Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

With Saudi Set to Stone Sri Lankan Maid to Death, Threats to Sue for ISIS Comparisons

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Last week the media in Sri Lanka reported on the case of a Sri Lankan maid sentenced to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia for adultery. (The man she is accused of having an affair with, also Sri Lanka, was sentenced to 100 lashes).

   This comes as Saudi Arabia threatens to sue those who say it is similar to ISIS, including on Twitter -- and while airstrikes on Yemen continue. Inner City Press has previously asked the UN about Saudi Arabia's still-theatened flogging of blogger Raif Badawi; last month it asked the UN's Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Christof Heyns about such executions in Saudi Arabia, specifically of Sri Lankans.  Video here.

 On January 23, 2015, Inner City Press for the Free UN Coalition for Access asked the UN Spokesman, video here:

Inner City Press: at the risk of being politically incorrect, on the King of Saudi Arabia, I saw the Secretary-General's statement, I'm trying to square it with what was said from this podium and from Geneva about the flogging of blogger Raif Badawi; is this something, without tying it necessarily to the condolence period, the incoming king, King Salman, can we say that the UN would be calling on him not to just postpone, but cancel this flogging of the blogger?

Spokesman Dujarric: I think our position on cruel and inhuman punishment, wherever it occurs, is unwavering. It doesn't change, no matter who the Head of State of any particular country is. So, I don't see our position on that and our opposition to that changing, whether it's here or the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Inner City Press / FUNCA: But it's sort of an opportunity--

Spokesman Dujarric: I think I've answered.

We'll have more on both of these cases.

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