CNN
August 23, 2010
Amnesty International on Friday urged Saudi Arabian authorities not to paralyze a man as punishment for his having paralyzed someone else, allegedly during a fight.
The Saudi newspaper Okaz reported that the judge in the case had sent letters to several hospitals in Saudi Arabia asking if they could sever a man's spinal cord, as the man he allegedly stabbed had requested and, under sharia law, was his right to seek.
But such a punishment would amount "to nothing less than torture," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, acting director of the organization's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "While those guilty of a crime should be held accountable, intentionally paralyzing a man in this way would constitute torture, and be a breach of its international human rights obligations."
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