which the court built up the case in Al-Jouf and finalized it in Riyadh.
“A spokesman of the Ministry of Justice should explain to the public the religious aspect concerning this case otherwise it would be considered as a new form of discrimination in Saudi society,” Bitar said.
She noted the difference between what is practiced and what is preached as far as women’s rights are concerned.
Maysoon Dakhiel, associate professor of Education and Psychology at the Girls Collage in Jeddah, was in the team formed by Bitar to support Mansour.
She said the court’s decision would leave women in Saudi Arabia with an increased sense of insecurity. “We are simply embracing the ruling of traditions and customs over that of religion,” she said.
Dakhiel was afraid that the news of the verdict would fly abroad and would be misused by the foreign media and human rights organization against the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia, she said, has been among the countries that signed most of the human rights charters, especially the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. By such a judgment and separating a married couple against their will, the court is violating basic human rights, she added.
Omar Al-Babtain, owner of Dar Al-Mashoorah consulting company and a member of the supporting team, said that by upholding the verdict Riyadh court has confirmed its denial of the basic human rights.
“The verdict also confirmed the extreme discrimination among citizens based on ethnic background,” he said.
He, however, hoped that this story would be a trigger for real actions toward codifying Saudi judicial law on Islamic Shariah.