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.
Whew! I don’t know about you, but I am PROUD to be an American. Gee!
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Mandela turns 92
Haiti Housing
Okaaay????? And I don’t know about these folks running over to Dubai to buy up pieces of that manmade land called “The World.” If these are the laws of the land, it is only a matter of time before the hellraising Americans go over there and find themselves rudely awakened by the harsh penalties in these Middle Eastern countries.
I was in the Middle East a few years ago and I remember a woman covered from head to toe, pleading to me in Arabic. I sense that she was in dispair, but I could not help her because of the language barrier and my status. I was getting nervous because the noon call to prayer was about to begin and all the shop were closing down.
My observation in other places was that I often saw women with broken arms, bruised faces and other injuries. It is forbiden for women to make eye contact or look to long at a man. The religous police are everywhere and they can make on the spot correction (if you know what I mean).
bobmarley1
She was not punished for being raped.
She was punished because she 1. voluntarily placed herself in the company of males not her husband or family (A serious violation of their law) and 2. (as your entry noted) according to Arab News, “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media” apparently also a serious violation of Arab law.
Its their law and she was determined to have violated it.
In Arab society, the first law she broke is one meant to prevent what happened to her. They also felt that she unduly antagonized the situation in the media later on.
Its their sovreign country and their law.
Welcome to HickTown, West2nd.
1. I am not convinced that she “voluntarily” did anything. Just as they raped her, it’s possible that they forced her into that vehicle.
2. Given that she was brutally raped and thus a victim regardless of how she ended up in that car, it is INHUMANE to further punish her by locking her up and beating the daylights out of her.
3. It may be their sovreign country and law, but in MY country I’m free and I’ll freely say that they are dead wrong and down right cruel.