There has been much hypocrisy in Europe over the TV flim Death of a Princess

In the international furore over the TV film Death of a Princess, based on the public execution in 1977 of a Saudi Arabian royal princess and her lover for adultery, it is hard to know what is the most sickening – the executions or the hypocritical way in which the affair has been treated in some of the European media.

The film gave a lopsided picture. It concentrated on the sexual adventures of bored princesses and virtually ignored the efforts of many Saudi women who are struggling with skill, intelligence and increasing success to equip themselves through higher education for a new role, and to widen their freedoms.

Saudi Arabia is a fast changing country with all the problems which spring from quick riches in a society which until a generation ago was a simple pastoral patriarchy. One of the temptations the European media needs to resist is the urge to headline whatever is wrong with Arab society while rarely reporting what is being done to put things right.

We need to remind ourselves that in the gracious days of Jane Austen’s England men, women and children were hanged publicly for over a hundred offences; that it is only 20 years since Ruth Ellis was hanged in an English prison for shooting her lover who deserted her, after she had had a miscarriage. And that even today our children can still legally be flogged in public.

Quote of the week

We have our own laws and our own morals which we keep to ourselves

Saudi Arabian embassy spokesman

Talking point

More and more women from homes with a violent background are having their babies taken from them at birth in a drive by social workers against baby battering. Research shows that in a year local authorities removed 47 such babies from potential danger at the hands of their parents and placed them in care.

Front page story: ‘Why more babies are taken away from their mothers.’