Saudis Sentence Gang Rape Victim To 200 Lashes And 6 Months In Jail
A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 19-year-old woman — whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms — was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape,” the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia’s Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.
A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”
Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.
Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.
But the woman’s lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.
In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.
The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.
He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and “contradicts King Abdullah’s quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system.”
King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.
(AP)
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[…] Saudis Sentence Gang Rape Victim To 200 Lashes And 6 Months In Jail — Pat Dollard […]
November 15th, 2007 at 4:57 pmSaudi Arabia is the real enemy. Remove the root and the tree of radical islam cannot survive for very long. Remove the root and it all ends in days.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:01 pmThese egregious judicial stupidities are worse PR for Islam than the most rabid Islamophobe could concoct.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:00 pmPakistan - Check but needing some attention
Afghanistan - Check
Iraq - Almost
Iran - Next
Syria - Later
Saudi Arabia - Eventually
It can’t come too soon….
November 15th, 2007 at 7:20 pmThat’s just par for the course for the Saudis. Consider this excerpt from a report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom:
“In one case, the Commission was told of a foreign domestic worker who had become pregnant after being raped by her employer. She was subsequently imprisoned because it is illegal for female foreign workers to become pregnant in Saudi Arabia if they are not married.”
http://www.uscirf.gov/countries/region/middleast/saudi/saudiReport.pdf
And if the ruling of that judge amazes you, guess who he looks to for controlling legal precedent:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7645118/
Saudi society is saturated with this crap. It’s truly endemic:
http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
November 15th, 2007 at 7:50 pmCridhe Saorsa, your right on the money.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:48 amKnuckle dragging dirty cretins with dirty beards wearing capes and drapes mated to property in trash bags, the magic kingdom.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:18 am