Saudi gang rape victim to be flogged

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Absolutley. Great post, T2.

 

Yup. Or make it 100, as that's what she got and the judges claimed they doubled it because she tried to influence them through the media. Doubling the penalty like that - for what happened after the first conviction, is a mockery of justice.

 

Right!

 

Those lawyers should face disciplinary action and consequences up to being disbarred. I can imagine several mitigating circumstances in rape, as much as I hate that crime, but come on, what's mitigating in a gang rape by 14 people taking it out on a poor girl?

With whom she was matters nothing. How she was dressed matters very little. Her behaviour matters a bit, but only really if you could construe that she had it coming. And that kind of thing would require a hefty amount of intentional and malicious seducing. Similarly, not taking a no very well when a woman changes her mind right before or in the middle of the act, should warrant fewer years in prison than a dark alley rape on a stranger, but it's still a bit hard to call it a mitigating circumstance. If anything, it could reduce the culpability of a degenerate individual unable to control animalistic passions.

Also, where such things matter, is a word vs word case where we only have the woman saying she didn't want it and the man saying she did, and it matters how credible she is. However, in that case it should also matter that he e.g. likes rough sex, has been accosting girls against their will, has a tendency to hear a no only after it's shouted 20 times etc. That means an overall assessment of how credible both sides are. Still it doesn't sound fair that a Harvard-going rich girl accusing a thug would have more credibility than a simple maid accusing a minister. After all, it's all words. Judges should have the guts to rule that there's not enough evidence, but victims shouldn't be put on trial themselves.

Yes, but that's not an adequate cause-result relationship. It's something they teach to second year law students here. Certainly, it would have been a worse crime if they had broken into her car or kidnapped her from her university, but for decency's sake, the fact she was where it happened but didn't need to be there doesn't give the offender any sexual rights!

Perhaps it's time to make attorneys obtain a fully functional Master's in theoretical law before they can practice?

If anything, an accused using that argument proves himself to be degenerate.

They are not valid excuses - if you had a valid excuse, you'd be acquitted. They aren't extenuating circumstances per se, but they lack the aggravating factors of a typical stranger rape in some situations simply because the culpability of the rapist depends on how big "effort" he had to make to overcome his inhibitions and commit a crime.

Even if a woman were dressed and behaving like a hooker, it still wouldn't make it fine to rape her. However, it would be unfair to see it the same, especially if she had been drunk and taunting the rapist - for instance, as in case of a typical "grey mouse" getting assaulted in a park at night or in the evening.

 

Yup. I've heard that too. Shoulder lashes in the number of 200 wouldn't be survived by anyone, I think.

 

they were talking about this on one of the news channels last night, apparently to get a rape conviction in saudi arabia you either need a confession from the rapist or 4 MALE witnesses. female witnesses dont count

 

Let me state flat out that I hate the Saudi regime and similarly repressive ones around the world. I also hate that people do this in the name of a religious code (Sharia) that some people still assert is "respectful and uplifting to women." What a load of crap. Anyone with an ounce of decency and objectivity would agree that rape is a worse crime than mere association and therefore deserves harsher punishment.

I have to say, though, that this should come as no surprise to anyone. The Saudis and other repressive regimes both Muslim and otherwise have been at this sort of barbarism for years. She would have been punished for being with a man even had the rape not occured. That in itself is disgusting, but not surprising. The fact that she was punished is likely no surprise to her or anyone else in the society. I agree full well that the law is disgusting, but she knew of the law and the likely consequences for her if she disobeyed it. It's reasons like this that I don't like leaving Canada -- too many other countries have crazy ass laws and customs and I don't want to get involved. If circumstances did force me into such a country, I would keep my head down and follow whatever law was there until I could get the hell out, regardless of how stupid or wrong the law was. No point is worth making if you have to go through 200 lashes to make it, and to be honest, I doubt she went out with the guy hoping to get caught and lashed so that she could draw world attention to the utterly repulsive culture she lives in. She probably just wanted to get out of the house, and I can't blame her for that, but she should have thought of the possible fallout (legal, I'm not talking about the rape) and stayed home -- bored, repressed, but at least unlashed. It's not fair, but it's life, I'm afraid. To say it another way, she didn't deserve to be raped and she didn't deserve the lashes, but she knew the lashes were a likely result of going out, undeserved as they may be.

The sad thing is that the US will never put any pressure on its beloved ally to get them to change their mysogynistic approach to life.

 

Wait a second, what? The rapists got something stupid, like a few months of house arrest, right? That's hardly worse than what happened to the girl! I think what most people here are pissed off about is the fact that the rapists got away with committing what any thinking person would agree is a heinous crime, and this girl was punished brutally for a relatively minor crime.

 

So how do you really feel about the Saudis, LKD? I think your take on the Saudi regime is spot on. They're real primitives.

 

Wrong. From Nakia's link on the previous page:

 

There goes ne peius.

 

I have no idea what that means.

Once again, chev gives himself an opportunity to show how much smarter he is than the rest of us.

 

Thanks Splunge and BTA. Nice to know that someone reads my posts and checks the links. I was beginning to wonder.

I maintain that we are confusing several issues here.

1) The rape
2) The law forbidding a woman to associate unchaperoned with a man to whom she is not related.
3) Saudi Arabia is a Monarchy not a democracy not even a democratic monarchy but as I read an Absolute Monarchy.

The only relationship between the rape and the the woman's punishment is that if the woman had not been raped no one would have known or paid any attention to the fact that she was with a non-related male. She is not being punished because she was raped she is being punished because she broke a law and was found out.

The above statements are facts and I have already posted my opinions in various places.

 

Splunge,
Generally, "ne peius" is a latin phrase that refers to a worsening of a sentence or administrative act.

In most western criminal law, sentences can be worsened if the prosecutor appeals, or, indeed, both parties (hat tip to chev). That is not seen as bad, because the defendant is basically in the same situation when prosecuted in the first time.

That is not so when the defendant appeals against a verdict. The reason is that abandoning "ne peius" in this situation introduces an element of gambling into criminal justice. The verdict is out, the prosecutor is happy with it, but by seeking appeal the defendant would without "ne peius" risk being worse off anyway? What this would lead to is very simple: It will have an adverse effect, because the defendant, even if sentenced unfairly, might not seek appeal, fearing he'd be worse off. So he wouldn't seek appeal. Making appeal risky and thus unattractive would nullify the whole point of an appeal to serve as a corrective instrument to achieve greater justice.

 

Nah, I'm not. It's just I use continental terms. If I mentioned a common law Latin term, you'd know it. Basically, there's the prohibition of giving a harsher penalty in appeal. If both the accuser and the defendant or just the accuser appeals, then there can be a harsher penalty. But if only the defendant appeals, then he can only get better but not worse.

 

This thread, and the situation it discusses has created something of an emotional rollercoaster for me. Over something I have absolutely no direct control or influence to change.

My conclusion... thanking god that I, and my loved ones, were born in a place where the courts dont dole out 200 lashes for being in the wrong place at the wrong time... adding insult (and a lot more injury) to the injury of being gang raped 14 times!! That could have been my mother, my sister, my wife....

My country certainly doesn't have a blameless history. Not at all. But we've clearly come a long way.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, the situation has changed. I urge you to read this:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=3899920&page=1

As the situation looks now, the man with whom the victim was in the car cooperated in the gang rape and should be sentenced along with the rapists as an accomplice.

The woman was blackmailed and tricked (yes, at the same time) to go into that car, restricting the freedom of her choice, therefore she should be innocent of the "crime" of being in that car under any reasonable rules of criminal law.

The judges are idiots.

The lawyer is a friggen' hero.

I'm e-mailing the Saudi embassy in my country as a PhD candidate in law, specialising in criminal procedures. Do the same. Just google the embassy and mail them.