NEW YORK TIMES
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi court sentenced a journalist on Saturday to 60 lashes after she was charged with involvement in a television show in which a Saudi man talked about sex.
The journalist, Rozanna al-Yami, 22, is believed to be the first female Saudi journalist to be given such a punishment. The charges included involvement in preparing the program and advertising it on the Internet. Ms. Yami said she had worked as a coordinator for the program but had not worked on the episode in question. She said the judge, in the western city of Jidda, had handed down the sentence “as a deterrence.”
“I am too frustrated and upset to appeal the sentence,” Ms. Yami said.
Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, the spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Information, said he had no details of the sentencing and could not comment on it.
In the program, broadcast in July on the Lebanese satellite channel LBC, the Saudi man, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, described his active sex life and showed sex toys, which the station blurred. The same court sentenced Mr. Abdul-Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes.
The program scandalized this conservative country, and the government shut down LBC’s two offices in the kingdom.
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