JEDDAH, 29 October 2006 — Living in the women’s section of Dammam prison with his mother and two-year-old sister Nuha, Sulaiman did not realize that he had spent not only his first Eid Al-Fitr but also his first birthday anniversary inside a prison. Sulaiman is the second child of the forcefully divorced couple Fatima and Mansour Al-Timani.

Fatima and her children have been languishing in prison for the past three and half months. Her crime: She wanted to live with Mansour, her husband and father of her two children.

A Saudi court had forcefully separated them. Fatima is free to leave jail if she is ready to return to her family, and not her now ex-husband.

It was her brothers who initiated a lawsuit demanding the couple’s marriage be nullified on the grounds that they were incompatible on tribal grounds.

Fatima refuses to leave the prison or go to a shelter home for fear of retaliation from her brothers, who are her legal guardians since their father’s death.

On Oct. 7, the couple’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, lodged a petition with the Court of Cassation and the Justice Ministry directly. Nothing happened and Fatima and her tchildren had to spend Ramadan and Eid in prison.

Mansour recalled last year’s Eid. “On the sixth day of Eid she gave birth to Sulaiman. They stayed with her grandmother and paternal aunt for a month as we were all living in the Qasim region,” he said.

At the time they did not know about the court ruling and Fatima’s relationship with her full brother was fine.

On this year’s Eid, Mansour said things were completely different. “I went to prison on the first day of Eid but they would not let me visit them,” he said.

He went on the second day and with the help of a police officer, who is a friend of his, managed to gain permission to visit his children.

Mansour said he was only allowed to meet his children for half an hour. His wife brought the children to the meeting room, handed him a letter and left immediately as the couple are now legally divorced and therefore unable to meet each other in private.

In the letter, which Arab News obtained a copy of, Fatima expressed a deep desire to return to her husband. “Please tell me that we are going to live together again and you are going to get us out of here — no one but you,” wrote Fatima.

She described how she spent the first day of Eid with her children in prison and how hollow and empty it felt. “Eid is dead without you,” she wrote.

“We miss you a lot here. My children are deprived of their father and the fun and enjoyment of Eid,” she wrote.

Al-Lahem said he plans to go to the Ministry of Justice tomorrow to inquire about the case. In his petition, Al-Lahem stressed that the judge who based his judgment on a book of jurisprudence quoted two pages of the book but ignored two “very crucial” lines.

“The two lines that the judge ignored state clearly that in a case of incompatibility of a couple after marriage, only the wife can ask for separation, not the husband,” explained Al-Lahem.

He added that in this case it is obvious that the wife refuses to separate and insists on remaining married.

“Fatima has spent more than three months in prison now. According to Islamic law it is her choice whether she wants to remain married or divorced.”

If the Cassation Court rejects the judgment of the lower court, the case will return to the original judge for reconsideration, said Al-Lahem. If the judge does not change his ruling then the Cassation Court will transfer the case to another judge and a retrial will be set.

As the court proceedings continue, Fatima will remain in prison. She ended her letter saying, “Sulaiman will be a year old next Saturday — it is shameful that he has to spend it in prison. Haram, haram, haram.”

Her letter was signed “your beloved wife Fatima, on the eve of Eid.”