The "Qatif Girl" Rape Case (Arabic: قضية اغتصاب فتاة القطيف) is a much-publicized gang-rape case. The victim was a teenage girl from Qatif (Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia), who, along with her male companion, was kidnapped and gang-raped by seven Saudi men in mid-2006. A Saudi Sharia court sentenced the perpetrators to varying sentences involving 80 to 1,000 lashes and imprisonment up to ten years for four of them. The court also sentenced the two victims to six months in prison and 90 lashes each for "being alone with a man who is not a relative" in a parked car. The appeals court doubled the victims' sentences in late 2007 as punishment for the heavy media coverage of the event in the international press regarding the treatment of women in the KSA and Saudi judicial practices. In December 2007 the Saudi King Abdullah issued an official pardon for the two victims, citing his ultimate authority to revise "discretionary" punishments in accordance with the public good, although the pardon did not reflect any lack of confidence in the Saudi justice system or in the fairness of the verdicts.
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In an ABC news interview, the girl said "I [was] 19 years old. I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship. Because of the threats and fear, I agreed to give him a photo of myself," she recounted.
"A few months [later], I asked him for the photo back but he refused. I had gotten married to another man. He said, 'I'll give you the photo on the condition that you come out with me in my car.' I told him we could meet at a souk [market] near my neighborhood city plaza in Qatif.
"He started to drive me home. We were 15 minutes from my house. I told him that I was afraid and that he should speed up. We were about to turn the corner to my house when they [another car] stopped right in front of our car. Two people got out of their car and stood on either side of our car. The man on my side had a knife. They tried to open our door. I told the individual with me not to open the door, but he did. He let them come in. I screamed.
"One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I didn't see anything since my head was forced down."[1]
The teen victim provided more details in interviews published in Arabic with the Human Rights Watch and an Associated Press reporter, Farida Deif, who met her in a face-to-face interview. The interviews were published in the Arabic Saiydati magazine and MSNBC:[2]
In other interviews, more of the victims' relatives spoke up about how the assailants used pictures they took of them during the rape and they taunted her about the phone numbers they got from her cell phone and threatened her and her family. Parts of these interviews were published in Saiydati magazine.
Four months after the assault, the victim and her husband, along with their lawyer, decided to bring the case to court. A trial date was set in October 2006 and she was sentenced to 90 lashes for "being alone with a man who is not a relative," which is considered an offense in the strict Wahhabi jurisprudence. It is widely condemned that Saudi law literally depends on Sharia laws since judges' interpretations of it are not based on any written legal code. Each judge interprets it in his own way.[5]
After the appeal, the Supreme Judicial Council granted a retrial. The second court rulings made headlines in Saudi Arabia and around the world, although it occurred during a time of important local and regional events.[6] On November 13, 2007, the Qatif court sentenced the female rape victim and her companion, who was also raped by the seven men, to six months in jail and 200 lashes. The Saudi Justice Ministry itself officially stated that the woman's sentence (originally based on being alone with an unrelated man) was increased after she admitted to having an extramarital affair with the man whom she had given the picture to. Adultery is a crime in Saudi Arabia, so for committing adultery and for lying to the police about the circumstances of the rape, her sentence was increased. "The Saudi justice minister expressed his regret about the media reports over the role of the woman in this case which put out false information and wrongly defend her."[7]
The sentences of the seven men found guilty of abducting and repeatedly raping the young woman and her male companion were also increased to between two and nine years each. The assailants' were not given the death penalty (the normal punishment for rape) because according to the Ministry of Justice there were no witnesses and the initial confession made by the rapists was retracted.[8]
Among other sources of news, The Guardian reported on November 17, 2007 that:
Abdulrahman al-Lahem, a well-known human rights activist, who has represented his clients in many controversial and sensitive trials in the past,[11] was accused by the judges of being "disruptive to the court," "disrespectful," and "showing ignorance of the court procedures," and so had his license suspended.
He was ordered to appear before a disciplinary committee at the Ministry of Justice on December 5, 2007, charged with criticizing the judiciary and publicly campaigning in the media.[11]
Human rights organization Amnesty International, as well as the Middle East and North Africa Programme, criticized the persecution of al-Lahem.[12]
Lawyer Khaled Al-Mutairi represented al-Lahem at a closed-door hearing in front of a disciplinary committee at the Justice Ministry in Riyadh before a three-member panel consisting of two judges and a lawyer. The hearing was postponed to an unspecified date and on January 19, 2008, al-Lahem's law license was returned to him (confiscated on November 14, 2007), although risk of the case being resumed remains. Al-Lahem declined to comment.[13]
In a special report, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation channel covered the case in a show widely anticipated by many Saudi audiences.[14] The show aired a live debate between al-Lahem and Ministry of Justice consultant and former judge Abdul-Mohsen Al-Obaikan.[15] The victim’s husband participated via phone. The husband defended his wife in a surprising showing of open-mindedness for a man from this part of the world, where rape victims and their families are almost always silent. He explained: "I'm not lacking in manhood or an Arab man's honor for defending a so-called 'cheating wife'," then added, "I feel that in this catastrophe she exercised bad judgment by meeting this man, but how can you [Al-Obaikan] or anyone say she committed adultery?"[16] In other interviews he showed further support of his wife and said that "she shocked him when she insisted on pursuing justice although she is facing a harsh penalty." He also expressed his worries over her deteriorating physical and mental health.
By late November 2007, she was under effective house arrest and forbidden to speak at the risk of being taken into custody at any time. Her family's movements were being monitored by the religious police and their telephones were tapped.[17]
On December 17, 2007, Saudi newspapers reported that King Abdullah had issued a pardon for the girl, citing his ultimate authority as monarch to overrule "discretionary" punishments (punishments not expressly prescribed by Islamic legal canon) in accordance with the public good. However, he maintained that the pardon did not reflect any lack of confidence in the Saudi justice system or the initial verdicts, and in fact the King trusted "that the verdicts are just and fair."[18]
Although the pardon was good news for the girl from Qatif, human rights activists voiced concern that it was not a practical solution to the problem, as "the pardon means that she did something wrong and was kindly pardoned later." They called for reform of the law and clear legislation that differentiates between rape and adultery, as there are many similar cases which do not receive such international exposure and not every victim will get a royal pardon afterward.[19]
