In Saudi Arabia, the court can divorce a couple against their will if other family intervenes. (Via ifeminists.com)
A group of Saudi women activists have launched a petition to be presented to Saudi King Abdullah to put an end to forced divorces, reports said on Monday.
The petition urges the king to allow the case of Fatima, which caused a public outcry in early January when a Saudi court forcibly separated the 34-year-old woman from her husband, to be disregarded and the family be reunited.
According to the petition, Fatima’s case is not unique.
Arab News reported that the petition also calls on the king to intervene in the case of Rania Abou Al Enin, whose father filed a lawsuit to divorce her from her husband.
Human rights activist Fawzeya Al Ouyoni, one of the women behind the petition, said: “When the divorce is carried out with the couple’s approval then this is just the way it happens all over the world. But when it is forced on the couple with an order from a high court, then that is a massive disaster which threatens the safety of the Saudi family.”
Fatima has been seeking refuge in prison along with her one-year- old son Suleiman since October 2006 to escape the compulsory divorce. The couple’s other child, two-year-old Noha, is in her father’s custody.
Fatima’s brothers filed a lawsuit demanding that her three-year marriage be annulled “on the grounds that (the married couple) were tribally incompatible.”
This is not a prerequisite for legitimate marriage under Sharia (Islamic law), said her husband Mansour Al Timani. He also argued that an appeals court in Riyadh revoked the divorce ruling in a similar case in the city of Unaizah in Qasim a year ago and questioned why this case was not taken as a legal precedent.
This is truly horrifying.
|