Saudi court sentences rape victim to 90 lashes
A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married.
The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the al- Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis convicted of the rape, sentencing them to prison terms and a total of 2,230 lashes.
The four, all married, were sentenced respectively to five years and 1,000 lashes, four years and 800 lashes, four years and 350 lashes, and one year and 80 lashes.
A fifth, married, man who was stated to have filmed the rape on his mobile phone still faces investigation. Two others alleged to have taken part in the rape evaded capture.
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The nice folks at TED have put up a giant Flickr set of pictures from last week's event.
This is the kind of story that makes it difficult to remain culturally relativistic. it also makes it hard to look at women who are in purdah walking around in a "free" country like the US and not, in part blame them for compliance.
I am running out of eyelash puns having written at least six posts since the summer of 2007 on a class of anti-glaucoma drugs that have been harnessed for their cosmetic side effect: promotion of eyelash growth.
The existence of the drug Latisse is clearly a harbinger of the end of modern civilization, in more ways than one, but it is also intensely fascinating and creepy.
Contrast Jihad rehab:- in Saudi Arabia men trying to go and fight with the Jihadis in Iraq are stopped at the border and sent to learn the error of their ways at the hands of the Saudi Dept. of Ideological Security. Bastinadoed? Well not exactly, think art therapy and, if you play ball, released to an air conditioned flat, with a giant fridge, and tv, and car supplied by the government. Then you get given 33,000 Dollars to get married. WTF?
(as reported by BBC radio last night)