Cairo: Egyptian human rights groups and professional unions are pressing for the release of two Egyptian doctors convicted by Saudi authorities of causing a Saudi patient to become addicted to morphine.
Last month a Saudi Islamic court sentenced Egyptian doctors Rauof Al Arabi and Shawki Abd Rabuh to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes each for causing the wife of a Saudi prince to get addicted to the painkiller morphine during medical treatment.
The sentencing has drawn angry reaction from Egypt's human rights advocates and media, who accused the Saudi authorities of unfairly treating Egyptians working there.
'Too weak'
"I call at the top of my voice on President Hosni Mubarak to intervene personally to secure the release of my husband for the sake of my children," Tahia, the wife of Dr Al Arabi, said tearfully during a protest in Cairo.
"I am ready to kiss the feet of the Saudi King in order to pardon my husband," she added. Tahia said that her spouse's health is too frail to withstand flogging and jailing.
"My brother was coerced into making false confessions," Sahar, the sister of the second convicted doctor Abd Rabuh, said. She claimed that the Saudi authorities have threatened her brother saying they would imprison his wife who is also working in the kingdom.
The families of the two doctors and the Egyptian Medical Association have sent petitions to Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz to pardon them.
Egyptian newspapers on Tuesday quoted Egypt's Consul-General Mohammad Al Aashiri in the Saudi city of Jeddah as saying he has lodged a plea with the Saudi authorities to suspend the enforcement of the punishment against the two doctors until a request for their retrial is judged.
"It is important to give efforts underway the chance to succeed either in commuting the sentences against the two doctors or pardoning them," added the Egyptian official.
More than one million Egyptians are believed to be working in Saudi Arabia. Both countries have good political and economic ties. But the penalty has drawn criticism in the Egyptian media.
