Urgent Call for Help from a Saudi Mother: Saudi Police and Wahhabi Judges deny her Maternal Rights
from Aafaq.org (US: Washington DC)
In a letter sent to Aafaq, Shouk Alshammary said that her life and the life of her infant daughter are in jeopardy. Shouk is the daughter of Saudi human rights activist Sheikh Mekhlef bin Daham Alshammary, one of the sheikhs of the Shammar tribe. In her letter to Aafaq she recounts how she was mistreated by her husband and his family. They deprived her of her two-month old infant daughter; they beat and tortured her, with knives and electricity, and by deprivation of food, drink and health care, to prevent her from disclosing information she had about the killing of a woman in which members of her husband's family were involved. They forced her to sign and stamp documents that she had not read with the prints of her hands. When she sought relief, and the return of her infant in the court of the city of Hafr Al-Batin, she found that she was the victim of conspiracies among judges of the court, who were spiteful toward her father, Sheikh Mekhlef, because of his association with Shi'ite clerics ... She still has not had her infant daughter returned to her, and the case has been appealed to the Appellate Court in Riyadh. She fears for her own physical and mental health, and the health of her infant.