Spare the whip, U.K. tells Saudi Arabia

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JUNE 4. As a former colonial power used to whipping the natives, Britain is clearly embarrassed that its own citizens now find themselves at the wrong end of the whip as it appeals to the Saudi Arabian Government to forgive four Britons who have been sentenced to flogging for allegedly illegal alcohol trading.

The four are to be given up to 500 lashes each, besides prison sentences, provoking outrage here with the British Government calling it an infringement of human rights. Diplomatic moves are reported to be on to save them from public humiliation, even if it means longer prison sentences as a price for escaping the whip.

Families of the four men, including a son-in-law-father-in-law duo, are believed to have been advised by the Foreign Office not to do or say anything that might prove counter-productive and undermine diplomatic efforts. A Foreign Office spokesperson said British diplomats in Riyadh were in ``constant contact'' with the Saudi authorities and pointed out that the British Government had consistently taken the view that corporal punishment infringed human rights.

The Government's understandably cautious approach has not gone down too well with the families of those facing flogging, and the wife of one was quoted in The Times as saying: ``We are in a terrible dilemma. We want to protest about this barbaric sentence and get something done but we are afraid if we do then it will be worse for our men.

The Prime Minister and Robin Cook (foreign secretary) must step in. This is medieval.'' The four - Kelvin Hawkins, David Mornin, Paul Moss and Ken Hartley - are among 12 Britons who were detained by the Saudi authorities following a crackdown on bootleggers last winter. A turf war among expatriate British bootleggers was alleged to be behind a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia last year.

A British hospital worker, Sandy Mitchell, has since been shown on Saudi T.V. confessing to one such bombing in which one British businessman was killed. Human rights groups have expressed doubts about the authenticity of the ``confession'' saying it may have been extorted from Mitchell.

There is temptation here to take comfort from the fact that no Briton has been flogged in Saudi Arabia since 1985 when John Kelly of Dorset was given 250 lashes for breaking the country's anti-drinking law. Since then, at least three Britons have been spared the rod and, instead, given longer sentences or deported - a precedent which has been widely recalled in the media here in the campaign to save the four.

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Section  : International
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