November 24, 2007
Time for a feminist uprising in Saudi Arabia
And the rest of the Islamic world while we’re at it.
Under fire for its treatment of a rape victim, the Saudi Arabian government on Saturday said that the woman had an "illegitimate relationship" with a man who was not her husband, and that both "exposed themselves to this heinous crime."
The 19-year-old woman was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for meeting with the man -- described by her attorney as a former friend from whom she was retrieving a photograph.
When the woman appealed her sentence, a Saudi court more than doubled it. The Qatif General Court also increased the sentence for the rapists, to two to nine years in prison.
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. (–complete CNN article here…)
These people are animals. Please, please let us find some form of alternative energy so that we can stop buying foreign oil and bankrupt the corrupt Saudi Islamist state.
As CNN notes, official reaction from the White House and U.S. State Department has been muted. Unfortunately, we have become so dependent on the Saudis that we don't even have the leverage anymore to emphatically speak out against outrages such as this through official channels. Sad.