In Saudi Arabia, a young women (19) was punished, again, last week for being kidnapped and raped by seven men in the Eastern Province Shi'a (Shi'ite) town of al-Qateef. Initially a court sentenced the victim to 90 lashed plus time in prison, while the rapists got light jail terms (harsh Islamic law stipulates death sentences for rape). Later, the Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial and revised the sentence to 200 lashes for the woman- I guess that this should be enough to whitttle her down to the bare bone level, with most of the flesh and gore gone. The men got jail terms of between 2 to 9 years. The victim's laywer, a Mr. al-Lahim, was punished as well: he was barred form pursuing the case and his law license was withdrawn. Alarabiya TV's website to its credit, covered the incident and the intial sentences.
Reports (AFP) claims that the raped woman is of the Shi'a minority sect, while the seven rapists are Sunnis- alles klar?

According to Human Rights Watch: "The young woman, who is married, said she had met with a male acquaintance who had promised to give her back an old photograph of herself. After she met her acquaintance in his car in Qatif, a gang of seven men then attacked and raped both of them, multiple times. Despite the prosecution’s requests for the maximum penalty for the rapists, the Qatif court sentenced four of them to between one and five years in prison and between 80 and 1,000 lashes. They were convicted of kidnapping, apparently because prosecutors could not prove rape (this time the Saudi investigators could not obtain their normally easily obtained confessions). The judges reportedly ignored evidence from a mobile phone video in which the attackers recorded the assault." HRW notes that the harsher new sentence for the victim was a result of the woman speaking out to Human Rights staff about what she considered an injustice. It hints that the woman insisted on pursuing the case, and hence drew the anger of the court. (Are there such cases, then, where the victims do not insist in pursuing and never draw the anger of a bigoted court?)

According to HRW: "There is currently no rule of law in Saudi Arabia, which does not have a written penal code. Judges do not follow procedural rules and issue arbitrary sentences that vary widely. Often, judges do not provide written verdicts, even in death penalty cases."

No indication yet if the departure of Karen Hughes from the Arab scene in the New New Middle East had anything to do with the new harsher sentence for the victim.
Cheers
Mohammed