Saudi gang-rape victim goes public

Diodotus left this comment yesterday (thank you): "To help protect this woman, call the Saudi Embassy at (202) 342-3800. Phone calls carry more weight than letters. And be respectful! Appealing to the best of Islamic values will go farther than some of the insults I've seen in the blogosphere lately."

Saudi gang-rape victim goes public with account of police complacency, judicial insults
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Friday, November 30, 2007

 

LONDON: A Saudi gang rape victim who was sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes was scolded by judges while police repeatedly dismissed her claims, she said in testimony published Thursday. The 19-year-old girl described the rape itself - including the fact that one of her attackers photographed her - and her struggle to eat or sleep in its immediate aftermath to the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).

She was attacked at knifepoint by seven men after she was found in a car with a male companion who was not a relative, in breach of strict Saudi law, and was initially sentenced last year to 90 lashes for being with the man.

After her appeal, the court ordered her punishment should be increased to the current sentence, a decision which has attracted wide international condemnation from human rights groups to the White House.

According to the testimony published in Britain's The Independent newspaper, once the girl's husband found out about the gang rape, he told the police and appealed for the rapists to be arrested, to which a police officer said: "You go find them and investigate." The husband telephoned the police on four separate occasions before any action was taken.  continued