{"id":28317,"date":"2013-09-29T04:46:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T04:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=28317"},"modified":"2013-09-29T04:55:02","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T04:55:02","slug":"200-lashes-for-a-saudi-rape-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=28317","title":{"rendered":"200 lashes for a Saudi rape victim???"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; how a half-baked, re-raked tale from 2007, now showing on my local Facebook, gets things all wrong ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s set the record straight.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that <strong>Nicholas Kristof<\/strong> of the <em>New York Times<\/em> did the amplification in this case.  He tweeted, and <strong>Mia Farrow<\/strong> retweeted him, so we know what he said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>!! RT <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NickKristof\">@NickKristof<\/a>: No words: A Saudi woman is gang-raped by 7 men; then a Saudi court sentences her to 200 lashes! <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/Vm6M6AzwZG\">http:\/\/t.co\/Vm6M6AzwZG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; mia farrow (@MiaFarrow) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiaFarrow\/statuses\/383400830248177664\">September 27, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I can&#8217;t find Kristof&#8217;s original tweet, I guess he&#8217;s deleted it.  About the same time Mia Farrow was RTing it, though, and thus saving it for the record, he tweeted:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>I&#39;m wondering (via <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JMHall_\">@JMHall_<\/a>) if the Saudi case that the Examiner is reporting is the old 2007 Qatif Girl lashing case, rather than a new one<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NickKristof\/statuses\/383392978150359040\">September 27, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And if you go to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JMHall_\"><strong>JM Hall<\/strong>&#8216;s twitter stream<\/a>, you&#8217;ll see that he was schooling Kristof on this one, and pointed him to an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/11\/16\/world\/middleeast\/16saudi.html\">NYT piece from 2007<\/a>.  Funny, that &#8212; being an <em>NYT <\/em>piece and all&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the word got out on <em>Facebook <\/em>and went at least a little viral.  And that&#8217;s sad.  Because while the story does illustrate the state of jurisprudence in Saudi in 2007, the raped girl never actually received those 200 lashes &#8212; she was personally pardoned by the King.<\/p>\n<p>Which should be a reason for rejoicing, not condemnation.<\/p>\n<p>But here&#8217;s how it was presented on my <em>FB <\/em>page &#8212; <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/200-lashes-for-being-raped.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/200-lashes-for-being-raped.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"200 lashes for being raped?\" width=\"404\" height=\"179\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-28326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/200-lashes-for-being-raped.png 404w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/200-lashes-for-being-raped-300x132.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That does somewhat encourage the reader to think she <em>did in fact<\/em> receive those lashes, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>I understand, Nick Kristof tweeted it &#8212; and he&#8217;s the good guy who helps a whole heap of socially beneficial causes around the world that deserve all the support and encouragement he can bring them.  I&#8217;m not disputing that, in fact I&#8217;ll gladly stipulate it.<\/p>\n<p>But the story was wrong, and wrong in a damaging way.  And forwarding or endorsing this sort of thing makes me very sad. Let me explain why.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Examiner.com\">Examiner.com<\/a> is an outfits that &#8220;operates a network of local news websites, allowing &#8216;pro\u2013am contributors'&#8221; &#8212; nothing wrong with that, you just need to be careful when you read them, in other words. <\/p>\n<p>The Examiner article in question <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clarionproject.org\/news\/saudi-arabia-defends-barabric-sentence-given-rape-victim#\">quotes the <em>Clarion Project<\/em><\/a>, calling it &#8220;the women\u2019s rights-centered news portal&#8221; when it&#8217;s far better known as the source of a whole lot of anti-Islamic propaganda &#8212; the Muslim organization <strong>CAIR<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cair.com\/images\/islamophobia\/Legislating-Fear.pdf\">lists Clarion among the &#8220;Islamophobia Network\u2019s inner core&#8221; groups<\/a>, while Clarion views CAIR with similar distaste. Okay, maybe they cancel each other out, let&#8217;s stipulate that, too. <\/p>\n<p>But the article then states that the Clarion piece was posted &#8220;on Sept. 22, 2013&#8221; &#8212; whereas if you click through, you&#8217;ll find it&#8217;s actually dated Thu, November 15, 2007 &#8212; it&#8217;s 5 going on 6 years old. So why drag it up again now? <\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Retired US diplomat <strong>John Burgess<\/strong> who blogs about Saudi Arabia quotes to us, in a blog post from December 2007 and titled <a href=\"http:\/\/xrdarabia.org\/2007\/12\/17\/qatif-girl-receives-saudi-royal-pardon\/\">\u2018Qatif Girl\u2019 Receives Saudi Royal Pardon<\/a>, an article from Agence France Presse in Riyadh, also dated December 2007, which can tells us what actually happened &#8212; how this unhappy story ended: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>RIYADH (AFP) \u2014 Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Abdullah has pardoned a teenage girl sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes after being gang raped, Al Jazirah newspaper reported on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling against the 19-year-old girl in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom had attracted widespread international condemnation, including from human rights groups and the White House.<\/p>\n<p>The Arabic language daily said it had been informed of the royal pardon from its own, unidentified, sources.<br \/>\nBut in the same article, the kingdom&#8217;s Justice Minister Abdullah bin Mohammad bin Ibrahim Al Shaikh told the paper the king had the &#8220;right to overrule court judgements if he considered it benefiting the greater good.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe minister added that the king, who is viewed by many as a cautious reformer, was concerned with &#8220;the needs of the people and the court judgments that are made against them.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Got that? Pardoned.  By the King. Who is viewed as a cautious reformer.<\/p>\n<p>I hope Kristof and Farrow have let their friends know&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>So the Examiner writer whose work Kristof and others are quoting has: <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<li>picked up a nasty story from Saudia Arabia almost six years ago,\n<li>that actually didn&#8217;t end in a girl being given 200 lashes for being raped\n<li>but resulted in the King personally pardoning her,\n<li>thus moving Saudi jurisprudence in a very welcome new direction<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8212; and posted it without any of the redeeming parts, with attribution to a group that&#8217;s not exactly friendly to the House of Saud, and getting the date wrong by almost six years in the process&#8230;  And then well-meaning, generous people &#8212; Nick Kristoff and some of my friends among them &#8212; circulate this ugly and incomplete story, without first checking to see what truth there is to it.<\/p>\n<p>I quoted a source without checking its veracity only the other day [<a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=27852\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=27864\">2<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=27969\">3<\/a>], so I&#8217;m in no position to go around blaming people who don&#8217;t check their sources.  But seeing this particular story of the 200 lashes go viral makes me sad &#8212; because repeating it only stirs up righteous anger, disgust and hatred.<\/p>\n<p>Rape is terrible.  A penal code that sentences people to 200 lashes is way, way beyond my sense of justice.  But I don&#8217;t believe stirring up hatred between nations or against religions is the path we want to choose\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; how a half-baked, re-raked tale from 2007, now showing on my local Facebook, gets things all wrong ] . Let&#8217;s set the record straight. It seems that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times did the amplification in this case. He tweeted, and Mia Farrow retweeted him, so we know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[680,526,210,790,139,96,786,689,693,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fail","category-charles-cameron","category-islamist","category-law-enforcement","category-media","category-new-york-times","category-saudi-arabia","category-sharia","category-social-media","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28317"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28367,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28317\/revisions\/28367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}