summerwind #fundie debatepolitics.com

[ 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."... ]

I do not condone it, nor condemn it. It is possible to do neither. If you choose to slant my response that is your problem.

We have some rules here I think are stupid, barbaric, and reprehensible and I even break some of those rules. However if I get caught breaking them (or something awful happens during the course of my breaking them), I would expect to be held accountable even though I think the rules are wrong, unfair, and debilitating to my happiness and health.

"Secondly" she isn't being punished for being a rape victim, she is being punished for breaking a national rule/law. So if a person is shot but not killed by his accomplice while robbing a store, he should not be charged with robbery because he is a victim of a shooting?

I understand everyone wants to spin this to be a punishment for being raped but it has been made clear by the Saudis; her punishment was for breaking a law, not for being a victim of rape.


[ It should be noted that arabic custom places much more responsibility for prevention of rape, adultery, and pre marital sex on women...

I want to get this straight right now, before any of you moral crusaders try and pull a fast one. My next statement isnt at all an attempt to exonerate the guys who did this. Do keep this in mind, if you take my following statement as the opposite of its intention, than you have a particular interest in seeing the world in that particular POV, and therefore are at the lowest end of human wisdom...

At what point does or should a female partake in the responsibility of ones actions??? In this example, to what extent was her being in a car with some guy a partial cause of the incident???

Same thing you hear about when a girl gets gang raped in a drug neighborhood. Does it make what happened any less horrific; of course not. But to what extent was her being somewhere she knew could be potentially dangerous a partial cause for the incident???

What you have here is a clash of cultures. Muslims in most cases tend to put much more of the blame on the females as opposed to westernized nations.

It really says something when people are so adamant in their cultural norms being the best, most just, most dominant etc... Wonder what it says? ]


The other point that seems to be being avoided is that it is law in Saudi that women not go alone without a male relative, she is being lashed for leaving home in the company of a non-relative male. As much as I would never want to have to abide by that stiff rule, it is nonetheless the rules and if they are willingly and knowingly broken the perp should be accountable.

Another point is that I think Saudi laws/punishments are way to harsh, however it is refreshing to see a judicial system that recognizes % of fault and doesn't see thinks in complete 100% black or white terms. I would imagine that many here would love to see lawsuits for example where even if the rich bad guy gets penalized, so does the poor little guy who should've known better, should have had someone who knew better to review, and so on.

Some cases may be 100%-ers but I think they are the exceptions. Considering the punishment of her rapists, it seems her punishment is harsh but not unreasonable.

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