In Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old woman who was the victim of gang rape has been sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was in the company of a man who was not her relative when the attack happened.
Two hundred lashes. Can you survive it? Imagine being lashed even
once. That would quite possibly be enough to break open your skin and cause a long, bleeding wound. Now imagine being lashed again, on top of that open wound. And then being lashed again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and... and... and...
Honestly, could you survive it?
Maybe they'll give the woman time to heal between each lash. Maybe she'll be given a week between each lash? Two weeks? How would it feel to be lashed on a tender, aching, barely-healed scar?
And anyway, if they are going to lash her once every week until they've given her two hundred lashes, then they will have to keep at it for two hundred weeks. Remember that there are fifty-two weeks in a year. If they are going to lash her every week two hundred weeks in a row, then that means that she will be lashed every week for almost four years!
Honestly, could you survive it?
And if you can survive it, what would your back be like afterwards? Could you move around? Do any work? Have a moment of your life without horrible, constant pain?
And the young woman got this punishment because she was gang-raped. No, correction, she got this punishment because she was in a car with an unrelated male.
This is what can happen to a woman in Saudi Arabia if she is caught with an unrelated male. She risks two hundred lashes. Because the Saudi Arabic law demands extremely strict segregation of the sexes.
Some of you on these boards may remember apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a system that demanded strict separation of black and white people. Black people had to carry passports to be able to move around in their own country and their own cities. They couldn't live in the same neighbourhooods as whites, couldn't sit on the same park benches, couldn't ride on the same buses etcetera.
Well, there was an international outcry against apartheid. It was considered inhuman to treat black people the way they were treated under apartheid. Because of loud international protests and economic sanctions, the system of apartheid was eventually abolished.
To the best of my knowledge, however, black people in South Africa under apartheid were not sentenced to two hundred lashes if they were caught in a car with a white person they were not legally working for.
Isn't the apartheid of the sexes in Saudi Arabia much worse than the apartheid of the "races" were in South Africa? And yet, where are the international protests?
Saudi Arabia is the world's leading exporter of oil, and its leaders are
very loyal to the United States. That's enough, isn't it? Who cares about women when you can have oil and support for the West if you turn a blind eye to what happens to women in Saudi Arabia?
Let's bomb Iran. Their leaders are recalcitrant. Let's talk about how women are badly treated in Iran. And make no mistake, women most definitely
are very badly treated in Iran. Iranian women are never allowed to show themselves in public without covering their heads under a veil, for example. And if an Iranian woman has been caught being unfaithful, she most definitely risks being executed, maybe even stoned to death.
The average Iranian woman, however, is so much freer and has so many more opportunities than women in Saudi Arabia. There is no strict segregation of the sexes in Iran. Recently there was an article in my own local paper about drug abuse in Iran, and about the Iranian society's efforts to help the addicts. The article was illustrated with a photo of a confident-looking, veiled, but bare-faced woman counselling a male drug addict. It was okay for this woman to counsel male addicts! She was hired by the Iranian authorities to do it!
Also, I am an astronomy fan as many of you know, and when I attended an astronomy forum a few weeks ago one of the lecturers was a leading Iranian astronomy populariser who talked about amateur astronomy in Iran. He showed us pictures of astronomy clubs in Iran whose members were teenaged boys and girls, smiling for the camera together.
In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive a car, and they are barely allowed outside at all if they are not accompanied by a male relative. Many of them cover not only their heads, but their faces as well. About two years ago I read a review of a book written by a woman who had lived in Saudi Arabia and who had to some extent shared the reality of Saudi women. I remember that she called the Saudi women human pets, because they were given no more freedom than we give our dogs in the west.
But in the west we don't even give our dogs two hundred lashes.
The next time someone tells you that Iran is a supremely dangerous country that treats its women awfully and that we ought to bomb, ask yourself why Saudi Arabia is never officially described as a supremely dangerous nation that treats its women awfully and that we ought to bomb. Is it because Saudi Arabia isn't truly dangerous? Because it isn't trying to make any nuclear weapons for itself?
If you think that Saudi Arabia isn't truly dangerous, then remember that Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia. And not only he himself, but the entire philosphy of extreme Islam and the idea of righteous jihad and attacks on the west are originally Saudi ideas. Most of the deepest roots of international Muslim terrorism originate in the barren, but oil-rich, Saudi soil. The same philosophy which says that a woman should be punished with two hundred lashes if she has been gang-raped after being in a car with an unrelated male also says that Western civilisation and all its people are legitimate targets for suicide bombers.
Saudis defend punishment for rape victim Ann
