I posted about this case earlier in the year. Seems Sauds are more concerned with sending messages to their public about the price of bringing international embarrassment “The Kingdom”, than with women who were victimized by gang rapists. This is not a big.
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Saudi court ups punishment for gang-rape victim
* Story Highlights
* Woman, 19, gets six months prison, 200 lashes for meeting with unrelated man
* Group of seven raped her and the man, from whom she was retrieving photos
* After lawyer protests light sentences, rapists’ sentences increased
* Victim’s punishment doubled for talking to the media
(CNN) — A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.
The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.
The victim’s attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists’ sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.
“After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants,” al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. “However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim’s sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes.”
The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media,” according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.
Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.
Al-Lahim said he is appealing the decision to bar him from representing the victim and has a meeting with Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh on Monday.
“Currently she doesn’t have a lawyer, and I feel they’re doing this to isolate her and deprive her from her basic rights,” al-Lahim said. “We will not accept this judgment and I’ll do my best to continue representing her because justice needs to take place.”
Al-Lahim said he wanted the Justice Ministry to take “a very clear standing” on the case, saying the decision is “judicial mutiny against reform that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz started and against Saudi women who are being victimized because of such decisions.”
Women are subject to numerous restrictions in Saudi Arabia, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and the need for a man’s permission to travel or have surgery. Women are also not allowed to testify in court unless it is about a private matter that was not observed by a man, and they are not allowed to vote.
The Saudi government recently has taken some steps toward bettering the situation of women in the kingdom, including the establishment earlier this year of special courts to handle domestic abuse cases, adoption of a new labor law that addresses working women’s rights, and creation of a human rights commission.
CNN was unable to reach government officials for comment.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/17/saudi.rape.victim/index.html#cnnSTCText
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Similar treatment of rape victims have occurred in disparate countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, and Iran. The “cultural adaptation” argument used to excuse this medieval behavior doesn’t wash for me. Islamic law it its varied interpretations disadvantages women who are real rape victims and punishes them.
I remember a few years ago a case in Northern Nigeria involving a woman who was raped. According to their version of Sharia, she had to procure four male witnesses to prove she was raped. Since she couldn’t do that and sexual intercourse outside of marriage did take place (the woman was pregnant), it was concluded that adultery must have taken place, the sentence for which was death by stoning.
well, according to my knowledge, in Saudi (and formerly in Afghanistan) a woman’s testimony in court only counts “half” as much as a man’s and women have to have at least 2-4 male witness to charge someone with rape otherwise she will just get beaten for being promiscuous, which gets lashings.
Yeah I remember the Nigeria, case, that was nuts. The President (at the time a Christian) overturned the ruling due to internal national pressure.
I also remember the case in Pakistan where a man was flirting or kissing a woman of another tribe. The Islamic jurist ruled that a woman from his tribe should be gang raped by the other tribe, and she was.
I realize that these are a minority of Muslims who believe these things, but even a few million out of the billion is far too many. It is just barbaric, screw moral relativism.
I read that rape of women in common in Saudi, but it is usually foreign servant women (Muslim or not), it seems to only get public outcry when it is an Arab woman who was raped.
DH wrote:
“I read that rape of women in common in Saudi, but it is usually foreign servant women (Muslim or not), it seems to only get public outcry when it is an Arab woman who was raped.”
There was a case in Northern Virginia if I’m not mistaken or it might have been a case of a Saudi family who had slave women working in their home. Can’t remember exactly. But yeah, many of these women-both there and in the west if they work for a family-have been raped with very little outcry from the public.
On a personal note, I had a cousin who worked as a nanny for some Kuwaiti diplomat back in the late 60s and early 70s. She found out that the man she worked for planned to spirit her away back to his country without her consent to be some kind of concubine or something, She high tailed it out of there.
The case in Pakistan you mentioned is a weird mixture or tribal and Islamic law.
Iran has similar laws pertaining to “adultury,” which actually encourage sexual abuse of women.
Iran’s inheritance laws are also rediculous…Women inherit half of what a man inherits. All of this, along with laws punishing people with death for leaving Islam, are culled from Isalmic law. Some of these things are explicitly stated.
One thing they mentioned on CNN today was that the woman was found guilty of a law she didn’t violate, at least as it is understood.
The Judge said she would not have been raped if she was not sneaking around with a man who was not her relative.
The law (at least it did say) that it is illegal for a woman to be “alone” with a man who was not her relative.
Well, she was not alone, she was in public.
This is important, because if this judge has created new law, than that further restricts women’s movements in Saudi.
this is wrong they should not be doing this to women if they are telling the truth
ONE THING IS NOT CLEAR TO ME, YOU WANTTO BE A MUSLIM AND ALSO ESCAPE THE BAD THINGS OF ISLAM IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. IF ISLAM IS EVIL, THEN LEAVE IT THERE IS NOTHING CALLED REFORMATION
Rao wrote:
“ONE THING IS NOT CLEAR TO ME, YOU WANTTO BE A MUSLIM AND ALSO ESCAPE THE BAD THINGS OF ISLAM IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. IF ISLAM IS EVIL, THEN LEAVE IT THERE IS NOTHING CALLED REFORMATION”
There have been reform movements in Islam. It could be argued that Wahabbism was a reform movememt in Islam.