A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail – for having coffee with a girl.
The man, a prominent and well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the religious police after he angered some of their members at a training course, his lawyer said.
The academic has not been named by the local media, which have given his case wide coverage, but one senior Saudi journalist said he was Dr Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children.
“He is highly respected and above-board. Nobody believes the religious police’s version of what happened. The whole of Jeddah (the main city near Mecca) is in uproar about this. Everyone believes he is innocent and was set up,” the journalist said.
Mr Ruzaiz is said to have received a call from a girl purporting to be one of his students who asked to meet to discuss a problem that she did not want to talk about over the phone. The professor agreed to meet at a family café provided she brought along her brother as a chaperone.
When he arrived, he was surprised to find the girl alone, and was promptly surrounded by religious policemen who handcuffed him and hauled him into custody. He was accused of being in a state of khulwa – seclusion – with an unrelated woman.
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