LONDON — A Saudi television newscaster who was beaten unconscious by her husband last week has allowed pictures of her severely battered face to be published in an attempt to highlight the abuse of women in the kingdom.
Rania al-Baz, who works for Saudi Arabia’s state television’s Channel One, is having a series of operations for 13 fractures to her face. She said she wanted to break the taboo on talking about domestic violence.
“I want to use what happened to me to draw attention to the plight of women in Saudi Arabia,” she said.
Her case has prompted outrage from the handful of women’s groups in Saudi Arabia. Her husband, Mohammed al-Fallatta, an out-of-work singer, has disappeared and is wanted by police on charges of attempted murder.
According to Mrs. al-Baz’s mother, Mr. al-Fallatta beat his wife regularly. This time he was infuriated because she had answered the telephone.
“She told me she begged him not to hit her and he replied, ’Hit you? I am not going to hit you, I am going to kill you.’”
Mrs. al-Baz told her mother: “He took his hands off my throat long enough for me to say, ’There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet’ three times, then I surrendered my soul to Allah. Mohammed then went on to choke and beat me some more until I lost consciousness.”
He bundled her up in a sheet and put her in a van. When Mrs. al-Baz regained consciousness, she thought he was taking her to be buried.
Her mother said: “When he heard her moaning and trying to speak, he must have panicked because he took her to a hospital, where he told staff she was the victim of a road accident and was dead.”
Dima al-Sulaiman, director of the National Home Health Foundation, said the abuse of women “is a very common problem in Saudi Arabia, where maltreatment starts from childhood.”
Dina Arif, a businesswoman, said: “Saudi men think that violent behavior is the way to solve problems.”
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