Saudi court sentences gang-rape victim to 200 lashes, 6-month jail term

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 16, 1436 2015-03-07

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

The Saudi regime and its court system are run by primitive savages. This was proved yet again when a gang-rape victim was sentenced to 200 lashes and six-month jail term for speaking to the media against the court verdict. The rapists--seven men--got away lightly.

Riyadh, Crescent-online
Saturday March 07, 2015, 18:19 EST

Rapists and murderers would, under the laws of most countries, face stiff penalties including the death sentence.

In Saudi-occupied Arabia, the reverse is true. Instead of punishing the rapists, victims of gang-rape are punished.

This was proved yet again by the case of a Saudi woman who was gang-raped by a group of men in Qatif, Eastern Saudi Arabia.

The woman was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail. Why? The Saudi court punished her because she had spoken to the media about the crime and branded this as an “indecent act”.

The case relates to a Shia woman who was 19 years old in 2006 when the gang-rape occurred.

The woman had gone to meet a friend who had her photographs that were given to the man by the girl’s brother by way of introducing them to see if the man was interested in marrying the girl.

The young man posted these photos on his Facebook page, much to the embarrassment of the girl. She contacted the man and demanded the photographs be returned.

He agreed but asked the girl to meet him in a shopping mall late one evening. When the girl reached there, the man asked her to join him in his car where he had the photographs.

Desperate to retrieve her photographs and avoid further embarrassment through social media, she agreed.

A group of seven men—drunk oil workers—grabbed the pair and took them to a secluded area and gang-raped both the girl and the man.

Instead of remaining silent, the girl’s brother persuaded her to lodge a case with the police. The rapists were identified and hauled before the court.

The rapists were sentenced to 80 lashes each but they appealed the verdict pleading that the girl was with a stranger. Astonishingly, the court accepted their plea and their sentences were reduced to merely five years in jail.

The court’s verdict was flawed on several counts. First, the rapists did not deny the crime; they were also drunk. Drinking is forbidden in Saudi Arabia.

As if this was not bad enough, the court also sentenced the girl—the victim of gang-rape—to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man.

The woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, appealed to the Saudi General Court after the sentences were handed down.

Instead of helping the victim, the court doubled her sentence because she had spoken to the media.

“For whoever has an objection on verdicts issued, the system allows to appeal without resorting to the media,” Saudi officials said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency on Friday March 6.

The court went further: it banned the lawyer from the case, confiscated his license and summoned him for a disciplinary hearing scheduled for later this month.

The Saudi regime has an extremely hostile attitude towards women. While claiming to be ruled by the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him), it is Bedouin tradition that is conflated with “Islamic” law.

This is not the first time that the Saudi regime and its oppressive court system have perpetrated such injustices against women.

The most horrific case in December 2011 related to the violent beating and rape of a five-year-old girl, Lama by her own father, Layhan al Ghamdi, a celebrity TV preacher. He had accused his daughter of “losing her virginity” implying that she had had sex with someone.

Would a 5-year-old girl even know about sex?

The poor girl’s arms and legs, and her back and skull were broken. Her father used a stick and a chain to beat her with. She was also repeatedly “raped everywhere,” according to a hospital worker where the poor girl was taken. She died a few days later.

When the preacher was brought before the court, the judge fined him a mere $50,000 and said the time he had spent in jail was enough punishment for him.

This outraged Saudis of all walks of life. Instantly, a social media campaign with the hashtag “#AnaLama” (I am Lama), was launched.

The campaign became so intense that the ruling family was forced to intervene.

Ultimately the preacher was sentenced to eight years in jail, $270,000 fine and 800 lashes. It is yet to be determined whether he has been lashed even once since the revised sentence was handed down in October 2013.

Why the preacher was not sentenced to death for raping and murdering his own 5-year-old daughter? The Saudi law says a father cannot be sentenced to death for killing his own children.

This has nothing to do with Islam but everything to do with the custom of jahiliya prior to the advent of Islam. The Saudi regime and its court system follow the practices of jahiliya but have the gall to call themselves “Islamic”.

The latest proof of this was provided by the punishment handed down to a gang-rape victim.

The message being delivered is that rape victims should not complain and remain silent.

The Saudi regime is run by savages that have nothing to do with Islam and its pristine principles. Unless these corrupters are removed from power, and soon, there will be no peace or justice for the long-suffering people of the Arabian Peninsula.

END

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