lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (03/30/84)
An acquaintance of mine is spending a couple of years in Saudi Arabia doing technical work. He occasionally sends me clippings from the various English-language newspapers that are printed for the benefit of the (rather large) groups of English-speaking workers in the area. An item that showed up a couple of days ago might be found interesting by some of you. It seems that a young blind woman was sentenced to something like 15 lashes and 3 years in jail for being raped. Apparently she had been raped by her stepfather and his son. Those two were not tried for "lack of evidence." However, when nine months later she gave birth, she was declared in an Islamic court to have "obviously" participated in the act, and was sentenced accordingly under Islamic law. There was something of a local protest at the sentence and the court may have backed off in this case -- but a local spokesman declared that it was important to continue to spread the ideals of Islamic justice into the new technological age. Sometime I'll relate some of the other clippings I've received, including items about "Chop Square" (that's what the locals call it) where the public beheadings are performed. Apparently only beheadings are routinely done in public -- most of the hand removals and such are done privately, as are many of the whippings and "administrative canings" (that is, being struck by a cane a number of times as punishment). Some of the items are so bizarre that you'd swear they were satire -- but they're not. The past lives on. --Lauren-- P.S. There are other international clippings that involve stories which never seem to show up in the American press, including a real nasty story about a sadomasochistic cult in France that has received a lot of publicity lately, due to their use of unwilling particpants in their "activities." Bizarre sidebar: As I was finishing up the editing on this message, the local radio station to which I've been listening started playing the old classic "Ahab the Arab." I expect a theremin to start up momentarily.... --LW--