Crime: Being alone with a man in a car

In 2006, a 19-year old woman, known only a ‘G’, was blackmailed into meeting a man who threatened to tell her family they were having a relationship outside wedlock, which is illegal in Saudi Arabia. She met the man at a shopping mall and, after driving off together, the blackmailer's car was stopped by two other cars bearing men wielding knives and meat cleavers. During the next three hours, the woman was raped 14 times by her seven captors. One of the men took pictures of her naked with his mobile phone and threatened to blackmail her with them if she told anybody.

Five of the rapists were arrested and given jail sentences ranging from 10 months to 5 years.

G was sentenced to 90 lashes of the whip for the ‘crime’ of being alone with a man in a car.

For more information, see http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd[157]=x-157-551897