Not only is there no protection or leniency for a Saudi woman who is a rape victim, but it isn't safe to be her attorney.
Amazing isn't it? When the Saudis think there's an emergency that they perceive is a threat to them, they have no compunctions about summoning Dick Cheney to waste zillions of pounds of jet fuel to chew out the veep's ass, and dictate to him what he/we should do to save their butts.
Cheney drops everything, fires up the engines of Air Force 2, traverses the Atlantic, and upon his arrival he bows and scrapes and kisses the hems of their oil-stained robes, only to say yes, sir, whatever you say, sir, hop back on his jet and leave another polluting contrail in his wake on the trip home.
But when it comes to something unimportant, such as HUMAN RIGHTS, both he and George Bush are chronically, sickeningly silent.
So silent, when in the case of a 19-year-old minority Shiite woman, was sentenced to 90 lashes after being kidnapped and gang raped by six men while she was in the company of a male who was not a relative, that their silence wasn't golden, it was black and remains so.
According to strict Sharia Islamic law, a woman cannot be alone in the company of an unrelated male. The fact that she was the victim of a heinous crime, in the eyes of Sharia law, she committed a worse crime.
Not only was she sentenced to 90 lashes for her crime, but when she and her attorney objected to the punishment and brought it to the attention of the press, her sentence was upped to 200 lashes.
Even her husband, in an unheard of act of speaking out publicly, came to her defense and protested the severe punishment meted out by the court.
Her attorney, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, who is also a human right activist, said he has been banned from handling this case and his licence to practice law was suspended, because challenged the verdict.
Al-Lahem said he's been summoned to appear before the disciplinary committee of the Ministry of Justice in December.
It wouldn't be the least bit surprising if these Stone Age brains don't add the insult of 201 lashes to the injury of his punishment of losing his license.
This insane, ridiculously harsh punishment flies in the face of King Abdullah saying he's on a quest to introduce reform to the Saudis justice system, which is also contradicted by his approving a new body of laws regulating the judicial system, which is based on Sharia law.
Laws force women to cover head-to-toe in public and forbids them from driving. Half their population is subjugated and beaten into the ground by harsh, restrictive laws.
Ninety lashes or 200, this isn't punishment; it's torture, which is perfectly alright with the Torturer-in-Chief and his torturing veep.
What if it were their wives, especially Cheney's with her big mouth and salacious pen? Come to think of it, covering Laura and her too short pants suit jackets and plastic painted on smile might not be all that bad.
How does someone survive 200 lashes? If this poor woman who is now a double victim passes out from the pain, will she be revived so she can continue to enjoy the fruits of her crime?
1 | 2
