Saudi's are no better than Taliban!

Yes, it's true kids, the Saudi's are a bunch of mysogynistic, reactionary, extremist, stick your head in the sand assholes that are no better than the Taliban.

I can say that based on what I have read and heard as well as a first hand account from my wife who spent 4 years in Saudi Arabia.

Don't believe me when I say these idiots are stuck in the twelfth century and refuse to join the modern world............................. then just read this.

Saudi court punishes rape victim with 200 lashes!

(Ruling harsh even by Saudi standards, lawyers argue.)

In a ruling decried by Saudi lawyers as too severe, a court in the desert kingdom this week sentenced a female victim of gang rape to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man who was not her relative.

The 200 lashes included in the sentence, which was reached Wednesday by the Qatif General Court, more than doubled the woman's original punishment of 90 lashes. The court boosted her penalty because of the victim's "attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," a report in the English-language Arab News newspaper said, quoting one of the judges.

The young woman, who was 19 years old when she was raped 18 months ago, became the centre of a debate about Saudi Arabia's justice system since going public with her case a year ago.

Saudi lawyers said they found the decision too harsh even by Saudi standards of justice.

Known only in the Saudi media as "the Qatif girl," the victim's offence was in meeting privately with a high-school boyfriend in a car in 2006 because she was about to marry another man and wanted to retrieve some photographs.

Under the Saudi penal code, which operates according to a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, it is forbidden for a woman to be alone with a man who is not her husband or a relative.

The woman's former boyfriend, who was not one of the rapists, was sitting alone with the woman when a group of seven men abducted them and raped them both. The woman was raped 14 times, according to reports.

The male victim was convicted for violating Saudi Arabia's rigid gender-segregation law, and was himself sentenced to 90 lashes.

The couple's attackers were originally sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, but also had their sentences increased to two to nine years this week, reports said.

Lawyer Abdulrahman al-Lahem, a well-known human rights activist who represented the female victim in court, appealed the attackers' sentences, arguing they were too lenient and that the treatment of his client was too harsh.

In its verdict on Wednesday, the Qatif General Court also suspended Al-Lahem's licence to practice law. For his regular appearance on Arab television to discuss the case, Al-Lahem faces a disciplinary hearing before a Ministry of Justice Committee in December.

Lashing is a common sentence in Saudi Arabia for crimes such as homosexuality and adultery. Bassem Alim, a lawyer in the western metropolis of Jeddah, told the New York Times that a typical punishment for adultery ranges from 60 to 80 lashes.

"I don't think she was committing adultery in that car," Alim said, adding he felt the young woman was treated unjustly in the case.

The victim's husband told local reporters that he plans to appeal the verdict, the Times reported.

For now, the woman is free and has not yet been lashed.

Now, just so you don't think it is just the Saudi's that need a reformation, we have this news from Iraq as well.

The chief of police in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has warned of a campaign of violence against women carried out by religious extremists. It has, Maj-Gen Abdul Jalil Khalaf said, included threats, intimidation and even murder.

Some victims were dressed in indecent clothes by their killers or had notices attached to them, he said.

Women interviewed by the BBC said they no longer dared venture on to Basra's streets without strict Islamic attire.

>"There is a terrible repression against women in Basra," Maj-Gen Khalaf told the BBC.

"They kill women, leave a piece of paper on her or dress her in indecent clothes so as to justify their horrible crimes."

The real face of Islamic Extremism?????
Forty-two women were killed between July and September this year, although the number dropped slightly in October, he said.

In one case, he added, a woman was killed in her home along with her six-year-old son, who was rumoured to have been conceived in an adulterous relationship.

Maj-Gen Khalaf, sent to Basra this year by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to impose order in the city, said the police were often too scared to conduct proper investigations into the killings.

"The relatives are reluctant to report the crimes for fear of a scandal or because they despair of the police's ability to solve them," he added.

A female lawyer in Basra contacted by the BBC by phone from London, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said attacks on women in the city were occurring "every two or three days".

She told the BBC about a university student who had been shot in the legs for not wearing an Islamic headscarf, or hijab.

The lawyer also said that graffiti was painted on walls warning women to cover their heads or "be punished".

She said she had been told by a group of men that she should be at home and get married instead of working.

"They said to me: 'If anyone's willing to offer a good price for you, we wouldn't think twice about selling you'," she said.

"When they see a woman going out to work and being successful, I'm sorry, but they feel inferior to her."

A mother-of-six and government employee in Basra, who wished to be identified only as Um Zeinab, told the BBC she had almost been run down by a motorcyclist one day while waiting for her bus to work.

"I was wearing a shirt with a skirt and some make-up, as I usually do," she said.

"I was waiting at the bus stop when the motorbike headed straight at me, full speed."

Luckily, the motorcyclist skidded and fell before reaching her.

She said she had heard of other women attacked but who had not been as lucky.

"Two women were killed in al-Makal district two days ago. People said they had received warnings before and then gunmen came to their homes and killed them, one in front of their kids."

This is the statement issued by these so called men of GOD; "We warn against immodest dress. Violators will be punished. God is witness that we have conveyed the message!"

Allan W Janssen is the author of The Plain Truth About God at www.God-101.com and the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com