The Court of Cassation in Makkah has endorsed a general court's ruling sentencing a man to three months in prison and 200 lashes of the whip for issuing a threat, along with a defamatory poem, to a man in an SMS. The lashing will be conducted in intervals of 10 days. The victim filed a lawsuit against the poet last year saying that he was receiving threats along with the defamation poem sent from an unregistered pre-paid phone number. Jeddah Police, with the help of the phone company, tracked the source of the SMS and arrested the owner. The case was referred to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP) which charged the man for annoying the authority, misuse of technology, defamation and threats to others. The case was then transferred to court for ruling. In Arabic poetry, a defamatory poem (or hija) is a popular classical genre often used by one poet to disparage another person.
