Tag: Sharia Law
Posted on Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 09:18:17 PM EST
Tags: Sharia Law (all tags)
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has shown some mercy and granted a pardon to the victim of a gang rape who was sentenced to 200 lashes because she was in the company of a man other than her spouse at the time of the crime.
The rape took place a year and a half ago in Qatif, a small Shiite town in the Eastern Province, the center of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. The woman, who has been publicly identified only as the “Qatif girl,” said she met a former boyfriend to retrieve a photograph of herself. They were sitting in a car when seven men attacked, raping them both.
As I wrote here, the original sentence of 90 lashes was upped to 200 lashes after her lawyer complained to the media. Back to today's news:
Commenting on the pardon, the Saudi justice minister, Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Sheik, told Al Jazirah that the king fully supported the verdicts against the woman but had decided to pardon her because it was in the “interests of the people.”
“On one hand this tells people, ‘We support our system and we will punish you if you violate it,’” he said. “Yet he’s also showing mercy. Throughout, he’s making it clear that he is not disagreeing with the judge’s opinion on this sensitive issue of sexual chastity, but he believes that there is a higher interest to be served by the pardon, whether that’s relationships between Shiites and Sunnis, or international opinion.”
Thank you King Abdullah.
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Posted on Fri Nov 16, 2007 at 07:53:17 PM EST
Tags: Sharia Law (all tags)
Saudi Arabia's Qatif General Court has revised the sentence of a 19 year old gang rape victim. The woman was originally sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the company of a male who was not a family member. But, because she and her lawyer publicized her plight, her sentence has been increased to 6 months in jail and 200 lashes.
Her lawyer, civil rights activist Abdulrahman al-Lahem, has been removed from the case, stripped of his law license and told to show up for a disciplinary hearing next month.
No matter how many times I read this article, I just keep shaking my head. How is it possible that Sharia law still exists? Just another reason to keep religion and government separate.
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