Saturday, March 07, 2015
Islamic Crime of the Week: Saudi court punishes rape victim
A woman is taken to a secluded place against her will and gang raped by seven men. They are caught and convicted, each given five years in prison. She is also arrested, charged with having been in public unaccompanied by a male relative, convicted and receives a sentence of 90 lashes. She appeals her conviction, and she and her attorney also complain publicly about her sentence -- which on appeal is raised to 200 lashes and six months in prison, and her attorney banned from further representing her and threatened with disbarment.
No terrorist groups were involved in this, and it's hard to argue that this is Islam being hijacked by unIslamic extremists -- unless one argues that the entire Saudi system is a hijacking of Islam, which I gather is what Iran's Press TV argues. This case is actually from 2007, but the Press TV article is dated today (March 7 2015). Iran and Saudi Arabia are at war by proxy in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere, so I gather this case is being dredged up by Iran as a part of their effort. Jerusalem Post then picked it up and re-reported it, where I first noticed it. As it turns out, King Abdullah eventually commuted the woman's sentence, apparently because of pressure from the non-Muslim West, and the disbarment of the attorney was cancelled.
I know that Iran's Shiites believe that Saudi Wahhabism is not really Islam. But it's not the mainstream Saudis that Barack Obama is thinking of when he says extremists are not Muslims. And the practitioners of political correctness insist that "Islam is a religion of peace" and anyone who disagrees is to be condemned as "Islamophobic" aren't condemning mainstream Saudi Islam as "unIslamic." Wahhabi Islam is arguably the purest Islam. Saudi Arabia's "constitution" is the Koran and the Sunnah, and its law is Sharia. Trying this woman for any crime at all was an act of uncivilized savages, and the crazy ideas that drove them are similarly uncivilized.
I know very well that there are Muslims who would agree with my last sentence, and whose version of Islam is quite different and really is peaceful. But this Saudi version is also Islam, it appears to be spreading (after all, the Saudis have spent over 100 billion of USD promoting it abroad), and it is indeed a religion of violence and destruction. Never mind terrorism. The mainstream version, as practiced by the Saudis themselves, is nasty and violent.
No terrorist groups were involved in this, and it's hard to argue that this is Islam being hijacked by unIslamic extremists -- unless one argues that the entire Saudi system is a hijacking of Islam, which I gather is what Iran's Press TV argues. This case is actually from 2007, but the Press TV article is dated today (March 7 2015). Iran and Saudi Arabia are at war by proxy in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere, so I gather this case is being dredged up by Iran as a part of their effort. Jerusalem Post then picked it up and re-reported it, where I first noticed it. As it turns out, King Abdullah eventually commuted the woman's sentence, apparently because of pressure from the non-Muslim West, and the disbarment of the attorney was cancelled.
I know that Iran's Shiites believe that Saudi Wahhabism is not really Islam. But it's not the mainstream Saudis that Barack Obama is thinking of when he says extremists are not Muslims. And the practitioners of political correctness insist that "Islam is a religion of peace" and anyone who disagrees is to be condemned as "Islamophobic" aren't condemning mainstream Saudi Islam as "unIslamic." Wahhabi Islam is arguably the purest Islam. Saudi Arabia's "constitution" is the Koran and the Sunnah, and its law is Sharia. Trying this woman for any crime at all was an act of uncivilized savages, and the crazy ideas that drove them are similarly uncivilized.
I know very well that there are Muslims who would agree with my last sentence, and whose version of Islam is quite different and really is peaceful. But this Saudi version is also Islam, it appears to be spreading (after all, the Saudis have spent over 100 billion of USD promoting it abroad), and it is indeed a religion of violence and destruction. Never mind terrorism. The mainstream version, as practiced by the Saudis themselves, is nasty and violent.
