Saudi woman in suicide pledge if not reunited with husband

TWO years ago, a knock on Fatima and Mansour al-Timani’s door shattered the life they had built together.

It was the police, delivering news a judge had annulled their marriage in absentia after some of Fatima’s relatives sought the divorce on grounds she had married beneath her. That was just the beginning of an ordeal for a couple who — under Saudi Arabia’s strict segregation rules — can no longer live together. They sued to reverse the ruling, publicised their story and sought help from a Saudi human rights group.

But they remain apart and Fatima said she is considering suicide if her appeal to King Abdullah does not reunite her with Mansour. “Only the king can resolve my case,” said Fatima. “I want to return to my husband, but if that is not possible, I need to know so I can put an end to my life.” Fatima’s case underscores shortcomings in Saudi Arabia’s Islamic legal system where evidence can be shaky, lawyers are often absent and sentences can depend on the whim of judges.

The most frequent victims are women, who already suffer severe restrictions in Saudi Arabia: they cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative or travel abroad without a male guardian’s permission. Recently, the king did intervene and pardoned a rape victim who was sentenced to lashes and jail time for being in a car with a man who was not her relative. “When I heard that the [rape victim] was pardoned, I couldn’t believe it. My case is so much simpler than hers, since my divorce is invalid,” said Fatima.

Fatima said her husband, a hospital administrator, followed Saudi tradition in asking her father for permission to marry her in 2003.

She said her father knew Mansour came from a less prominent tribe, but he did not mind because he “cared about the man himself”.

However, several of Fatima’s relatives persuaded her father to give them power to file a lawsuit demanding an annulment, she said. Then her father died and Fatima said she had hoped the case would be dropped. But police served Mansour with divorce papers that said his marriage had been annulled.

Fatima left to live with her mother, who had persuaded her to let Mansour deal with the legal issues on his own. After three months apart, Fatima and the children flew with Mansour to the western city of Jeddah.

But police discovered them and imprisoned the family for living together illegally. After nine months in jail, Fatima moved to an orphanage. She said she is holding out hope the king might pardon her, and recognise her as “married to Mansour, before God”.