Saudi Rape victim is sentenced
 

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A Saudi court sentenced a woman who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes — more than doubling her initial penalty for being in the car of a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The decision by the Qatif General Court came in a case that had sparked rare debate about the kingdom's justice system when it surfaced more than a year ago.
In its decision Wednesday, the court also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the 19-year-old woman, the Arab News reported on its English-language Web site.
According to Arab News, the court said the woman's punishment was increased because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
She had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicting her of violating Saudi's rigid laws on segregation of the sexes.
Under Saudi Arabia's interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, women are not allowed in public in the company of men other than their male relatives.
The initial sentences for the men convicted of the gang rape ranged from 10 months to five years in prison. Their new sentences range from two to nine years, the paper said.
The attack took place in 2006. The woman has said that it occurred as she tried to retrieve her picture from a male high school student she used to know. While in the car with the student, two men got into the vehicle and drove them to a secluded area. She said she was raped there by seven men, three of whom also attacked her friend.
Reports of the story triggered debate about Saudi Arabia's legal system, in which judges have wide discretion in punishing a criminal, rules of evidence are shaky and sometimes no defense lawyers are present. The result, critics say, are sentences left to the whim of judges.
The judges, appointed by the king, have a wide discretion in handing down sentences, often said to depend on their whim. A rapist, for instance, could receive anywhere from a light or no sentence, to death.
The woman was identified in the media only as the Girl from Qatif. The case was referred back to the General Court by an appeals court last summer, after the woman's attorney argued the verdict was too lenient for the rapists and unjust for the victim.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071116/...qjVLGRS8_q188F

This makes me sick that she gets punished too.

where is this male friend of her's that also got attacked?

All of them got sentenced.


Alethia....that is the letter of thier law.....males and females cannot intermingle if they are not related.

Just think....if something like that was instituted here how many sexual predators we could probably be rid of....

But here is my question...what the heck was the guy doing with her picture and why was so pressed to get it back???

I don't think implementing something similar here would get rid of ANY sexual predators.

Just think... if something like that was instituted here how many women would pay for the crimes men committed against them.

wait...before we go there....remember...boy sides were punished....the men were punished for the rape and she is being punished for being with those that were not related.

I am not blaming the woman for what happened....

HOWEVER....that is thier culture and thier law. I am sure she knew it.

Waiting for Kevin to weigh in.

I know that they can't intermingle, it just makes me sick anyway. Even the fact that women can't show their ankles or whatever is disturbing too. However, I do understand the cultural differences, I just think the punishment (for many crimes, etc) is archiac. I have more intellectual things to add to this conversation... it's still to early for me right now though lol.

Hey if we can let Paris Hilton off for driving unlicenced and intoxicated...and slap her on the wrists....then......

I understand that there are cultural differences. And I'm also sure the victim was aware of the rigid guidelines regarding separation of sexes. However, she was initially sentenced to 90 lashes. Then, because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media" (whatever that means), her sentence was increased to 200 lashes and six months in jail.

I don't have any more information about this story, but it sounds to me like she got an increase in her punishment because her lawyer (perhaps at her request, who knows) argued that the sentence for the rapists was too lenient.

Cultural differences or no, rapists deserve more than 10 months in jail, and the original sentence for the rapists ranged from 10 months to 5 years. I realize that the rapists sentences have been increased as well, but it's a sad state of things when the original sentence for someone who gang raped a woman is only four months longer than the sentence of a woman who was in the company of a non-relative male.

Rape regardless of culture is not about sex, it is about power. These men overpowered this woman, she was 18 years old when it happened, and she had to have been covered fully.

1000+ years ago, this would make sense. However, this is the 21st century and people can be civil and co-mingle without becoming violently abusive to make themselves feel empowered in civilized societies.

Grant, homegirl in that culture should have known better, but like most "teens", she made a very poor choice that has gross consequences in that area. Moreover, it is a human rights violation against the UN charter...

So this thing is going to give some people political fodder to spew and exploit this girl's situation...

Was a "rape kit" done on her? :(

This does not make any sense in any time period. We are humans, not demons. There is no reason why she should have to suffer and pay so much for something totally innocent that did NOT harm anyone.

"shudders"

Apparently this was not the case....


Monet...think about it...in the 21st century we now have lists of sexual predators, we have people who get locked up for getting a BJ which seemed totally innocent(reminder...Glenarlow and company were unchaperoned...) ...kids that are disappearing and later turning up raped if not dead...we have women going to visit so called internet buddies who get abused and raped and this is here in the 'civilized' US of A....so where is the civility here? Where is the enlightenment that people can get to co mingle and nothing will happen....remember less than a hundred years ago, there was an unspoken rule right here in this good ol' US of A that when a man went courting a woman, he sat there in full view of family (of course we know that this didn't always happen and if they were caught, there was dire consequences...but I digress) and in practice, the only time they were alone was after they married.

So, are you saying, Seid, that you like the law that requires women to never be in the company of a non-relative male?

I'm sure there are sexual predators in Saudi Arabia (there are at least seven, anyway). The law clearly does nothing to prevent the presence of sexual predators.

Women anywhere who visit men they know only from online experiences need more safety-related education; they don't need laws forbidding them from going out to lunch with their male next-door neighbor.

I hope you're not really suggesting that women and men in America would benefit from a similar separation.

don't twist it...

sexual segregation works both ways.

I see it as this....you already know what you are supposed to do and what you are not supposed to do.

You have a choice.

You make the choice and then if you get caught, you have to live with the consequences...

Let's also not forget the rapist are being punished for the crime too.

If that is THEIR law and she knew the letter of the law then she knew she had not business being alone with him...likewise he should have sent her away knowing there was a risk for him being punished too!

Sorry to bring politics even more into it, but this is an example of why our invasion of Iraq, and our relations with the whole Middle East, has gone so poorly. These countries are ruled by Islamic Law, not civil law. We don't understand their culture because we don't LIVE our religions the way they do. In the Islamic world, where women are NOT equal to men and other religions are evil, our secular way of doing things is not acceptable. Don't try to apply our reasoning to their laws and culture - it's way beyond that. Just be glad that you don't live there.

The fact is rape anywhere is about power, NOT about defiling one's sexual innocence, or morals.

The girl was 18 years old. Old enough to bear children, but not old enough to know the difference. The men who raped her were probably family friends that she grew up with who she never thought would violate her humanity like that.

Things in the US are bad because for any number of reasons. Media hype, more awareness, ignorance and inability to tell right from wrong, GEEZUS, whatever. The fact is, something was taking from a girl without consent to overpower her.

A cold strict code will NOT stop someone from abusing power by punishing the victim. It will only keep people ignorant rather than evolved. People can do better.

Let me put it to you this way, even the Imam's know they are going to have to upgrade their belief systems because large masses of people are dying in these countries due to public health reasons.

Now they can be pissed off about it and suffer, but they are realizing folks are tired of them. Even the royalty is freaking out and the change the politicking as much as they can, however, we tire of it. Also, the Chinese government who are larger consumers now are not as forgiving as we were...