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| The woman who converted to Christianity |
Two men were sentenced to receive hundreds of lashes after they were found guilty of converting a woman to Christianity, according to court proceedings in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Arabian court has sentenced two men to lashes and prison sentences for converting a woman to Christianity and helping her flee the conservative Islamic country.
A Lebanese man was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes for converting the woman, while a Saudi man was sentenced to two years in prison and 200 lashes for helping her leave the country.
In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for Muslims to abandon their faith, a practice known as apostasy. The proselytizing of other religions or openly practicing other religions is also illegal.
Judges have considerable discretion in how to interpret the sharia code of the realm of Islamic law and are not subject to sentencing guidelines or a system of precedent. Both capital and corporal punishment is legal.
“This is the worst tyranny I have ever seen in Saudi Arabia. Why are courts in Saudi Arabia lashing people who wish to practice a religion other than Islam? This is unacceptable. The world needs to come together to fight this cruelty,” Jay Ford, 28, of Boise, Idaho told YourJewishNews.com after learning about the case.
The case began in 2012 after the family of the woman complained that she had been brainwashed by her colleagues at an insurance company where she worked. The workers helped her leave Saudi Arabia via Bahrain with fake documents.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was granted asylum in Sweden in 2012.