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[simplyblessedwithlove]

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.

The court also banned the lawyer from defending her, confiscated his license to practice law and summoned him to a disciplinary hearing later this month.

"I explained to them that it was my job to do everything legal in order to serve my client. But they did not listen," the lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, was quoted by the paper as saying.

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Len T.

[Leon Young]

unbelieveable, in China the seven men was about to be sentenced to ten or more than ten years.

i felt sorry for the girl....
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I want to ride my bicycle,I want to ride my bike

[simplyblessedwithlove]

Exactly! They should be punished, not the girl. Those judges are inhuman and this law they have is beyond nonsense. Nonetheless, one person, I guess is a Muslim, told me to respect this law. The nerve of this person asking me to respect an injustice practice.
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Len T.

[Anuradha Chepur]

I am not surprised.

[simplyblessedwithlove]

[asterix]

This kind of legally sanctioned abuse of women is common in Muslim countries.
Apparently the UN Human rights commission is not interested in doing anything to change it.

[Bob S.]

[simplyblessedwithlove]

[simplyblessedwithlove]

[simplyblessedwithlove]

I read the news. It's one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. I mean, my friend's boyfriend called her big Buddha because she always laughs like this big belly laughing Buddha. She and I are Buddhists and we find it funny rather than offensive. It's just a name. GET. OVER. IT!!!
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Len T.

[ad-miral]

it's very bad
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If I say "I love you" to someone, then I also have to say "I also love everyone else inside you, I love the whole world because of you, I also love myself inside you." -- Erich Fromm, the Art of Love

[Lorikeet]

[asterix]

I think he's referring to one of Bob's links which is about a woman teacher being charged with disrespecting the prophet by allowing her students to choose the name "Mohammed" for a teddy bear.
It is mind boggling that alleged adults can seriously propose to give a woman a public flogging for this kind of thing, but sure enough that's what these clowns are proposing to do!

[simplyblessedwithlove]

[CP]

Why is it okay to name any old nincompoop's child "Mohammad," but it's a capital offense to name anything else the prophet's name? What rubbish. There are untold millions of Mohammads and Jesuses and Moseses around the world, many of whom are criminals and derelicts and thoroughly repugnant, execrable fiends. Let's behead their parents for blasphemy! I can't name my dog Moses? Get off the planet!

Try this on for size, fanatics: You could be wrong about the holy status of your beloved prophet--whether he be Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, or Joe the Plumber. (The Plumberanians are a small group, but very devoted.)

You were born at a time and in a place where people told you who was supposedly the true person to worship, and you worship him fervently. But if you had been born elsewhere, or at a different time, you would be worshiping someone else, just as fervently. How do you know you aren't wrong now? How do you know the true God isn't waiting patiently to torture eternally for blindly following the false prophet all along, and hurting other people who guessed right about divinity?

And letting judges follow their misguided religious beliefs to torture victims of crime? Those judges deserve that torture, over and over. They are supposed to protect victims of crime, not to victimize them again. I am so sick and tired of self-righteous cretins given a little power and using it against the defenseless. I would volunteer to even the score.

And I don't care if it offends your religion. Live and let live. Quit thinking you know the truth, when it comes to divinity and religion. If you disagree with someone else's religion, so what? Mind your own business. You are probably wrong anyway.
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