RIYADH -- A Saudi woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped and then beaten by her brother has been sentenced to 90 lashes -- for meeting a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported on Monday.

In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, the 19-year-old said she was blackmailed a year ago into meeting a man who threatened to tell her family they were having a relationship outside wedlock, which is illegal in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Is this what youre talking about?

nov.2 2006

Both articles side by side seem to have plain differences in the descriptions of what happened.

They seem to be two different instinces.

[edit on 5-3-2007 by thisguyrighthere]

The court heard that the victim and her friend were followed by the assailants to their car, kidnapped and taken to a remote farm, where the raping occurred.

After driving off together from a shopping mall near her home, the woman and the man were stopped and abducted by a gang of men wielding kitchen knives who took them to a farm where she was raped 14 times by her captors.

The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the al- Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis

Five men were arrested for the rape and given jail terms ranging from 10 months to five years by a panel of judges in the eastern city of Qatif,

The victim was quoted by Okaz newspaper as saying she had expected harsher penalties for the assailants, especially as they had pleaded not guilty.

"I was shocked at the verdict. I couldn't believe my ears," said the woman, who has appealed against her sentence.

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The following human rights problems were reported:

• no right to change the government
• infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments
• beatings and other abuses
• arbitrary arrest
• incommunicado detention
• denial of fair public trials
• exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence
• political prisoners
• infringement of privacy rights
• significant restriction of civil liberties--freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement
• no religious freedom
• widespread perception of corruption
• lack of government transparency
• legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities
• strict limitations on worker rights.

A woman's testimony does not carry the same weight as that of a man. In a Shari'a court, the testimony of one man equals that of two women. Under the Hanbali interpretation of Shari'a followed in the kingdom, judges may discount the testimony of persons who are not practicing Muslims or who do not adhere to Hanbali doctrine. Legal sources reported that testimony by Shi'a was often ignored in courts of law or was deemed to have less weight than testimony by Sunnis.

Female parties to court proceedings such as divorce and family law cases generally had to deputize male relatives to speak on their behalf. In the absence of two witnesses, or four witnesses in the case of adultery, confessions before a judge were almost always required for criminal conviction--a situation that has led prosecuting authorities to coerce confessions from suspects by threats and abuse (see section 1.c.).

For example, Nour Miyati, an Indonesian maid, accused her employer and his wife of tying her up for a month in a bathroom, beating her severely, injuring her eyes and knocking out several teeth. Her significant physical injuries resulted in gangrene in her fingers, toes, and right foot. Her sponsor's wife was found culpable for beating her and sentenced to 35 lashes. Nour Miyati was sentenced to 79 lashes because she gave contradictory testimony. She had signed a statement (which she could not read) that contradicted her oral testimony, and her oral testimony was inconsistent. At year's end both sides were appealing the verdicts.