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JEDDAH: A Saudi lawyer has said he will sue Riyadhs summary court after it refused to consider his lawsuit against satellite television channel MBC.

Ahmad Al-Rashid told Arab News on Monday that the court told him to contact the Ministry of Culture and Informations media violations committee. He had accused MBC of encouraging deviant behavior in Saudi society.

He also threatened to take his case to the Supreme Judicial Council, adding that the summary court had told him it was not the relevant judiciary to hear his lawsuit.

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JEDDAH – The Ministry of Culture and Information has reiterated that it is the “authority responsible for looking into all cases of a media or cultural nature arising through audio, visual or written forms of media and electronic publications”.

In a press statement released Monday, official spokesman Abdul Rahman Al-Hazza said that the ministrys jurisdiction was in accordance with “Royal Orders issued to avoid conflict of jurisdiction and to unify procedural measures”.

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JEDDAH: The Ministry of Culture and Information is expected to shortly issue a verdict on a complaint from a Saudi sex braggart against television channel LBC. Mazen Abdul Jawad appeared on LBC’s “Bold Red Lines” program to boast about his sexual exploits.

“The dispute committee of the ministry will indict the channel. It is only a matter of time. I have submitted all documents to prove the violations committed by the LBC channel, such as altering the original clip in which my client and his colleagues appeared,” Jawad’s lawyer Suleiman Al-Jimaie said on Tuesday.

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JEDDAH – The lawyer representing Mazen Abdul Jawad, whose sentence of five years in prison and 1,000 lashes of the whip for revealing on television intimate details of his sexual exploits was upheld by the Appeals Court on Monday, has said that despite the ruling he remains convinced that “an annulment of the sentence is only a matter of time”.
“We got what we wanted in the text of the sentence which includes the line ‘Should new evidence appear through private action taken up with the Ministry of Culture and Information then a review should be conducted based on Article 206 Paragraph 5 of penal law procedures’,” said lawyer Solaiman Al-Jumai’i.
The lawyer issued a press statement Tuesday in which he said he and his client “intend to wait on Ministry of Culture investigations”. “We have presented to the ministry with proof of LBC’s distorting and dubbing and reediting of footage, and its contravening of Ministry of Culture regulations, and we have received assurance in a response from the ministry that it will take pertinent measures,” the statement said.
The Appeals Court upheld on Monday the District Court ruling sentencing Mazen Abdul Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes, and the convictions of three of Abdul Jawad’s companions who also took part in the LBC program the Bold Red Line broadcast in August last year and were given two years’ prison and 300 lashes each.
The rulings, first made four months ago, stated that the lashes of the whip be carried out at intervals, and further included the confiscation of Abdul Jawad’s car, his mobile telephone, and a bar on traveling abroad and on appearing in any form of media for a period of five years following the completion of his sentence.
Abdul Jawad is also obliged to sign a written pledge to refrain from similar offenses and to have sessions with an “advisory committee”, a psychiatrist and a social worker.
A fourth person, a cameraman from Jeddah Television Center, had been given a sentence not open to appeal of three months in prison and 70 lashes along with a subsequent two-year travel ban, while a fourth person who acted as a go-between between Abdul Jawad and LBC was sentenced to two months’ prison, a term he had completed by the time the court gave its ruling. – Okaz/SG

JEDDAH: The Appeals Court Monday ratified the verdict issued by the summary court in Jeddah against the Saudi sex braggart, Mazen Abdul Jawad, and three of his friends.

The summary court sentenced Abdul Jawad to five years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a travel ban during his imprisonment. It has also seized his car and mobile phone.

Abdul Jawads three friends were sentenced to two years in jail and 300 lashes. The Appeals Court delivered its verdict after the four challenged the ruling.

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For Saudis, the year began with a focus on Gaza. Money flowed in with donations to help the inhabitants of the Strip. Over SR200 million was raised. On Jan. 19, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah announced at the Arab Economic, Social and Development Summit in Kuwait that the Kingdom would donate $1 billion for reconstruction in Gaza.

On Jan. 8, it was announced that the 2009 Jeddah Economic Forum had been postponed it was later canceled altogether. On Jan. 12, an overhaul of the judicial system was announced. A week later new rules on the issuing of fatwas were announced.

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JEDDAH: The Kingdom has been successful in implementing copyright laws, said an official from the Ministry of Culture and Information on Monday.

Abdul Rahman Al-Huzae, assistant Undersecretary for Domestic Media at the ministry, attributed the ministrys success in implementing the laws to its diligent supervision of the market and the Kingdoms entry points, and stringent punishments that act as a deterrent.

The ministry has taken strong steps to guarantee that no material that violates intellectual property rights is brought into the Kingdom.

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JEDDAH – The Jeddah Summary Court referred to the Court of Cassations on Tuesday the appeal presented by the lawyer of Mazen Abdul Jawad, who was sentenced to five years in prison for boasting on television last July about his sex life. The appeal was submitted to the court last Saturday.

“We had hoped that the court would have corrected its previous mistake and referred the case to the Ministry of Culture and Information tasked with looking into media disputes, especially after the Kings order to annul the courts ruling in related cases and refer them to the ministry,” the lawyers statement said. “Justice was not done to my client in the first court ruling, but there is hope that justice will prevail at the Court of Cassations,” the statement said.

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JEDDAH: The chief judge of the Jeddah Summary Court, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Othaim, said he expected the case of blasphemy against Al Arabiya news channel filed by a number of citizens to be referred to the Ministry of Culture and Information to consider.

He, however, told Arab News on Sunday the court would consider the case if it was referred back to it.

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JEDDAH: The Saudi man sentenced to five years in prison for boasting on television about his sex life appealed his case on Saturday, claiming errors and biased treatment in the trial, his lawyer said.

Mazen Abdul Jawad, who received a jail sentence of five years and 1,000 lashes for bragging about his sex life on the LBC “Bold Red Line” program last July, and three of his accomplices have appealed the verdicts, said Muhammad Amin Mirdad, the judge presiding over the case.

Mirdad said the four men appeared in court on Saturday and separately appealed the verdicts.

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