Saudi women activists speak out against rape ruling
(mirrored from Feministing)
Women activists in Saudi Arabia are protesting the recent ruling that sentenced a gang-rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in jail for being in a car with a man who wasn't her relative.
Activist Wajiha al-Hweider said "[T]here is injustice against women in courts. It is a bitter situation that Saudi women have to endure...The kingdom is in an embarrassing position. King (Abdullah) should step in and stop this farce."
Hatoon al-Fassi, another women's rights activist, said, "It is good that the case has taken an international dimension. It is shameful that such a case could have stayed unspoken of...This is a ruling that has treated the victim as a culprit." She added, "Such logic is so distant from Islam. It is the result of a male-chauvinist reasoning."
And to add insult to injury:
Hweider highlighted the humiliation faced by women inside the courtroom, saying that a judge, who is always a clergyman, addresses only her male guardian.
"The woman does not have the right to represent herself in a court. She enters the court covered entirely in black. Some judges do not even allow her to speak," she said. (Emphasis added)
Sigh. In speaking out against the ruling, Senator Hillary Clinton brought up the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women: "In 1995, I went to Beijing and said, 'It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights.' We have made some progress since then. But we have not made enough." Indeed.
Women activists in Saudi Arabia are protesting the recent ruling that sentenced a gang-rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in jail for being in a car with a man who wasn't her relative.
Activist Wajiha al-Hweider said "[T]here is injustice against women in courts. It is a bitter situation that Saudi women have to endure...The kingdom is in an embarrassing position. King (Abdullah) should step in and stop this farce."
Hatoon al-Fassi, another women's rights activist, said, "It is good that the case has taken an international dimension. It is shameful that such a case could have stayed unspoken of...This is a ruling that has treated the victim as a culprit." She added, "Such logic is so distant from Islam. It is the result of a male-chauvinist reasoning."
And to add insult to injury:
Hweider highlighted the humiliation faced by women inside the courtroom, saying that a judge, who is always a clergyman, addresses only her male guardian.
"The woman does not have the right to represent herself in a court. She enters the court covered entirely in black. Some judges do not even allow her to speak," she said. (Emphasis added)
Sigh. In speaking out against the ruling, Senator Hillary Clinton brought up the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women: "In 1995, I went to Beijing and said, 'It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights.' We have made some progress since then. But we have not made enough." Indeed.