JEDDAH — While the concerned authorities are still investigating the Hamadaniya street brawl in which a citizen in his 30s was brutally murdered, a number of lawyers have demanded that the authorities enact laws to reduce the amount of blood money (diyyah) paid in private rights and codify deterrent punishments to ensure public rights in an effort to curb this negative phenomenon from spreading in Saudi society. A number of the young men who were wounded in the fight are still being treated at hospitals and the police are still questioning some of those who were involved in the brawl. Commenting on the incident, the legal experts said street fights were on the rise in the Kingdom over the past few years. They said as soon as any fatal street fight occurred, some people would immediately start mediation efforts to end the case by paying blood money to the heirs of the victims in order to force them to relinquish their right for retribution against the perpetrators. The relatives of the victims usually exaggerate the amount of blood money they demand to end the case before courts issue their verdicts, making them huge and unacceptable Nasser Al-Tuwaim, lawyer and legal consultant, has called for intensifying the punishment based on public rights against anyone who commits an act of violence or enter into street fights that may result in deaths or injuries. "Toughening the punishment in the interest of public rights will prevent street fights that may result in serious injuries and even death," he said. According to Tuwaim, there are public and private rights in every criminal case. He explained that the private right concerns the right of the individual to qisas (retribution), which may be relinquished on the payment of blood money and other compensation. "We cannot give a legal opinion on the private rights except through a fatwa (religious edict) by the Authority of Senior Scholars or the Supreme Judicial Council," he said. Tuwaim called for more harsh punishments regarding the public right including prison terms ranging from 20 to 25 years and said this would prevent people from committing crimes. He also called for awareness campaigns against street fights in the media, schools and mosques to put an end to this unhealthy phenomenon. Tuwaim also called for punishing anyone who collects blood money under religious or tribal pretexts and said the mediators should be held accountable. Mahmoud Bin Hamza Al-Madani, a lawyer and a legal consultant, warned that street fights might become a normal thing in society if they were not stopped. "The exaggerated diyyah amounts will force the relatives of convicted murderers to beg for money and it will impoverish them, which is totally against the teachings of Islam," he said. Madani said some people who collect the diyyah money have turned this into a trade to make gains for themselves. "It is totally against Islam to trade on the misfortunes of people," he said, while calling for punishing the mediators involved in this illegitimate activity. He asked the concerned authorities to intervene to put an end to the phenomenon of collecting or exaggerating the blood money. Lawyer Hisham Hanbouli underlined the importance of enlightening the public against street fights and said huge damages and losses might result from them. He also called for stiffening the punishment so that people would think twice before committing any crime. Lawyer Muwaffaq Kamal said the judge hearing the case should hand out extremely harsh punishments to people involved in street fights especially if they were drunk or had previous criminal records. He proposed that those who are accused in street fights should be imprisoned for at least 16 years so as to deter others from following suit. According to the spokesman for the Makkah police, six young Saudis were detained for their role in the Hamadaniya brawl and are under investigation while three other participants wounded in the fight are still receiving treatment. The fight broke out among the young men as a result of differences over parking space. Deterrent punishments sought against killers spared on payment of ‘diyyah'
