From CDHR
December 18, 2007
Tormenting the Victim
By Ali Alyami
The vindictive punishment in the form of 200 lashes and six months imprisonment given to a 19-year-old Saudi rape victim, known as bint Al-Qatief (daughter of Qatief, a Shiite town in eastern Saudi Arabia), generated unprecedented international and domestic condemnation of the arbitrary Saudi judicial system in late November of 2007. A little over one year ago, the then 18-year-old rape victim was spotted with a man in a car parked next to a busy area. Two men approached them, snatched them out of the car, and took them to an empty structure nearby. Five other men were waiting, and raped them repeatedly. Each man raped the woman twice, leaving her gasping for air. This rape victim is not an exception in the Saudi government’s arbitrary judicial system. Saudi women have no rights under the present political structure and all of its institutions. They cannot do much of anything without the consent of their male guardians, most of whom see women as property. This reality is institutionalized and enforced by the Saudi government’s institutions, as exemplified by the cruel punishment of the rape victim in this enduring saga. In most cases, abused Saudi women and especially rape victims do not dare to protest. They are aware that they would be faulted by the Saudi religious court system for being raped, just as was bint Al-Qatief. In addition, they fear the idea of being slaughtered by their male relatives to protect artificial male “honor.” Under the Saudi system, women are always accused of instigating male sexual aggression; therefore, if men rape them, they must have deserved it. This is the reason women are forced to clad themselves in the stifling and disfiguring black abaya.
Unlike judicial systems in democratic societies, the Saudi judicial system was designed to protect the Saudi royal family after whom the country is named. Staffed by religiously trained (in the austere Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam) and royally appointed judges, the Saudi courts implement the Saudi government’s chauvinistic and discriminatory policies against women instead of examining facts and protecting people from criminals such as the rapists of bint Al-Qatief. This case is a glaring example of maltreatment and marginalization of Saudi women. Women, religious minorities, and non-Muslims have very little, if any rights at all in Saudi Arabia. These groups are long condemned before they face their staunch enemies, the religious judges. Bint Al-Qatief is additionally condemned as a Shiite, a sect of Islam considered to be blasphemous by the majority of Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia and in other Arab and Muslim countries. Because of their Islamic religious orientation, the Shiite minorities are treated with disdain in Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia is one of the worst offenders because of its narrow interpretation of Islam and historical animosity toward Shiites. Even if the victim was having an affair, which is doubtful because it had not been mentioned before the global outrage against the barbaric verdict, this is still irrelevant. Saudi princes and princesses, as well as Saudi men in general, travel the globe to spend billions of dollars annually in pursuit of sexual indulgence, drugs, and alcohol. While many Saudi men indulge in sexual activities abroad, Saudi women are forced to stay behind high walls or to ask their expatriate male drivers to take them for rides around town, even for the simplest of tasks such as buying groceries.