BBC: Saudi court harshens punishment for gang-rape victim

[BurtWorm]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7096814.stm

Saudi gang-rape victim is jailed
By Frances Harrison
BBC News



An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped.

The victim was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes - she was in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack.

When she appealed, the judges said she had been attempting to use the media to influence them.

The attackers' sentences - originally of up to five years - were doubled.

Extra penalties

According to the Arab News newspaper, the 19-year-old woman, who is from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, was gang-raped 14 times in an attack in the eastern province a year-and-a-half ago.

Seven men from the majority Sunni community were found guilty of the rape and sentenced to prison terms ranging from just under a year to five years.

But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man.

On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence....

[Mnemosyne]

1. And * is friends with the Saudis why? What is the difference between the Fundies and

the Muslim extremists again? The fundies still can't quite do that crap here, yet.

ARGH.

I know the survivor of a gang rape, very personally.

Fuckers.

[Mojambo]

2. What a dysfunctional fucking culture! n/t