19-Year Old Saudi Rape Victim Ordered to Undergo 200 Lashes

[Aqua]

(SF)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A 19-year-old female victim of gang rape who initially was ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," has been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail for telling her story to the news media.

The new verdict was handed down by Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council following a retrial, the Arab News reported.

The court last year sentenced the six heavily-armed men who carried out the attack against the Shiite woman to between one and five years for committing the crime.

But the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," a court source told the Arab News.

The new verdict issued on Wednesday also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.

Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine that forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.

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.

[gekkogecko]

This is the sort of thing you get when you institute a theocracy.

I hate fundamentalist extremists of any religious presuasion.

[lakritze]

This is just plain fucking SICK.

[Wicked Wanda]

I am so far beyond angry, I have nothing coherent to say here except FUCK FUNDAMENTALISTS governments.

She exposed the corruption and misogyny of their sytem, so she is punished even harder for being the victim.

The Saudis are NOT OUR FRIENDS, and we need to quit treating them like they are.


WW

[jseal]

Yes indeed! That is what tends to happen when policies are primarily theory driven!

[Oldfart]

jseal,

only if theory derives from "theos".

This combines the worst excesses of many excessive eras, the religious burnings in Britain and their US colonies, Vlad's impalings, Srebrenica and Nanking.

The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.

[jseal]

jseal,

only if theory derives from "theos".
...
The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
Oldfart,

It is a mite difficult to integrate the multiple millions murdered by Communist atheists or National Socialist racists into your theory. More people have been killed in the name of political ideology than theological ideology.

Yes, I agree that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

[Oldfart]

jseal,

The athiests have little to do with religious excesses.

200 lashes for being in a car with men who are not your relations, then challenging the considered decision of a religious court?

This is life-threatening stuff.

[jseal]

... 200 lashes for being in a car with men who are not your relations ...
Oldfart,

I know of no one who thinks this is appropriate. Do you?

... then challenging the considered decision of a religious court? ...
The implication that the judgement was unseemly because it originated from a "religious court" shows again that Saudi Arabia has failed to communicate that in that nation there is no distinction (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/world/saudiarabia.htm) berween a "religious court" and a "secular court".

This then resolves to a question about the appropriateness of the saction applied to a citizen of a country for a violation of the laws of that land. As in the case of the Malaysian executions of Autralian nationals for contravening the drug trafficing laws of that nation, one must decide if one is entitled to decide how other people manage their societies. The Australian Labor party seems to have adopted the position that this is a good political posture (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22554363-601,00.html).

... The athiests have little to do with religious excesses ...
Yes, I agree. The political theories, unchecked by the data feedback empirical disciplines enjoy, which extremist governments employ to visit genocidal slaughter upon their myriad victims require no religious zeal to justify their ends.

[Oldfart]

Jseal,

You are right that the Labor Party is posturing.

Are you advocating the absolute right of Governments to do anything they like?

At what point does behaviour become anathema?

[jseal]

Oldfart,

Who? Me? Advocate the absolute right of Governments? Good Heavens! Whenever did I give you that idea? Ref the Gulf War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War), in which my brother served. You are not suggesting to overthrow the Saudi government over this aberration, are you?

As anathema is an Occidental and Christian term, it is a bit dicey useing it in this context, but I shall do my best.

Behavior is not anathema. An individual becomes anathema when that individual's behavior falls so far outside the norms of the society which judges the individual that banishment or utter and complete rejection of the individual from that society is deemed appropriate. In Chritendom, anathema was an ostracism beyond excommunication.

Maxibummer & Super Bad Vibes!

[Oldfart]

And this is not deserving of that. Predatory religion.

[jseal]

Oldfart,

As I pointed out in my second and third posts, in the case at hand, the question of religion illuminates the diffferent perspectives between those which we in the Latin West and those of the Muslim world have. Islamic law does not distinguish between "matters of church" and "matters of state". I may think that such discrimination is appropriate, but as these Muslim societies are just as functional as ours, I must question a bit those who would compel them to be like us.

No. I must say that those who fixate on religion, or limit themselves to this as the source of extremism share Karl Marx's blinders, and are failing to see the forest for the trees. Indeed, sometimes it seems as if they can see only one tree.

No. The problem is that, in this instance, the judgements were determined through a highly rational process which started from a theory, and without the benefit of feedback from reality, concluded that the young lady in question should be punished severely and used as an example to dissuade others from engaging in such unacceptable behavior.

This function of the coercive power of the state was repeatedly demonstrated by Comunist nations when that social system was in vogue a few years ago. The theory took as a one of its postulates that private ownership of goods and services was bad, and collective or public ownership was good. The result in the USSR, the PRP and Democratic Kampuchea was by most standards, unsatisfactory.

The same loss of contact with reality, the same absence of factual feedback characterized the Third Reich. Many millions were murdered by the state acting out the racist fiats of the madman Hitler.

The common thread shared by these examples of extremism is not religion.

The thread most commonly shared by those who argue for extremism (of which I am aware) is that their arguments originate from a theory and are never tested against reality, or reviewed in the light of experiance, before being put into practice.

... and they often lead to rather nasty results.

[Oldfart]

The trouble is that these people dictate reality, at least within their sphere of dominance.

[jseal]

Oldfart,

Yes sir. That is true.

For example, in 1932 between 3 and 10 million peasants of the Ukraine, then one of the republics of the USSR, were starved to death as part of Joseph Stalin's programme to crush the resistance to the collectivisation of farming - an axiom of Marxist theory. They are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the famine this year.

There are examples from other "disciplines".

[jseal]

King Abdullah seems to have noticed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7147632.stm) the international criticism.

[osuche]

Interesting response....I get the feeling that she would not have been pardoned without the negative press. Which makes me wonder how many times these sort of punishments are handed out where there is no pardon.

[Oldfart]

The Mullahs will not be happy with their authority being challenged by King Abdullah.

Palace revolt in the wind, him being a newish king and all?