The Saudis: Why We Punished A Rape Victim

Simply amazing...the Saudis attempt to explain why they punished a gang rape victim by sentencing her to two hundred lashes...

You'll remember that we discussed this case last week. The 19-year-old woman was originally sentenced to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, but the case was retried and her punishment was more than doubled, mostly because she had the temerity to actually speak to the media about this gross injustice. Or, according to to what a court source apparently told the English-language Arab News, the judges decided to increase the woman's sentence further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

In addition her lawyer was thrown off the case and has had his law license yanked for doing the same thing. Or in sharia parlance,he "exhibited disrespectful behavior toward the court, objected to the rule of law and showed ignorance concerning court instructions and regulations."

The fact that the young woman is a member of Saudi Arabia's minority Shiite community might have had something to to do with the harsh sentence as well.

In view of the media attention, The Saudi Justice Ministry issued a "clarification" of the sharia court's handling of a rape case and the increased sentence meted out to the rape victim by saying that new evidence against her came to ligh tduring the retrial.

And what was that new evidence? Apparently The woman was attacked by a gang of seven men after she deliberately went to a meeting with an unrelated man in Qatif on the kingdom's Persian Gulf coast, so she could retrieve an old photograph of herself from him, according to her lawyer, who also cited evidence that the man was trying to blackmail the woman. The photo itself was harmless by any standards..but apparently Saudi Arabia has its own standards.

Because the man said that the woman insisted on meeting him to get the photo back, so she's guilty..its illegal for a woman to meet with an unrelated male under Saudi Arabia's sharia law.

In a statement the mis-named Saudi Justice ministry said:

"We would like to state that the system has ensured them the right to object to the ruling and to request an appeal," the statement continued, "without resorting to sensationalism through the media that may not be fair or may not grant anyone any rights, and instead may negatively affect all the other parties involved in the case."

In other words, keep your mouth shut this time, sweetie or you'll get even worse.

Absolutely appalling...but then, that's the wahabi culture the Saudis are spending millions to import to the West - with our tacit consent.