Saudi Court sentenced a 19-year-old woman to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gang-raped! What is this? The victim was treated as the culprit?
Wahhabism. This is a doctrine of Sunni Islam where women must cover themselves from head to toe by a burqa in public and are banned from driving or traveling without permission from their male guardian. Offending women and girls are beaten with a stick in public by the mutawa religious police.Men and Women cannot mix except for immediate family members. A woman is treated always as a minor and as a second-class citizen that needs a male guardian. Women need her male guardian to obtain her identity card or passport and women are not allowed to enter government departments.
Why does Islam allow this logic? This is simple male-chauvinism. And should not stay unspoken and be taken an international dimension. I believe that there is a big injustice faced by women in this ultra-conservative kingdom.
Despite being raped by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the 19-year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes. The court sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative. When her lawyer protested the court’s verdict, and when she spoke to the media, her sentence was increased to six months in jail and 200 lashes. Her story hit international headlines. The men were sentenced to between two and nine years imprisonment from the initial sentence of one year to five years imprisonment. In my opinion the sentence fell short of the death penalty that should be imposed in a rape conviction. The judge does not have a written law. And this subjects rulings to the discretion of judges.
Let him who is without sin cast the first hollow block. Huh!
