MUCH OF THE WORLD has expressed shock and outrage at the sentences recently handed down by a court in the Saudi Arabian city of Qatif. Judicial authorities there ordered that a 19-year-old woman be lashed 200 times and jailed for six months after she was kidnapped at knife-point and raped by seven men, twice by each. Her assailants received “enhanced” penalties–two to nine years in prison.
The pretext for this atrocious treatment of the victim was that she had been found in a vehicle with a man to whom she was not related. On Sunday, November 25, the Saudi ministry of justice affirmed its support for the punishments, claiming the woman had engaged in an illicit affair with the driver of the car.
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