Saudi Arabian rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes

[Darth Wong]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i9Z ... AvY1nTUpPQ

Saudi woman punished after gang rape to fight ruling
1 day ago

RIYADH (AFP) — A Saudi woman sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gang raped has vowed to challenge the ruling in a case that has received wide publicity, embarrassing the Saudi government.

...

After the rape in October 2006, she was sentenced to 90 lashes for having been in a car with a man who is not a relative.

The Higher Judicial Council granted a retrial but, on November 14, a court toughened her sentence to six months in jail and 200 lashes.

The judges decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," a court source told the English-language daily Arab News.

The court also revoked the licence of [her lawyer] Lahem, a leading human rights activist. He has also been summoned by the justice ministry to appear before a disciplinary panel next month.

In the court's view, the girl, who was 18 at the time of the incident, was guilty because she was in the company of a male stranger who apparently had pictures of her she wanted to take back.

Both were abducted and sexually assaulted by a gang of seven men, newspapers said.

The court's "argument was that it was the girl's fault in the first place that (the rape) happened and none of that would have have happened if she had not met up with the non-related male friend," Lahem told Arab News.

The young woman belongs to Saudi Arabia's minority Shiite community, while the rapists are Sunni.

The men were initially sentenced to one to five years in jail, but those terms were also toughened last week to between two and nine years.

A rape conviction carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but the court did not impose it due to the "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of confessions," the justice ministry said on Tuesday.

The woman's husband told Arab News they would appeal, even though the judge had warned that the sentence could be increased if she loses the appeal.

The justice ministry noted that the law gives the right of appeal, but warned that "resorting to the media, which do not do justice or grant a right," has a "negative effect on the other parties in the case."

The punishment of the rape victim has been criticised in the United States and elsewhere.

Fran Townsend, US President George W. Bush's advisor on domestic security and anti-terrorism, described the case as "absolutely reprehensible."

"I just don't think there's any explaining it or justifying it," she told CNN television on Tuesday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch slammed the ruling and urged King Abdullah to "void the verdict and drop all charges against the rape victim and to order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer."

Lahem said the moves against him "contradict King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."

Last month, the king approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

Democratic presidential hopefuls in the US also expressed outrage at the sentencing Wednesday and criticized the White House response to the incident.

"This is an outrage," front-runner Hillary Clinton said in a statement, condemning the Bush administration for declining to call for a reversal of the sentence, on the grounds that it was an internal matter for its Saudi ally.

"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman. As president I will once again make human rights an American priority around the world," Clinton said.

On Tuesday, the State Department voiced "astonishment" at the sentence, but stopped short of calling for it to be changed.

Asked if the US government was reluctant to condemn an important Arab ally ahead of a conference aimed at reviving Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "No, that's not it at all.

"These kinds of decisions are going to have to be decisions that the people of that country -- in this case, Saudi Arabia -- are going to have to take for themselves," he said.

...

But remember, these are the good guys! Our friends in the Middle East!

[wolveraptor]

I totally did a double-take when I saw that it was the fucking victim that recieved 200 lashes.

The justice ministry noted that the law gives the right of appeal, but warned that "resorting to the media, which do not do justice or grant a right," has a "negative effect on the other parties in the case."

"Other parties"? You mean the rapists? Yeah, I think that negative media attention on them would be totally fucking justified.

[Lagmonster]

What weight does the U.S. carry in Saudi internal justice affairs, anyway? My knowledge of U.S.-Saudi relations is nil.

[K. A. Pital]

What weight does the U.S. carry in Saudi internal justice affairs, anyway?

None as far as I know, it just pays the Sheikhs of the House of Saud for oil.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

We can get our own citizens off when we want to; the State Department rarely even does that. Never go to Saudi Arabia unless you have diplomatic immunity, end of subject.

[Bedlam]

To me 200 lashes sounds rather terminal by themselves but so does the original sentence of 90.

Are there any cases of people dying purely from the lash part of the punishment in Saudi Arabia and if so after how many?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

To me 200 lashes sounds rather terminal by themselves but so does the original sentence of 90.

Are there any cases of people dying purely from the lash part of the punishment in Saudi Arabia and if so after how many?

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five times a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

[Flagg]

To me 200 lashes sounds rather terminal by themselves but so does the original sentence of 90.

Are there any cases of people dying purely from the lash part of the punishment in Saudi Arabia and if so after how many?

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five days a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

To me 200 lashes sounds rather terminal by themselves but so does the original sentence of 90.

Are there any cases of people dying purely from the lash part of the punishment in Saudi Arabia and if so after how many?

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five days a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

I'm just curious as to if they rub salt into the wounds between every half-dozen lashes to increase the pain.

[[R_H]]

Don't they have to administer the lashes with a Koran jammed between their torso and the arm that's doing the whipping?

[hawkwind]

Off course that is only because she was gang raped by fellow muslims.
If it was non muslisms, BOTH woman and the rapist would be sentenced to death. Fucking medieval.

J.

[Siege]

Don't they have to administer the lashes with a Koran jammed between their torso and the arm that's doing the whipping?

Wouldn't that mean getting blood and sweat and saliva all over those Korans? Doesn't sound as the sort of thing you'd to to a supposedly holy book--but then again, these are fundamentalistic idiots, so reason is probably entirely beyond them.

The thing about this case is, even if the courts decide to bow to international pressure and drop the charges in this case (and I'm not putting it beyond them), there'll be ten similar cases tomorrow that no-one pays attention to, wherin the victims of crimes will be happily flogged/stoned/hanged/beheaded or whatever other insane dark age punishments these whackoes can come up with.

I can't believe we're actually doing business with these people.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Don't they have to administer the lashes with a Koran jammed between their torso and the arm that's doing the whipping?

No.

[Gil Hamilton]

Don't they have to administer the lashes with a Koran jammed between their torso and the arm that's doing the whipping?

Well, given you can't physically whip someone except in the manner of a foppish tyrannosaurus, I'm guessing not.

[Big Phil]

I hope you all realize that whether this woman is lashed or not, she's probably going to wind up dead inside a year anyway. Some idiot cousin or uncle is going to kill her to preserve the family's "honor."

[Flagg]

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five days a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

I'm just curious as to if they rub salt into the wounds between every half-dozen lashes to increase the pain.

Wouldn't shock me. They'd probably mumble something about Lotts wife while doing so.

[Surlethe]

The court's "argument was that it was the girl's fault in the first place that (the rape) happened and none of that would have have happened if she had not met up with the non-related male friend," Lahem told Arab News.

By this idiot logic, the builders of the World Trade Centers are at fault for 9/11 because if they hadn't built the towers, 2000 people wouldn't have died in them.

[Adrian Laguna]

We can get our own citizens off when we want to; the State Department rarely even does that. Never go to Saudi Arabia unless you have diplomatic immunity, end of subject.

The State Department is busy with important things, like trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians to get along. Saving a few US citizens from a medieval justice system can't possibly be a better expenditure of resources.

[Adrian Laguna]

I can't believe we're actually doing business with these people.

I can. What a country does to its own citizens is, quite frankly, not our problem. We can hold them in contempt and refer to them as backward medieval loonies, but business is still business. What I can't believe is the Saudi Arabians are painted as good guys. Is the mighty US government afraid that the Saudi's won't want greenbacks any more if we insult them?

[Darth Wong]

I can't believe we're actually doing business with these people.

I can. What a country does to its own citizens is, quite frankly, not our problem. We can hold them in contempt and refer to them as backward medieval loonies, but business is still business. What I can't believe is the Saudi Arabians are painted as good guys. Is the mighty US government afraid that the Saudi's won't want greenbacks any more if we insult them?

What's aggravating is that they point to human-rights violations as a reason to invade Iraq or Iran, but then they suddenly whip out the Prime Directive from Star Trek when the subject of Saudi Arabia (or any other "friendly" totalitarian state) comes up.

[fgalkin]

To me 200 lashes sounds rather terminal by themselves but so does the original sentence of 90.

Are there any cases of people dying purely from the lash part of the punishment in Saudi Arabia and if so after how many?

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five days a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

Yes! How dare we accuse the nice progressive Iranians of human rights abuses!

Oh, wait, they do that too.

If you wanna derail a thread with a red herring, you might want to do your homework first.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Surlethe]

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

Yes! How dare we accuse the nice progressive Iranians of human rights abuses!

Oh, wait, they do that too.

If you wanna derail a thread with a red herring, you might want to do your homework first.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Perhaps it's my new glasses, but I didn't see anything in Flagg's post saying that Iran has a clean record. That would make your post a red herring.

[Flagg]

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five days a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

Yes! How dare we accuse the nice progressive Iranians of human rights abuses!

Oh, wait, they do that too.

If you wanna derail a thread with a red herring, you might want to do your homework first.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

And right after Wong reiterated the point I was making. Nice.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

The justice ministry noted that the law gives the right of appeal, but warned that "resorting to the media, which do not do justice or grant a right," has a "negative effect on the other parties in the case."

"Other parties"? You mean the rapists? Yeah, I think that negative media attention on them would be totally fucking justified.

The way I read it, the "other parties" means the justice ministry. In other words, use the media to make the judiciary look bad and they'll retaliate by punishing you even more. I guess that's justice in their eyes.

"This is an outrage," front-runner Hillary Clinton said in a statement, condemning the Bush administration for declining to call for a reversal of the sentence, on the grounds that it was an internal matter for its Saudi ally.

"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman. As president I will once again make human rights an American priority around the world," Clinton said.

Maybe the article distorts the tone, but this just made me wince. As outrageous as this sentencing is, I also don't like it being used for political grand-standing as Clinton appears to be doing.

[loomer]

They don't give them all at once. They'll whip the victim twenty-five days a day every other day for two or three weeks, for example.

How progressive.

But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to the Saudi woman being beheaded behind the curtain!

Yes! How dare we accuse the nice progressive Iranians of human rights abuses!

Oh, wait, they do that too.

If you wanna derail a thread with a red herring, you might want to do your homework first.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Yeah, I'm joining the crowd in that I don't see any such statement in Flagg's post. 'But remember, Iran is the real threat to human rights! Pay no attention to blah blah blah' does not indicate they're not being targeted.