Saudis give rape victim 200 lashes

AFP:

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.

...

Verdicts like this show what an abysmal system Shari'a law is as well as how perverted the Saudi judicial system can be when it comes to sex crimes. It is a system based on adding insult and punishment to an already abused party. In this case I would free the victim and sentences the "justices" to the lashes. The story goes on to indicate there is an attempt to disbar the victims lawyers for challenging the verdict. King Abdullah needs to set aside this verdict and fire those in the judiciary responsible for it.

Judith Apter Kinghoffer has a photo of a woman 20 days after receiving 50 lashes in Iran. Be advised it is brutal.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains