The definition of adultery in Saudi Arabia includes any time a female is in the presence of any male without a brother, father, or husband around to chaperone.

It's not a very hard concept.

Somebody in the Saudi PR department isn't doing their job very well. Though how many people visit Saudi Arabia as tourists? Actually millions every year as pilgrims to Mecca. Lets hope those lady pilgrims never ever gets out of sight of a male relative. I would offer my protective services, but I'm not related to any Muslim women.

Fetboy - if you arent Muslim you arent allowed in Mecca. They are sectarian as well as misogynist. But they are....

THE RELIGION OF PEACE!

So I'm supposed to respect this sort of thing? Don't try to say that these aren't the "real" Muslims.

I don't think there is any such thing as "Real Muslims", just as there is no such thing as "Real Christians", "Real Jews", "Real Buddhists", or "Real Hindus" (or "Real Atheists" for that matter).

But there is such a thing as "Real Peace" and "Real Love", and everyone, whether they are Muslim or not, is capable of feeling and giving both.

This being Saudi Arabia, the only information we get is what the government chooses to let us have. There is no such thing as a free press that could look into the story, foreign reporters are most unwelcome, and the woman's family will be doing everything possible, abetted by the authorities, to keep things "private" which is why we don't even know her name.

Though things may change now, since the authorities in CYA mode have leveled pretty intolerable charges against her. That, or her family may kill her, depending on how primitive they are.

It has nothing much to do with Islam, just with a medieval, no, almost neolithic tribal culture.

Anyway, as I've said before, there is a certain simpatico between the Bushies and the Saudis, so of course the first response after the threats fail is to swift-boat the victim, which is what we are seeing here.

Might just work too, they aren't playing to Western public opinion after all, but to the locals. And the local opposition ain't westernized liberals, they are the wahabist/salafist assholes who have been holding the al'Sauds hostage from pretty much day one of the kingdom.

A little history: Abd' al Aziz, the founder, was brought to power by the Ikhwan ("The Brotherhood", a pretty crazy Wahabi militaristic cult) in the '20s (and those boys make current Iraqi "insurgents" look pretty tame), whom he promptly slaughtered at Sabilla in 1930 courtesy of British supplied armoured cars, and then bought off the remnant by making them the Saudi National Guard, in an uneasy and from time to time violent deal that continues to define Saudi politics to this day. There is nothing liberal at all about the real Saudi opposition, which is a card the al Sauds have played again and again to keep being propped up in power by whatever western power is handy.

In a few years, Saudi Arabia will be able to claim that no women are raped in their country. Unlike in the miserable US of A. Compare official statistics and you'll see!

Someone remind me why Saudi Arabia wasn't nailed to a wall and dissected after 9/11? I remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, that the Bin Ladens are big in the Saudi government, that the attacks were funded with Saudi money, that the attacks were motivated by the Wahhabi Saudi sect of Islam, and I remember that the whole world was with us after the attacks.

Why did Saudi Arabia get away with leaving their doors closed after that? Screw sending the Marines into Baghdad. We should have sent the FBI and CIA into Ridyah.

Why didn't it happen? Becuase we have a yellow streak of cowardice for a President, and the Saudis own him.

The woman cheats on the husband. He divorces her, SHE gets the house and kids anyway.

Or the man cheats on his wife, the weepy jurors take the wife's side because she is the woman. There is no sense of unfairness that the wife had been witholding affection from the husband for extended periods of time.

Women are punished inordinately in SA.

Men in the USA.

I just stay as far away from women as possible.

For which all women are immensely grateful.

what woman today wants an honest, decent guy when she can have a slick disingenuous player to play with.

Much to our delight!

So far away that you stop posting on Broadsheet?

Seriously, the place is crawling with 'em.

Too bad America and the west has to pimp itself with these people because of their oil. This is just another example of the integrity and christian virtue that the borne-again christers proclaim as their moral compass. Too bad they're in the White House.

Louis Farrakhan once called Judaism a "gutter religion." Better he should explore his own house and some of its beliefs.

I once heard a well informed person after 9/11 say that if we attacked Saudi Arabia we would see six dollar a gallon gasoline. Maybe that was an exageration, I don't know.

What I do know is that many more Americans than just the Bush family rely on cheap oil to supply themselves with the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

Our entire economy relies on cheap oil. We all rely on cheap oil.

Saudi Arabia has the cheap oil.

That is the tough reality that all American policy makers must confront when they are told of the horrific retrograde policies of that country. Saudi leadership may consist of repulsive people, but they are repulsive people whom we very badly need.

This is the real reason the wingnut freakazoids stay best friends forever with the saudi monsters.

They don't have any trouble with uppity females taking their jobs and making them feel castrated!

Either the "holy" books are holy, or they are not. Either they mean what they say, or they don't.