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This is an update to the case of the 19 year old “girl from Qatif” who was gang raped a total of 14 times by seven men. When the matter was brought before the Saudi Court by the woman’s husband, they sentenced the attackers to short prison sentences, but also sentenced the girl from Qatif to judicial flogging of 90 lashes. When the case became public, her brother attempted to murder her for bringing shame upon the family, and she attempted suicide. On appeal, the Saudi Court increased the sentence of her attackers, but also increased her sentence to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail after the Court dismissed her attorney. According to Arab News, the girl from Qatif has not yet been told this news by her family.
This case is shining a very clear light on the medieval Sharia law practiced in Saudi Arabia and the heavy handedness of an Islamic system used to operating above review or criticism. And thanks almost entirely to the efforts of al Lahem, the girl's attorney, the case is raising a lot of questions in Saudi Arabia itself. Our own CAIR, those great defenders of Human Rights who have advocated adopting Sharia law in America, have yet to take notice of the case.
It is a “slap in the face of justice,” according to Lubna Hussain, writing in the Arab Times.
It is a tale that is more reminiscent of the cruel callous punishments meted out to women in medieval times. And yet sadly it is a case that is making headlines in the 21st century.
. . . I will never forget reading about this case when it was first documented several months ago. I blinked hard in disbelief at the ridiculous contents of the article and the trite absurdity of the allegations. It was enough to offend the sensibilities of any reasonable minded human being and yet, it seemed at the time, that those who are in charge of our judicial system were totally devoid of any sense of justice. It is this peculiar irony that has subsequently subverted and distorted the outcome of a trial that will no doubt characterize the level of injustice that we can expect to be afforded through the courts.
Here is a young woman who has had to suffer the unimaginable ordeal of being brutally raped by seven men 14 times but nonetheless decided to take the remarkably brave step and approach the authorities expecting at the very least a fair trial and perhaps, albeit unrealistically, a degree of compassion.
Indeed, as has been shown by the insanity of the proceedings she would have been well advised to privately deal with the physical and psychological scars that this heinous act had incurred. Instead of being applauded for breaking social taboos and enduring the consequences of revisiting the trauma that she must have acutely suffered in bringing her case forward, she now stands in the same dock as her rapists accused of being complicit in perpetrating the crime. According to the courts, she should not have been with a man who was not her male guardian in the first place. The judges looked into their crystal ball and saw that she had “the intention of doing something bad” and this therefore constituted a very good reason for her to be gang raped. Always the woman’s fault, but of course!
. . . Even though the judgment in this case is shocking, it is hardly surprising when you analyze the twisted reasoning it is based upon.
. . . So what is the wider message being delivered to us citizens who may, God forbid, find ourselves at the mercy of the justice system here? Stay at home and keep our mouths shut. And to the outside world? I will leave this to your imagination. Suffice it to say that no amount of money spent on PR is going to be able to whitewash the irreparable damage caused by grave injustices such as this.
Read her commentary in the Arab News. And see also this commentary in the same paper.
ABC News has obtained the girls story from Human Rights Watch, and you can compare it with what the Saudi Justice Ministry’s account. They now claim – based on the testimony of her attackers - that the girl was complicit in her own gang rape. The Ministry is in a full court press to deflect attention from this incredible injustice of this case and the medieval system of laws and justice in Saudi Arabia. It is a legal system with no safeguards, very few objective guides, and it is shrouded in secrecy. The girl’s lawyer, himself under threat of losing his license to practice law over this case, has now filed a suit against the Saudi Justice Ministry claiming that their recent claims of the facts in this case are false and have defamed the girl from Qatif.
This from ABC News.:
. . . In a December 2006 interview in Khobar, Saudi Arabia the woman gave a full account of her testimony to Human Rights Watch, describing the incident as she did before the court. She was meeting a male acquaintance, a former boyfriend, when the attack took place:
"I [was] 19 years old. I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship. Because of the threats and fear, I agreed to give him a photo of myself," she recounted.
"A few months [later], I asked him for the photo back but he refused. I had gotten married to another man. He said, 'I'll give you the photo on the condition that you come out with me in my car.' I told him we could meet at a souk [market[ near my neighborhood city plaza in Qatif.
"He started to drive me home. …We were 15 minutes from my house. I told him that I was afraid and that he should speed up. We were about to turn the corner to my house when they [another car] stopped right in front of our car. Two people got out of their car and stood on either side of our car. They man on my side had a knife. They tried to open our door. I told the individual with me not to open the door, but he did. He let them come in. I screamed.
"One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I didn't see anything since my head was forced down."
"They took us to an area … with lots of palm trees. No one was there. If you kill someone there, no one would know about it. They took out the man with me, and I stayed in the car. I was so afraid. They forced me out of the car. They pushed me really hard ... took me to a dark place.
Then two men came in. They said, 'What are you going to do? Take off your abaya.' They forced my clothes off. The first man with the knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don't even know where I would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn't. [Another] man … came in and did the same thing to me. I didn't even feel anything after that.
"I spent two hours begging them to take me home. I told them that it was late and that my family would be asking about me. Then I saw a third man come into the room. There was a lot of violence. After the third man came in, a fourth came. He slapped me and tried to choke me.
"The fifth and sixth ones were the most abusive. After the seventh one, I couldn't feel my body anymore. I didn't know what to do. Then a very fat man came on top of me and I could no longer breathe.
"Then all seven came back and raped me again. Then they took me home. … When I got out of the car, I couldn't even walk. I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door. She said you look tired.' I didn't eat for one week after that, just water. I didn't tell anyone. I went to the hospital the next day.
. . . "The criminals started talking about it [the rape] in my neighborhood. They thought my husband would divorce me. They wanted to ruin my reputation. Slowly my husband started to know what had happened. Four months later, we started a case. My family heard about the case. My brother hit me and tried to kill me."
. . . New York-based Human Rights Watch researcher Christoph Wilcke, who studies the Saudi legal system, said the woman would need a pardon from King Abdullah himself or from the provincial governor to be spared the lashings and jail time. The punishment will also be reviewed by the Supreme Judiciary Council, which will scrutinize the ruling, according to the Ministry of Justice.
You can compare that with the story now coming from the Saudi Justice Ministry as reported the other day by CNN. It has additional facts about the Saudi Court system and its medieval processes:
She was convicted of violating the kingdom's Islamic law by not having a male guardian with her.
The attacks took place in March 2006, when the woman was 18 and engaged to be married.
The government statement said that according to the woman's signed confession, she called a man on her cell phone and "asked to be with him alone, illegally." The two met at a marketplace, then rode in the man's car to "a dark area of the beach, and stayed there for some time," the ministry said.
The group of attackers "saw her in a compromising situation, her clothes on the ground," the statement said. "The men at this point assaulted her and the man with her."
The woman knew that being alone with a man who wasn't her husband was illegal, "and therefore she violated the covenant of marriage." However, the woman was engaged -- not married -- at the time.
After the incident, the woman and the man did not come forward about the assaults or press charges until someone contacted the woman's husband "telling him what happened, and about his wife's affair and adultery," the ministry said. "She then confessed ... the husband therefore came forward to the police and formally complained nearly three months after the incident."The woman and her companion "exposed themselves to this heinous crime, causing the crime to take place because of their violations of the pure Sharia ruling" -- the country's strict Islamic law.
The case was handled through regular court procedures, and the woman, her male companion and the attackers all agreed in court to the initial sentences, the government said in a previous statement.
The woman's husband told CNN earlier this week that "from the onset, my wife was dealt with as a guilty person who committed a crime. She was not given any chance to prove her innocence or describe how she was a victim of multiple brutal rapes."
Asked about the ministry's statement Saturday, the husband declined to comment publicly.
. . . Earlier this week, the woman's husband blamed his wife's treatment on a judge with a personal vendetta. Al-Lahim told CNN that the head judge in the three-judge panel that considered the case was opposed to his client from the beginning. Both said they believe the man forced the woman to meet with him, but said she was not allowed to present that in court.
Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and a requirement that they get a man's permission to travel or have surgery.
The attorney for the girl from Qatif has now filed suit against the Saudi Justice Ministry for defaming his client. This from Arab News, which alsso highlights the debate this case has ignited in Saudi Arabia:
The lawyer for a victim of kidnapping and rape who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison said yesterday he would file a complaint that states the Ministry of Justice defamed his client.
The defamation suit would be filed through the Ministry of Culture and Information because the defamation of his client occurred through a statement the Ministry of Justice issued through the Saudi Press Agency on Saturday.
The lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, is disputing claims made by the ministry, including that his 19-year-old client had confessed to the moral crime of having an “illegal affair” with an unrelated man.
Arab News has made several attempts to get the Justice Ministry’s reply to this case, . . .
On Sunday, Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, a former judge and current member of the Saudi Fatwa Committee (responsible for issuing religious edicts), represented the ministry on a program aired on Lebanon’s LBC network. Al-Lahem faced off with the sheikh as the two debated the course of this case. The victim’s husband also called in and confronted the sheikh. (The victim and her husband have signed a marriage contract but have never lived together because they have not had a public wedding yet, which is the final step of marriage under Saudi custom that allows them to live together.)
The lawyer and the husband reject claims by the ministry that the young woman had confessed to her moral crime. They said the judges were using witness testimony by the men who were found guilty of abducting and gang-raping not only the woman but the man she was with at the time.
“The ministry’s official statement, concerning the girl, was cited directly from the assaulters’ testimony,” Al-Lahem said during the program on Sunday.
On Saturday the Ministry of Justice said the basis of the decision to punish the woman was because she had arranged to meet the man to “exchange forbidden affairs through illegal khalwa ... they both confessed to doing what God forbids.”
“All she said during the police investigation and her only testimony in front of the judges was that she went to meet that guy to get back the pictures with which he was blackmailing her,” the woman’s husband told Arab News. “It’s obvious now that they published this because they wanted the husband to feel ashamed and shut up.”
. . . The local Arabic press has marginalized the story and have published only the ministry statements verbatim. One headline declared “Ministry Reveals Qatif Story” while some newspapers headlines have called the rape victim an “adulteress.”
Avoiding the words “rape” or “adultery”, Sheikh Al-Obeikan blamed the girl for “what has happened” and underscored the court’s belief that she committed a crime of illegal affair and “stained the matrimonial bed” and thus deserved the punishment she received.
At that point Al-Lahem interrupted and objected to the ambiguous language being used by the sheikh. “What illegal affair are you accusing her of? Khalwa is a minor crime in Shariah,” said Al-Lahem.
Sheikh Al-Obeikan repeated what was said in Saturday’s ministry statement: “Doing what God forbids.”
“Are you accusing her of adultery?” asked Al-Lahem.
Al-Obeikan: “We all know what forbidden act. The ministry does not want to announce that word.”
Meanwhile, Al-Lahem has not yet received a copy of the verdict from the court as required for the appeals process to go to the Court of Cassation. The husband was scheduled to receive the documents on Saturday.
“I went to the court on Saturday, but they told me (the document) is not ready and I can get it after a week,” said the rape victim’s husband, who added that throughout this last trial he has not received any documentation regarding his wife’s case: “Not even a copy of the police investigation records.”
Apart from all that is happening in this case, the victim of kidnapping and gang rape is recuperating with her family in deep distress after last week’s sentence, according to a source close to the case. The young woman, who was an 11th-grade student at the time of the rape, had dropped out of school because of the distress. Her family has not told her about the latest developments in the case to avoid further distress.
If you would like to contact the Saudi embassy in Washington D.C. at (202) 342-3800 or by e-mail at info@saudiembassy.net If you are wondering why our own champions of human rights, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), has not yet taken a stand on this case, you may contact them through the form on their website. This is the same organization who seek to ascede to Sharia law in the West. They attempt to portray women's rights in Islam as benign and any criticism of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam as being "Islamaphobia." Right.
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