Saudi Rape Victim Pardoned by King Abdullah

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/africa/18saudi.php

RIYADH: King Abdullah has pardoned a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes after pressing charges against seven men who raped her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Information, but the newspaper, Al Jazirah, is close to the religious establishment that controls the Justice Ministry, Reuters reported.

The case has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to renewed calls for reform of the Saudi judicial system.

The rape took place a year and a half ago in Qatif, a small Shiite town in the Eastern Province, center of the Saudi Arabia's oil industry. The woman, who has been publicly identified only as the "Qatif girl," said she met a former boyfriend to retrieve a photograph of herself. They were sitting in a car together when seven men attacked, raping them both.

The woman and the former boyfriend were originally sentenced to 90 lashes each for being together in private, while the attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, and 80 to 1,000 lashes each.

For a woman to be in seclusion with a man who is not her husband or a relative is a crime in Saudi Arabia, whose legal code is based on a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law.

Her lawyer, Abdulrahman al-Lahem, a well-known human rights activist, appealed, saying the attackers' sentences were too lenient and that of the victim was too harsh. The appeal brought down the wrath of the court. In November, it doubled the woman's sentence and stripped Lahem of his license to practice, but also increased the sentences of her attackers to prison terms of two to nine years.

Adding to the charged political nature of the case, the woman is a member of the kingdom's Shiite Muslim minority.

Jamal Khashoggi, the editor-in-chief of Al Watan, a leading Saudi daily, said that it has been known in Riyadh political circles since early this month that the Qatif girl would be pardoned. Khashoggi said that he believed that the timing of the pardon, on the eve of the Id al-Adha holiday, was coincidental.

"I've been hearing for two or three weeks now that the pardon would be issued," Khashoggi said by phone. "It has been expected that the girl would be pardoned in the end — in similar cases, very public cases like this, it has been the same. One of our writers was recently sentenced to a number of lashes and received a pardon from the king. It is very common in cases like this."
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Man that bitch is lucky King Abdullah had a lapse of inteligence. Hopefuly that woman doesn't make any other guys rape her! :ganishka:

They need to change that countries laws.
 
C

CnC

Ad Oculos
Well, while it's good that she was pardoned (200 lashes? jeez). She's probably still in danger, though, once she's out.

I'd comment on what a fucked up system that it is but I'd risk offending our allies.
 
Aazealh

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
That's the problem when religion dictates laws. And that goes for any religion. Hopefully the judicial system will be reformed sooner or later.
 
Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
CnC said:
Well, while it's good that she was pardoned (200 lashes? jeez). She's probably still in danger, though, once she's out.

I'd comment on what a fucked up system that it is but I'd risk offending our allies.
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I'm just glad that woman was pardoned, but there never should have been any reason to punish her. Then again this is the same region that charges a 15 year old boy for forced homosexuality after he was gang raped. [that was the UAE to be exact.]

Aazealh said:
That's the problem when religion dictates laws. And that goes for any religion. Hopefully the judicial system will be reformed sooner or later.
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Sooner rather then later hopefully.
 
C

CnC

Ad Oculos
Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:
I'm just glad that woman was pardoned, but there never should have been any reason to punish her. Then again this is the same region that charges a 15 year old boy for forced homosexuality after he was gang raped. [that was the UAE to be exact.]
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Yea my point was that once the judicial system is done with her she still has the religious extremists after her head.
 
Griffith

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I like that they raped the boyfriend too, it just adds so many layers to the vague moral and sexual hypocrisy going on.
 
Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
CnC said:
Yea my point was that once the judicial system is done with her she still has the religious extremists after her head.
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Oh that's right I forgot about them.

Griffith No More! said:
I like that they raped the boyfriend too, it just adds so many layers to the vague moral and sexual hypocrisy going on.
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A friend of mine was sent to UAE for vacation and he was escorted by two Military police officers so he wouldn't get raped.
 
F

Forest Wraith

Evil is born when we lose power over ourselves.
All I could see of the Thread title was "Saudi Rape Victim- Imagine my surprise when I highlighted the link that it was actually good news. One thing that caught my attention was the sentence of 1000 lashes, obviously, the rapists should suffer some kind of punishment but Holy Shit. . . . I can't remember her name but some educated woman in the middle east recently stated something to the effect that the conflicts facing the middle east are due to a clash between modern modes of thought vs. ways of thinking from the Middle Ages. It shows and in my country there is problem of similar making; I wish the primitive fools on both sides could just wipe each other out without dragging the rest of us into it.
 
Aazealh

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Honestly I don't know how one could survive 1000 lashes (or even 200) if they weren't extremely toned down. Seriously, whipping is pretty extreme...
 
Scorpio

Scorpio

Courtesy of Grail's doodling.
Aazealh said:
Honestly I don't know how one could survive 1000 lashes (or even 200) if they weren't extremely toned down. Seriously, whipping is pretty extreme...
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Perhaps they are spread out over the course of the prison/jail sentence? That would at least give the body a chance to recover. A set number every few days or something like that.
 
F

Forest Wraith

Evil is born when we lose power over ourselves.
Scorpio said:
Perhaps they are spread out over the course of the prison/jail sentence? That would at least give the body a chance to recover. A set number every few days or something like that.
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I was thinking the same thing, still in horrendously inhumane territory but not quite as Fucked-up.
 
F

Forest Wraith

Evil is born when we lose power over ourselves.
Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:
I don't think anything can be more fucked up then whipping a rape victim. Maybe whipping a murder victim?
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Well yeah, lets not lose sight of that. Hmm . . . wouldn't that be kind of like beating a Dead Horse?
 
M

Majin_Tenshi

The can opener went bye-bye...
Aazealh said:
Honestly I don't know how one could survive 1000 lashes (or even 200) if they weren't extremely toned down. Seriously, whipping is pretty extreme...
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Not all at once? Perhaps thats the pourpose of the incarceration. Not as punishment, but to keep them in place between lashing sessions.

I'm going to quit pretending to have a clue about anything more then 100 miles away from me now ok?
 
O

Okin

The Ultimate Battle Creature
Unfortunately, as long as the oil keeps flowing then the Saudi Royal Family will continue to enforce its backwards Wahabi extremist views. Even in a country like Pakistan (I know its in the crapper right now, but that's for other reasons.) that is completely Sunni Muslim, the people have never had a religious political party take office. If the people have a choice, they will choose secular government and adhere to religious law on their own.
 
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