S: Is for a look at sentencing

In Awwamiya, Saudi Arabia a teenager went to the police to report she was gang-raped by seven men, she never imagined the judge would punish her and that she would be sentenced to more lashes than one of her alleged rapists would receive. This story of the Girl of Qatif has triggered a rare debate about Saudi Arabia’s legal system, in which judges have wide discretion in punishing a criminal. Where rules of evidence are shaky and sometimes no defense lawyers are present. Sentences are left to the whim of judges. This includes one in which a group of men got heavier sentences for harassing women than the men in the Girl of Qatif rape case or the three men who were convicted of raping a boy. In another, a woman was ordered to divorce her husband against her will based on demands by her relatives. The Girl of Qatif, was sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married, a crime in this strictly segregated country. It was at the time that she was attacked and raped by a group of other men. The 19 year old is struggling to forget the spring night that changed her life. Her sleep is interrupted by a constant replay of the events. That night, she has stated she left home to retrieve her picture from a male high school student she used to know. She had just been married but had not moved in with her husband and did not want her picture to remain with the student. While the woman was in the car with the student, two men intercepted them, got into the vehicle and drove to a secluded area where the two were separated. She said she was raped by seven men, three of whom also raped her friend. In a trial that ended in November. Four of the men received between one and five years in prison plus 80 to 1,000 lashes. Three others are awaiting sentencing. Neither the defendants nor the plaintiffs retained lawyers, which is common here.“The big shock came when the judge sentenced myself and the man to 90 lashes each.” The sentence was handed down as part of the rape trial. Lashes are usually spread over several days, dealt around 50 at a time. The sentences have yet to be carried out, but the punishments ordered have caused an uproar. (This picture is what 50 lashes looks like)

Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. A rapist, for instance, could receive anywhere from a light or no sentence to death, depending on the judge. In one recent case, three men convicted of raping a 12 year old boy received sentences of between one and two years in prison and 300 lashes each. In contrast, another judge sentenced at least four men to between 6-12 years imprisonment for fondling women in a tunnel in Riyadh. A columnist for Al-Watan, asked Justice Minister Abdullah Al-Sheik to explain why the boy’s rapists got a lighter sentence than the men in last year’s sexual harassment case. His answer ‘Do you think it satisfies God?’ For Fatima, another Saudi woman who suddenly found herself divorced from her husband, after her half-brothers went to a judge and told him their sister had married beneath her. Fatima had been married for over three years and was pregnant with her second child when the judge declared the marriage void in July 2005. Today, Fatima sits in jail with her 11 month old son. Her 4 year old daughter was recently freed.

I write this column because we in America are increasingly losing our rights. Maybe by seeing this you will fight for yours as well as the rights for others. The F.A.C.T.S are easily found but maybe not the reasons.