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Saudi Arabia has officially eliminated flogging as punishment as of Wednesday. A circular issued by the Ministry of Justice and sent to the courts of the kingdom reports an abolition demanded for years by human rights organizations, which, however, harbors a small print: lashes will continue to be applied in crimes such as adultery, attack on honor, alcohol consumption or public intoxication.

"They have not ended the flogging. They have only limited its use to cases of 'hudud', those that are mentioned in the Koran and the hadiths (facts and sayings of the prophet Muhammad) such as public intoxication, adultery or defamation of someone's honor, "Ali al Ahmed, a Saudi activist in exile in the United States, tells THE WORLD. The "hudud" are, in Islamic jurisprudence, the punishments for exceeding the limits imposed by God. Offenses are relationships outside of marriage or fornication (zina), apostasy, murder, robbery, rebellion, drunkenness, and banditry.

The Supreme Court resolution limits the eradication of flogging to "tazir" cases, those punishments that are applied to other offenses not included in the "hudud" and that are not specified in sharia (Islamic legislation). In these cases, corporal punishment is released at the discretion of a judge. In the communication distributed by the Ministry of Justice, it is now established that " the courts should issue prison terms, fines or a combination of both as punishments for these crimes instead of flogging." "The courts will listen to and evaluate the cases and will make the best decision," the Ministry of Justice glides without further details.

"This order only affects cases of 'tazir' and not 'hudud'. A person will continue to be flogged for having sexual intercourse not allowed , committing 'qath' (accusing someone of something related to honor) or probably for consume alcohol ", emphasizes the expert Hasan Hasan. "Things like using drugs or breaking the fast in public during Ramadan can now be punished with fines and prison terms. It is a good step but it is not as revolutionary as it sounds," he warns.

In late April, the alleged abolition was advanced in a document drafted by the General Commission of the Supreme Court and leaked to local media. The small extent of its application now casts doubt on the conservative kingdom's commitment to reform its controversial legal system. "Wahhabi institutions [the radical interpretation of Islam on which the Saudi state rests] used the culture of the desert and added it to Islamic legislation condemning people to receive thousands of lashes, something that had never happened before in history of Islam. Now they end this practice but it is not enough, "says Al Ahmed.

Fines instead of lashes, to save costs

"The main reason to end the scourging in the 'tazir' cases is their cost, now turned into profit. Instead of sending people to be flogged, they make them pay," argues the activist. "In each act of flogging, several government agencies had to be present. A doctor had to prove the victim's state of health and between eight and ten people from the Ministries of Justice and Interior , the prison authority and the governor's office had to be witnesses punishment. The person who administered the spanking had been trained for such a task. It was a complicated and expensive matter, "he details. "The Saudi legal system remains racist, sectarian, sexist and partial. There are no Shiites, blacks or women among the judges and prosecutors," he denounces.

"These modifications should simply be a starting point for a complete and transparent review of the Saudi Arabian judicial system," says Michael Page, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East, who calls for "the suspension of all floggings without exception."

The partial end of the lashes that thousands of prisoners have suffered in Saudi Arabia - from the writer Raif Badawi to the activist Loujain al Hathloul - has been surrounded by the usual official fanfare. The state-run Human Rights Commission has hailed the progress as "a remarkable reform carried out under the direct supervision of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman." "It is a fundamental step on Saudi Arabia's human rights agenda and only one of the 70 human rights reforms carried out in the kingdom in the last five years," its president Awad al-Awad has boasted.

The reduction of flogging, which opponents and activists consider aesthetic amid record numbers of executions, and the announced abolition of the death penalty for crimes committed as a minor - there are still three cases in which the execution of children is allowed - It coincides with a particularly delicate moment for Bin Salman, the thirty-year-old man who in recent years has been cementing his power as a prologue to his ascension to the throne. The economic crisis that has unleashed the spread of the coronavirus and the drastic drop in the price of oil have put his ambitious reform plan in check and opened a new front, adding to the censorship for the persecution of activists, dissidents and members of the royal family. .

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