On Saudia Arabia and Rape

The media have mischaracterized the American public regarding the Saudi rape case; even I have been misled. We have come to believe that this was a miscarriage of justice that a rape victim could be whipped and imprisoned, and her rapists receive little more than a slap on the wrist for such heinous crimes.

But this is not about rape. The criminals are not rapists. This is not a perversion of justice.

We must first understand the theocratic nature of the Saudi kingdom; they adhere to Wahabism, a puritanical sect of Islam.

The rape victim was found in the company of a man in a secluded area by a group of seven men. The story goes that these men abducted and raped the victim. But this was not a gang rape in the American conception of the crime, as a sex crime; this was vigilantism.

Many Muslim communities employ gang rapes as a form of punishment for women; Musharrefs, despite his flaws, has been instrumental in cracking down on this sickening form of vigilante justice, arresting village elders who order such acts against women.

These men, finding a woman alone with a man, took Wahabi justice into their hands. And the Saudi court did nothing.

There can be neither the miscarriage nor perversion of justice in the absence of law–there is no law to be perverted; Saudi Arabia is a lawless land, where vigilantism reigns supreme. These men are not rapists, but vigilantes in a lawless land, and their power is unchecked.

The media has portrayed this case to evoke our emotions of anger and horror; but the truth is not as sensational. However, the truth is much worse: the world fails to recognize the lawless state of Saudi Arabia, and vigilantism will continue to brutalize women in the name of God.