Weird news - Man sentenced to 500 lashes for blasphemy

When you pick up novels about medieval times, you see so many cases where people were sentenced to many sorts of different sentences for crimes against God, such as the extreme one of being burned at the stake for blasphemy. A number of people were convicted and killed in such a manner, which even encompassed acts such as proposing that the universe did not center around the earth, rather that the earth moved around the sun. But these were all stories of what used to happen many centuries earlier.
So, it seems very surprising that such cases happen even now, primarily in Islamic countries where uttering anything that could be construed to be against god can actually be punished by death. And this is not a hypothetical case, there have been numerous cases where people have been convicted of blasphemy on flimsy evidence, or in the more horrid cases, mobs have believed about these utterances of blasphemy and lynched people. Consider this case, where a person on the Haj was convicted of uttering something against the relatives of the Prophet Mohammed and sentenced to a prison term as well as 500 lashes (which could actually kill him) (link to article)

Mansor Almaribe, 45, was found guilty of blasphemy after he was arrested last month in Medina while on a pilgrimage, Australian officials said.
It's unclear what Almaribe, a Shia Muslim from Victoria state, said or did to get arrested.
"The ambassador has urgently contacted Saudi authorities and will make strong representations, including to key figures in the Saudi government, seeking leniency," said Kate Sieper, a foreign affairs spokeswoman.

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Weird news - Woman imprisoned in home for 20 years in a Brazil house

There have been a number of cases in the recent past which talk about people being found who have been confined to their homes, some for sexual purposes by their own family members, for many many years. Each other such a case is found, there is always a great amount of surprise, as to how such a thing can happen.
In yet another case, a woman was locked up in a house for over 20 years, and this was only recently discovered when police arrived for a raid, and found the lady calling for help (link to article):

Police in Brazil said they had freed a 45-year-old woman who had been locked in a house for 20 years with no communication with the outside world.
Police in the state of Parana yesterday said that the woman was locked in the home by her partner, a 60-year-old man, in the city of Mariluz, 550 kilometers (340 miles) from the state capital Curitiba.
In the complaint, "the assistant told the police that a person was kept imprisoned for 20 years and was going through health problems, since she was banned from medical supervision," said Viana.