Saudi Arabia defended on Tuesday a controversial verdict sentencing a 19-year-old gang rape victim to six months in jail and 200 lashes.
The Shiite Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating Saudi Arabia's rigid Shariah Islamic law on segregation of the sexes.
In its decision doubling her sentence last week, the Saudi General Court also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping her, Saudi media said.
The upholding of a decision to punish the victim triggered international outcry.
While declining to directly criticize the Saudi Arabia's judiciary, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "I think when you look at the crime and the fact that now the victim is punished, I think that causes a fair degree of surprise and astonishment."
"But it is within the power of the Saudi government to take a look at the verdict and change it," McCormack said.
On Monday, Canada said it would complain to Saudi authorities about the sentence, described as "barbaric" by Jose Verger, the Canadian minister responsible for the status of women.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict "not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators."
But the Saudi judiciary stood by its decision on Tuesday.
"The Ministry of Justice welcomes constructive criticism, away from emotions," it said in a statement.
The statement also said that the "charges were proven" against the woman for having been in a car with an unrelated male, and repeated criticism of her lawyer for talking "defiantly" about the judicial system, saying "he has shown ignorance."
Because he reached out to the media, the court has banned lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem from further defending the woman, confiscating his license and summoning him to a disciplinary hearing later this month.
The justice ministry implied the victim's sentence was increased because she had spoken out to the press. "For whoever has an objection on verdicts issued, the system allows to appeal without resorting to the media," said the statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The rape took place last year. The victim has said it occurred as she tried to retrieve her picture from a male high school classmate she used to know. While in a car with the classmate, two assailants commandeered the vehicle and drove them to a secluded area. She said she was raped there by seven men, and her friend was also attacked by three of them.
The case was referred back to the General Court by an appeals court last summer, after the woman's lawyer contested the initial verdict, saying it was too lenient for the rapists and unjust for the victim.
Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts according to the kingdom's strict interpretation of Shariah law.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS