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.SA is not ultra-conservative. It is ultra-insane. The teenager would have been better off if she were a goat, sheep, or a camel...the usual victim of a middle eastern male.
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.
OMG...The horror! The horror!
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."
Heaven forbid that an islamic judge would be rational.
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.
But it's OK for islamic males to gang rape a woman.
Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community. But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.
No, Abdul. She is only a woman and the kingdom is governed by sharia (rhymes with diarrhea) law.
In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.
Another 3 to 5 years and the sentences would be right up there with camel theft.
The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Yawn. They didn't get the memo. A muslim is a muslim regardless the flavor. There is no prejudice in islam.
Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.
Truth?! You can't handle the truth!
He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Sounds like more sharia (rhymes with diarrhea) justice is on the way.
Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."
Sure. And be sure to send some snowballs from H*ll, too.
King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.
That's sharia (rhymes with diarrhea) justice. Every bleeding heart liberal who has the least bit of sympathy for islam needs to read this article. That's what the every true muslim really wants. Polls in the ME, the US, the UK, and Europe all say pretty much the same thing.