Well, it’s good news, in one sense. “Saudi king pardons rape victim” according to the BBC.
You read that correctly. The headline did indeed say victim, not perpetrator.
The Saudi king has pardoned a female rape victim sentenced to jail and 200 lashes for being alone with a man raped in the same attack, reports say.
This man and woman were in a car when they were abducted and raped by seven men.
The “Qatif girl” case caused an international outcry with widespread criticism of the Saudi justice system
The words “laughably named” could fit snugly in that sentence between Saudi and justice.
The less “good news” aspects of this story are that the halfway-sane outcome is only the result of pressure from the west and that the pardon does not imply that there was any error on the court’s decision. There is no reason to assume that such sentences won’t be passed in the future.
The custodial sentence plus 200 lashes was imposed after the woman, who has not been named, appealed against an earlier sentence of 90 lashes.
She dared to appeal. Her sentence was more than doubled. The man – who you will note was also raped – was also sentenced to 90 lashes. The BBC doesn’t know if he was “pardoned” too and I wouldn’t hold out much hope on this showing.
The pardon was said not to imply any criticism of the sentence. It was just supposed to be the King expressing some seasonal goodwill for Eid al-Adha. Well done, your highness. According to the BBC, he’s been criticised on some conservative websites for the pardon, which is seen as kowtowing to the west. Words fail.
Hi Heather
That’s good ole Shariah law and Wahibbism for you!
I think that the good news, aside from the good news for her personally, is that international pressure had an impact.
I also think that if it were not for the international outcry, Gillian Gibbons might have received the stiffest sentence allowed.
The difficulty for Muslim women is much the same as the problem for victims of childhood abuse in the West — the oppressive, critical-of-self messages create an almost permanent damage to self-esteem that traps these women in an I-deserve-the-abuse mentality. Westerners seem not to understand this when they open the metaphoric cage door and Muslim women, unlike Ayaan Hirsi Ali, do not rush out to enjoy their freedom. It’s tragic that half the world’s women need therapy that they will never receive.
Salient
Very wise comment. Thank you.
The horror is that so many women are complicit in their own subjection, though, and are happy to subject their own daughters to it.
And I suspect that that percentage of the world’s men that engage in this woman-fearing shit, under cover of religion, are probably even more in need of therapy, at the very least.
Unfortunately, child abuse produces mothers who are unable to protect their daughters — and on and on it goes down the generations. You are quite correct that many men probably need therapy, but men, in my experience, don’t benefit much from therapy.
I think that Western men have improved since women’s liberation. Perhaps men fear ’emasculation’ by a woman whom they perceive as weak more than by a woman whom they perceive as strong. Perhaps they behave more respectfully to someone who respects herself.