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101851
Fri, 01/22/2010 - 20:49
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Ulaanbaatar, /MONTSAME/
From foreign press
A 13-year-old Saudi schoolgirl is to be given 90 lashes in front of her classmates after she was caught with a mobile camera phone.
The girl, who has not been named, was also sentenced to two months in jail by a court in the eastern city of Jubail.
She had assaulted her headmistress after being caught with the gadget which is banned in girl schools, said Al-Watan, a Saudi newspaper. The kingdom's use of such punishments has been widely condemned by human rights organisations.
Three years ago 16 schoolchildren, aged between 12 and 18, were each sentenced to between 300 and 500 lashes for being aggressive to a teacher.
Under Saudi's Sharia or Islamic law, flogging is mandatory for a number of moral offences such as adultery or being alone in the company of an unrelated person of the opposite sex. But it can also be used at the discretion of judges as an alternative or in addition to other punishments.
Al-Watan said a court in the northeastern Gulf port of Jubail had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes inside her school, followed by two months' detention.
The punishment is harsher than that dished out to some robbers and looters.
Saudi Arabia, a leading US ally in the Middle East, is an absolute monarchy controlled by the Al-Saud ruling tribe, and lacks any legal code.
King Abdullah has promoted some social reforms since taking the throne in 2005 but diplomats say he is held back by religious clerics and princes.
Cinemas and music concerts are banned, while many restaurants and even some shopping centres cater to families only, especially on holidays.
Religious police roam streets to make sure no unrelated men and women mix.
The Saudi court system is exclusively controlled Wahahbi/Salafi clerics, and bans the employment of non-Salafi citizens, especially as judges.
Saudi Arabia is the world's leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, public beheadings and publically crucifying condemned prisoners.
The country crucified two people in 2009, including one in the capital Riyadh during President Barak Obama's visit last April.
In September, 20 Saudi teenagers who ransacked shops and restaurants were publicly flogged.
Newspapers reported that the teenagers received at least 30 lashes each in a public square. Most of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks in 2001 came from Saudi Arabia.
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Within hours of arriving in Australia the media declared that UK Prince William had charmed Sydney.
According to reports the Prince had melted the hearts of locals and helped the city fall in love with "Prince Charming".
The Australian newspaper declared the Prince had "won the hearts of Australians" with his relaxed, unpretentious and endearing manner. During his tour an aboriginal community centre in Redfern, the Prince "delighted" local children, with many parents declaring he "has his mother's heart", the paper said.
Thousands turned out to see the future king, including one Aboriginal man who climbed a tree to get a better view. Some young men sported "I love Willy" t-shirts.
The Sydney Daily Telegraph predicted the visit would help cement Australia's deep admiration for the Royal family and put the republican issue on the back burner.
"William is a powerful weapon for the Royals in Australia", Paul Colgan wrote. "You'd be happy to have a beer with him. He has a sense of humor, applies himself to his work, loves sport and enjoys a night on the turps with his brother and his mates."
Not all papers were so supportive however. The Sydney Morning Herald ran an opinion piece by George Williams, a member of the Australian Republican Movement, who cautioned that "having Prince William as our future king represents a failure, not on his part, but on ourselves."
"The power to cut Australia's ties to the monarchy and its ancient inequalities lies solely within our hands. It is past time that we exercised it," he said.
The Prince will spend two days in Sydney before flying to Melbourne to tour towns affected by the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires.