Justice Fail III

A UAE news story that I heard about from Saudis here: Woman Who Reported Rape Is Charged With Illegal Sex

An 18 year-old Emirati girl was charged for illegal sex, along with the 6 men who allegedly raped her in the back of a car.

Excerpts:
"The charges allege that because she had agreed to be in the car, the two had, therefore, met to have sex."
"The woman has been in custody since she reported the incident. She and the two defendants in court yesterday are being held without bail."

It is making the rounds in Saudi as it is reminiscent of a case* two years ago that led to intervention by the King. A Saudi woman was meeting a male friend when both were kidnapped, taken to a farm and raped repeatedly. Upon reporting the act, the woman and her friend were arrested along with their rapists. In fact, both were sentenced to lashings and months in prison, while the rapists received 10 months to 5 years in prison each (a relatively light sentence compared to the standard punishment for rapists - public execution by beheading).

However, it is not enough for us Americans to come in, scan the news and become indignant. We must at least attempt to understand the root cause for these decisions. The court systems of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are based off of Sharia law - codes of conduct derived from the Qu'ran and Hadith (the Hadith are compiled deeds and actions of the Prophet Muhammad). Particularly in the Gulf, the judges are schooled primarily in the interpretation and application of Sharia law, and are thus religious scholars first, and dealers of justice second. Or, in their words, there is no justice but that of God, and they are bound to carry out His law as narrated to Muhammad.

It follows then, the the judges' deliberations in both cases starts not with the accusations of rape, but rather the circumstances which found the women alone with non-family males in the first place. Why was the 18 year-old Emirati woman alone with her friend in the car? Why was the Saudi woman meeting her male friend alone at the mall? As both of these acts are morally dubious, it follows that the women in each case were up to no good. In fact, while the charges of rape could be contested, the only undisputed charges were the acts of the women being alone with the men.

A judge in the case would have no trouble condemning the woman. The tricky part is what to do with the rapists. In the Saudi case, the men claimed (a legitimate motion) enticement by a woman "whose looseness was not a matter of record. Kidnapping seemed proven, but who could tell exactly what had happened after that?"

I hope it is obvious that I do not agree with this system of justice. I am, however, trying to shed some light on the opaqueness of the cultural divide.

*My background on the rape case in Saudi Arabia is based on Richard Lacey's "Inside the Kingdom," an eye-opening book on the history of the Saudi-Wahhabi balance, the inner workings of the Royal Family, and Saudi foreign policy since 1979.

Perhaps a bit of insight on the