That’s the punishment you get in Saudi Arabia for being a woman and riding in a car with a man who is not in your family. Oh, after your gang rape. (Via Feministing.)
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.
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.
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.”
But, lest you jump to conclusions, understand that it’s not only women who have to feel the occasional lash to be kept in line. It’s gay men, too!
About 50 people picketed Saudi Arabia’s embassy in London on Oct. 19 in protest against the nation’s reported floggings and executions of gay men.
On Oct. 2, two Saudi men convicted of sodomy in the city of Al Bahah received the first of their 7,000 lashes in punishment, the Okaz daily newspaper reported. The whippings took place in public, the report said.
I presume that the strong connections between totalitarian impulses, religious fundamentalism, and sexual repression have already been the subject of dozens of Ph.D. theses. There is a truly ugly part of human nature that feels a need to control the lives of others, and theocracy serves as a mechanism for amplifying those impulses into public actions.
And these are our good friends in the region. The close personal relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family is well documented. Although 19 of the 20 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in response. And our administration flew Saudi relatives of Bin Laden out of the country in the days after 9/11 while all other flights were grounded.
In other related news today the Bush adminstration is planning about 20 billion in arms sales to the Saudis. I’m sure thats going to help convince them to improve their human rights record.
et
The true face of Islam.
As a resident of a country that has recently adopted a policy of torture, eliminated habeas corpus, and allowed its leaders to ignore other legal boundaries I am horrified that those mean ‘ol Saudis would have such outrageous laws. However, this Saudi outrage appears to be within their long-established cultural heritage and legal tradition. Charity begins at home. Perhaps outrage should, too.
While I understand that they believe that the girl shares some of the blame, she should never have been punished as severely as some of her attackers: the rape itself was punishment enough.
While it doesn’t justify the Saudis’ medieval attitude towards human rights, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that sodomy (which until the 1820s was taken to include oral sex!) was a capital offence in Britain and her colonies until the 1860s, by a statute of Henry VIII, and presumably the same penalty applied in the US.
Apparently he believed it encouraged the spread of syphilis, and that people were using it as a means of birth control which he feared would deprive the country of stalwart young men for his army and navy. Also, it was a chance for him to encroach on ecclesiastical law (where previously, ironically, it had been generally considered a fairly trivial misdemeanor).
Man created religions; some better than others. Fundamentalist Islam is right there at the bottom of the barrel. Oh and I quite literally meant ‘man’.
Just for the record, it is possible to be outraged by more than one thing at a time. The fact that the US has a terrible record does not excuse other countries, and mentioning terrible things in other countries does not excuse the US. Condemning outrageous acts by Muslims does not implicitly condone outrageous acts by Christians or Jews or Hindus, &c.
Also for the record: until the 2003 Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, sodomy was illegal in many US states. No death penalty, but in Idaho you could get life imprisonment. It continues to be illegal for members of the US armed forces.
The problem is, Saudi Arabia is untouchable. They can do whatever they please, and no other nation can say boo because they hold such a large percentage of the world’s oil. It’s not just a totalitarian regime built upon a base of horrific religious fundamentalism, it’s a totalitarian regime built upon a base of horrific religious fundamentalism that is artificially supported by an accident of geology that gives it a preeminent position in world politics.
Yes, the Saudis are our chief enemy in the Middle East. No, we can’t touch them. Not until we break our oil addiction. So yeah, instead of going into Iraq, if we would have dumped even tens of billions of dollars into R&D for alternative energy, we might have actually been able to start breaking our addiction by now. Breaking the world’s addiction to oil, more than anything else, will allow us to make use of diplomacy to place pressure on these regimes for such horrible treatment of their citizens.
Sickening.
On a similar note, there’s been a stir amongst a lot of science/engineering students lately on several campuses because of heavy recruiting for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), which is set to open next year. You can get a free ride to be in the first class and they say the religious police will be barred from campus, but I sincerely doubt they will get many women (or men with an ounce of morality) willing to go because of stories like this.
This is the most sickening thing I have read in a long time.
this is unbelievable. How can people deal with a country like this? Why isn’t there international outrage? Where are the angry politicians threatening boycotts?
This is outright barbarism and no civilized country should do business with Saudi Arabia until they change their laws.
one more point: let’s not excuse barbarism on cultural grounds. Until recently, racism was part of my country’s ‘culture’ but now it isn’t. That’s progress. We become better human beings. You’ll notice that ‘cultural practices’ are always most demeaning and disempowering towards women.
I like how quickly you criticize a culture you clearly don’t understand. (Not that I purport to.)
I’m not saying tolerance is always the key. I am saying that seeking to truly understand is.
I’m all for seeking to understand both sides of the issue, but this is too egregious to not be offended and alarmed. Some things are morally inexcusable; this is one of them.
The woman who is getting 200 lashes probably understands the culture pretty well.
Regarding a few comments—
Outrage is one thing, summarily judging a “culture” based on its worst examples is another.
For one thing, if Bush invaded Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq, one can hardly expect Saudi Arabian women to find improved living condition. This is one of those things that are totally outrageous yet defy any “easy” solution.
Why do some people say that Saudi Arabia shows the “true face of Islam,” instead of, say, Malaysia or UAE? (Well, yes, they are nowhere near the European standards, but give them some time.) We could equally say that IRA or Lebanese civil war shows the true face of Christianity.
The irony is that Saudi Arabia is perhaps the only country in the Middle East that the USA could have persuaded to adopt better human rights policy, without resorting to deadly (and utterly ineffective) forces. Just threaten not to buy oil. (Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps this is one of those “easy solutions” that sounds simple but would never work in practice…)
ha…shows how ignorant some people are. Just threaten not to buy oil..hahaha.. Firstly, Saudi arabia isn’t that big a oil supplier to the US. Most of US oil comes from Canada, Mexico, or Venezuela. Secondly, any oil that US doesn’t buy will be more than gladly bought by China and/or India and/or Japan or any number of other countries. The reason US is so interested in Saudi Arabia is that as the largest oil exporter SA is the kingpin in OPEC and can be, or at least in the past used to be, persuaded to increase the global oil supply and keep prices in check. Also, SA is a major holder of US currency. Just the fact that SA refused to drop its interest rates in line with the fed last month was enough to raise eyebrows in the currency markets as to whether SA might start selling oil in other currencies or break the dollar peg and the consequences for the USD.
Also, as to why this shows the true face of Islam as opposed to say Malaysia, the answer is to read the Koran. SA is closest to the conception of society offered by Koran. Far East Islamic societies have somewhat diluted the message of Islam by combining it with Hindu practices and there are Islamic movements trying to get the Islam as practiced there closer to the Arabic ideal.
hello all
It saddens me how some ppl find no problems in judging a culture based on its worst examples, and it saddens me even more when i find that some ppl would call what happened is the true face of islam and even want to go invade saudi arebia because of such incidents !! …….If you think that way then you are not different from those in the muslims countries which you might have seen sometimes in the tv news burning the american flags because of the jail of abu gharib incidents in iraq for example.
Sean has said “The woman who is getting 200 lashes probably understands the culture pretty well”
I am not quite sure what your point is bec by the same token one can say muslims who were turtured in abu gharib and elsewhere by american soldiers understand the american culture pretty well now!
What happened to that girl was a very harsh thing by the judge, what happened in abu gharib jail was an exception and a mistake also, so pls do not judge a culture by its worst examples
Muslim cultures like any other cultures have the good and the bad, but the muslim countries generally speaking, the ppl as a whole they have the lowest alcoholic consumption, the lowest gambling rate, the lowest suicide rate, the lowest prison rate, the lowest crime rate, the lowest divorce rate, and the highest charity rate
Pls understand that i am not bragging i am only trying to clarify certain points and missconceptions i usually encounter when talking with nonmuslim friends
There are certain things forbidden in islam some of which are killing, stealing, alcohol, sex outside marriage, homosexuality and others
If something is forbidden in islam it is forbidden bec of certain reasons
everybody agrees that killing and stealing are wrong so let me not discuss that
Alcohol for example, why is it forbidden? it is forbidden because it has harmful effects on the society as a whole, may be if you drink responsibly there is no problem, but we cant guarantee that ppl will be drinking responsibly (and thats why drugs are forbidden by law in the 1st place otherwise we should legalise heroin and say take it responsibly!) …..as for alcohol for example 17,448 were killed last year in the US in alcohol-related crashes, accounting for 41 percent of all U.S. traffic deaths add to that that the alcohol related health risks (One of the 1st things a doctor would ask is that do you drink? do you smoke?)
That is one reason why alcohol is forbidden in islam
Why homosexuality is forbidden in islam? bec islam protects the family which is the building block of the society. A family by definition in islam means married couple, a man, a woman, and kids (It is the natural way of having them). Men and women are different, i am not saying one is more intelligent than the other, i am saying they are different, they are completing each other, for example a newly born baby can keep crying at night and the father would go to another room to be able get some sleep, at the same time the wife would have no problems staying up all night with the baby showering her/him with all the love and passion of the world, thats a fact, a woman can do it a man cant. The man and the woman are both needed for raising the kids. Generally speaking, a society with kids raised by couples of the same sex is different from a society with kids raised by a man and a woman
sorry my pc froze before i finish
so anyway
i hope that i have shed some light on why certain things are forbidden in islam, not to convince you necessirely but at least to show you the other side of the coin
those were a few thoughts about this topic and its comments
bets regards,
mohammad
While cataloguing unpleasant US allies, spare a thought for the Bedoon of Kuwait. Not to be confused with Bedouin, “Bedoon” is Arabic for “without”; the Bedoon are without nationality, and consequently many other things.
Most Bedoon had ancestors living within the borders of Kuwait since long before Kuwait existed as a nation, but they are denied citizenship because they belong to minority tribes, or because they or their parents neglected to fill out the right paperwork when independence arrived in 1961. This doesn’t simply mean they can’t vote; they also can’t work, can’t be educated in government schools, and can’t hold a driver’s licence. They live on charity and “illegal” work, and are constantly at risk of arbitrary arrest and/or deportation — usually to Iraq, where they have no legal status either, and so are again at risk of imprisonment. They number in the hundreds of thousands.
If a Bedoon escapes to another country, Kuwait will never accept them back. Never ever, no chance at all. However, that fact alone does not guarantee them refugee status in the country they reach, and I’m ashamed to say that Australia imprisoned many Bedoon asylum seekers for years, and still claims the right to imprison stateless people indefinitely (a power that has been tested in, and affirmed, by our High Court).
And to get back to Saudi Arabia, well, the “Kuwaiti” royal family is actually just a side-branch of the same nepotistic snake’s nest that runs Saudi Arabia.
There is something truly surreal about complaints about a sense of outrage over this woman’s treatment.
Ah, what sensitive and cultured company we keep. Go USA!
Farhat:
One of the faces. The Christian faith doesn’t fare much better in this respect. Let’s look at examples were Christian countries had been ruled in a more or less theocratic way. What we see is people being burnt alive at the stake, or even worse things.
Now, one can argue that these things happened a long time ago and are therefore irrelevant. However, all these horrible forms of punishment were inspired by religion. Since the Middle Ages we have changed the laws inspired by religion, while in some Muslim countries they are still using the same old theocratic laws.
So, to be fair we should compare Europe in the Middle Ages to Saudi Arabia today (or in the Middle Ages, as it doesn’t make much of a diference for Saudi Arabia).
Perhaps one of the reason why we have become more secular than Islamic countries is precisely the fact that our religious inspired laws were much worse. 🙂
Disgusting.
Definitely something seriously ugly about human nature. (“Religion” isn’t the problem, as it happens – or have we forgotten the oppressions under Stalinism, communism, etc?)
But I don’t understand how an atheist can make such a judgement: isn’t the lust for power/control just another name for the survival instinct?
Would be interested to hear what you think about this.
Anthony,
In my opinion, the lust for power is not another name for the survival instinct. It is an aberration. We as a species would improve our long term survival if “some people” and in that group I include the current regimes in the United States and Saudi Arabia, would stop believing they are entitled to more than the rest of us by birthright, divine declaration or whatever. They are not.
Elliot