BS: Bad Intentions

Subject: BS: Bad Intentions
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:15 PM

Saudi court ups punishment for gang-rape victim

Story Highlights
Woman, 19, gets six months prison, 200 lashes for meeting with unrelated man

Group of seven raped her and the man, from whom she was retrieving photos

After lawyer protests light sentences, rapists' sentences increased

Victim's punishment doubled for talking to the media
   
(CNN) -- A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.

The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.

The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.

"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."

The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.

Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.

Al-Lahim said he is appealing the decision to bar him from representing the victim and has a meeting with Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh on Monday.

"Currently she doesn't have a lawyer, and I feel they're doing this to isolate her and deprive her from her basic rights," al-Lahim said. "We will not accept this judgment and I'll do my best to continue representing her because justice needs to take place."

Al-Lahim said he wanted the Justice Ministry to take "a very clear standing" on the case, saying the decision is "judicial mutiny against reform that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz started and against Saudi women who are being victimized because of such decisions."

Women are subject to numerous restrictions in Saudi Arabia, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and the need for a man's permission to travel or have surgery. Women are also not allowed to testify in court unless it is about a private matter that was not observed by a man, and they are not allowed to vote.

The Saudi government recently has taken some steps toward bettering the situation of women in the kingdom, including the establishment earlier this year of special courts to handle domestic abuse cases, adoption of a new labor law that addresses working women's rights, and creation of a human rights commission.

CNN was unable to reach government officials for comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad Intentions
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 01:55 PM

Yup...

The road to misfortune and sorrow is (sometimes) paved with good intentions. Sometimes not.

The road to hell, on the other hand, is most definitely paved with bad intentions, as well as doctrinaire political AND/OR religious beliefs of a patently ludicrous nature that are accepted and obeyed by fatuous people who don't dare to question or resist the higher authority figures in their own society.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad Intentions
From: The Badger
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 08:21 PM

HMMM!

"obeyed by fatuous people who don't dare to question or resist the higher authority figures in their own society."

The non-"fatuous" people are the ones who tends to disappear in such societies.
Obeying could class as a survival technique!

Subject: RE: BS: Bad Intentions
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 08:36 PM

Nornal!!!

This is one reason I argued against getting involved in a war in the Middle East... These folks ain't at all like US... And there ain't nuthin' we can do militarially to change that...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Bad Intentions
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 10:04 PM

Obeying becomes a survival technique...at a certain point, but that point cannot be reached without the fatuous support of a lot of people for their leaders prior to that point being reached. Ask yourself when that point might be reached in your own society. It's not just a question here of how bad the Saudis are. This kind of thing happens in many societies when a powerful authority group at the top...an elite...whether they be a religious or a political or an industrial elite...or all of those...when they overstep their bounds and begin practicing what amounts to thought control over a population.

How do they do it? Through fear-mongering, and through crudely emotional appeals to patriotism, faith, "God and country", and established traditions of unquestioning obedience to higher authority. That's how they do it.

It can happen anywhere. It's not a problem limited to Islamic societies. Zenophobia and ignorance can flourish under ANY system whose leaders decide to promote zenophobia and ignorance. Their hope and joy is that they can also find zenophobia and ignorance (of a different outer form, of course) being practiced by the very people they wish to make war upon... ;-) It serves as a good excuse for justifying the war.

Hitler told the Germans in 1939 that the Poles were doing terrible things to German residents of Poland, and that it had to be stopped. He found plenty of willing ears in Germany to support a pre-emptive attack on Poland. They felt justified.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad Intentions
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 10:22 PM

Hmmm...'scuse me...

It's "xenophobia". (fear or dislike of strangers and foreigners)

By the way, in case anyone is wondering, I find the attitudes toward women in Saudi society totally disgusting and I always have found them so. I find their religious attitudes horrifying in many respects. I thank God I do not live there.

Similar miscarriages of justice have occurred in the past in India among the country people and the less educated people...in that case among a predominantly Hindu population, not a Muslim population. For instance, women were often expected to throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyre and burn up along with him...(since they were considered to be worthless without him). Widows are often abandoned by society and forced to become street beggars. Young women who are raped are often blamed for presumably "causing" the incident themselves and are considered "ruined" for marriage as a result, which in effect ruins them for life in general in that society! It's not just a problem limited to Muslim societies.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad Intentions
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 12:03 AM

some years back I remember reading about a mother bringing her teenage daughter to hospital because she had been raped, & saying she'd told her not to wear that revealing outfit.

Maybe mother was traumatised, but the person (social worker??) reporting the story did not think do.