About fucking time, Saudi Arabia...

[Doubting Thomas]

Yes, I suspect their police will be much like police here in the U.S. about 50 years ago, when domestic violence was considered to be a matter between a man and his wife. It wasn't until after more and more wives ended up dead that they finally decided that domestic violence is a problem.

Don't forget that Saudi Arabia is still very much a patriarchal, misogynistic society, so it's going to take a long time for attitudes to change. And I'm guessing that few women will actually come forward to press charges against their husbands, what with all the submissive wife attitude they have there. They may not want to take off their burkas to show the police their black eye.

[Anomalocaris]

Any progress is good for a theocracy like this.

A few hundred more steps like this, taken quadruannually, will take them charging into the 19th century.

[AtheistCreed]

Bid'ah! (Innovation!)

[Brian37]

Passing a law and enforcing it are TWO different things. Women driving has never been banned by law on paper, but men there get away with condemning it even without law.

When Saudi Arabia gives up it's theocracy then I will be impressed. If their plutocratic classtocracy theocracy became like the west, where their Royal Family ended up like England and Japan, then I would be impressed.

"Don't beat your spouse" is not as much law as it is PR for the rest of the world. The law right now is simply "don't get caught".

[gall]

Passing a law and enforcing it are TWO different things. Women driving has never been banned by law on paper, but men there get away with condemning it even without law.

When Saudi Arabia gives up it's theocracy then I will be impressed. If their plutocratic classtocracy theocracy became like the west, where their Royal Family ended up like England and Japan, then I would be impressed.

"Don't beat your spouse" is not as much law as it is PR for the rest of the world. The law right now is simply "don't get caught".

So like every other law everywhere else in the entire world then?

Don't get caught... the creed of any criminal for any crime?

How about don't include your church with your state?

Something my own country is doing far to much of lately imo. Need to get a gap going again and leave government to those that don't follow fairies as a way of life.

[Dragonetti]

Their culture would not allow it!

[TruthWorthy]

Actually, I think this is more a publicity stunt than an actual reformation. There is a hadith which states that a man shouldn't hit a woman in the face, or beat her too severely, and I think this pretty much accounts for the sharia which would be enforced (I'm not sure about the punishment - probably whatever number of lashes or jizya, or some other punishment acceptable to the officer).
The female would obviously only show her bruises among female officers, and then I'm not sure how far her testimony will get when hers is worth half of that to her husband... and then there might be need for 4 male witnesses/8 female ones...... who knows how effective it would be; considering that her husband isn't going to appreciate being lagged in to the cops, and what's more he can kick her out, keep the kids, and she gets little to nothing depending on how many can stake a claim and based on the fact that she's a woman.

[Losty]

Necromancer

[vorlon13]

Looks like there is a loophole about throwing acid in the woman's face.

They didn't mention fire either.

[Chad32]

Does this cover sexual crimes? Like men molesting and sodomizing boys, for instance?