Saudi Woman Punches Religious Policeman Who Stops Her for Questioning
(NewsCore) - This was one Saudi woman who packed a wallop.
A 20-something Saudi female stopped and questioned by a religious policeman as she strolled through an amusement park with a young man apparently had enough and punched the officer repeatedly until he had to be taken to a hospital, the Jerusalem Post reported Monday.
In a story the paper said was “all over the Saudi media,” the Post said the policeman spotted the couple as they strolled through the amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz and asked them to confirm their identities and relationship to each other. It is a crime for unmarried men and women to mix in Saudi Arabia.
The man collapsed for unknown reasons when questioned by the cop, the Post reported.
But the woman allegedly began pummeling the officer, hitting him repeatedly until he had to be taken to the hospital with injuries to his face and body, the paper said, quoting the Saudi daily Okaz.
To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist, told The Media Line news agency, the paper said. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”
The names of the couple and date of the incident were not made public. If the woman is charged, the Post said, she could face a lengthy prison term and lashings.