I noticed this article the other day about a woman in Saudi who was raped 14 times by 7 different "men".

Female rape victim gets 200 lashes and jail

From correspondents in Riyadh

November 16, 2007 08:45am
Article from: AAP

A COURT in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail.
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.''

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

Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shi'ite community.

But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.

In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.

The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Mr Lahem, also a human rights activist, said yesterday the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.

He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.

Mr Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system.''

King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

All this proves is that the stories I've heard about Saudi are true. There is NO legal system there other than what one of these goat-fuckers thinks might help him and his mates out at the time. I've heard from a few sources that if a Westerner is involved in a motoring collision with a Saudi then then Westerner is automatically at fault regardless of the circumstances.

Where the hell does this moron of a judge get off thinking that it is OK to punish the victim regardless of what she was doing? Was he a member of the Queensland "Justice" System recently? I say that it is now fair game for the family of this woman to cut the balls (literally) off the rapists once they are set free.

Can you imagine what the result would have been had it been Westerners that performed the rape on a Muslim woman?
Can you imagine how much worse it would be if the victim had been a western woman?

Oh, and I notice that our government is acting French again in refusing to denounce the punishment being handed out to the woman. This has resulted in one of the writers for the News.com.au site creating a blog/petition to be presented to (and most-likely ignored by) the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Save this rape victim

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 (01:13pm)

Politicians have refused to stand up for a gang rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes in Saudi Arabia.

So it’s up to us.

The US and Australian governments have effectively abandoned the woman, who was raped 14 times by seven men. US Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton has urged President George W. Bush to call on Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to drop the charges, while Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has asked diplomatic staff to “raise Australia’s concern” over the sentence with the Saudi Government.

Compounding the obscenity of the sentence is the fact that it has been increased from 90 lashes. The victim, a 19-year-old who has become known as “Qatif girl” after the Shiite-populated area of Al-Qatif in the Eastern Province she comes from, has vowed to challenge the ruling, even though the judge has warned her sentence could be increased if she loses her appeal.

The politicians’ silence doesn’t stop us from speaking out for her.

Today we are collecting your comments and views in a petition that we will present to the Saudi embassy in Canberra.

Please post your comments below and we will pass them on to the embassy.

We also encourage Australians to protest directly to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. You can telephone the embassy in Canberra at (02) 6282 6999 and ask to speak with the Australian and New Zealand ambassador Mr Hassan Talat Nazer.

You can also send faxes to (02) 6282 8911 or post letters to:

P.O. Box 9162
Deakin ACT 2600

So, simply put: If Saudi Arabia considers itself to be a righteous, forward-thinking country with any resemblance of maturity, then they are wrong.
Who would have thought that a country with links to the oldest and smartest civilisations this planet has ever known could be so brainless and pathetic in their thinking: punish the victim.

I bet if a group of women attacked a male and repeatedly shoved a sex toy in his back passage that he wouldn't get whipped for his trouble. It is no wonder that many people, including myself, consider Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to be remnants of the Bronze Age with Stone Age thinking and that the world tolerates them only because the most effective way of dealing with them (ie: turning the region into a glass carpark) will irradiate the area too badly to get the oil out. If it wasn't for this, they and their reverence for a paedophile could have been eradicated generations ago and the world would be a much safer & pleasant place for it.

Remember this story the next time one of these Tent Merchants tells you that women are revered in Islam. They lie.