Yuletide Author
Dear Yuletide Author,
I’m going to be on holiday when the archive goes up, so I might not be able to read my story until after I get back from break, which will be the end of the week.
More on the Aurukun Gang-Rape
The Australian has further news on the fallout of the rape case.
Steve Carter, the Crown prosecutor for the 10-year-old girl raped by nine juvenile and adult males, who advocated that it wasn’t rape, it was just “naughty” “childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another” and that “sometimes things happen in a small community when children get together” (Sydney Morning Herald), was demoted from prosecutor to legal officer but denies that it’s for incompetence. He’s feeling victimized and is declaring that he’s being used as the “fall guy” in the case:
The Cairns legal officer also refused to accept he was being portrayed as the fall guy in a gang-rape case that has shocked a nation.
But, his eyes welling with tears, the father-of-one yesterday told The Courier-Mail he would accept “whatever happens”.
Mr Carter has been stood down pending an appeal against the sentences imposed on nine males, aged up to 26, for raping a 10-year-old girl over a six-week period at Aurukun in 2006.
“It’s not about me, it is about that little girl,” he said yesterday. “What we are here for is to see people like that girl are looked after and properly protected.”
The term “fall guy” implies that the person in question is being wrongfully blamed for whatever’s gone wrong. It implies that the person in question is innocent of any wrongdoing in the matter. However, that’s not the case here: Carter publicly failed to do his duty as prosecutor, failed to properly protect the “little girl” he’s so worried about now, failed to defend her in court, and instead made misogynist, racist statements (Sydney Morning Herald) and blamed her for her own rape:
Mr Carter, who has a young daughter, asked District Court Judge Sarah Bradley not to impose custodial sentences on the six boys and three men because they were being “naughty” and involved in “childish experimentation”.
He suggested the girl was highly sexualised, had two sexually transmitted diseases, was a willing participant and, “in a non-legal way”, gave consent to sex in exchange for booze and cigarettes.
I’ve pointed it out before, but “three men” aged 17, 18, and 26 can’t be involved with “childish experimentation,” unless you’re claiming that Aboriginal men are childish (racist); blaming the rape–sorry, consensual sex–on the girl and saying she wanted it or deserved it (sexist); or ignoring the involvement of men above the age of consent altogether (stupid beyond belief and incompetent). At the worst, Carter abused his position as prosecutor to render personal condemnation of her for being “sexualised,” by claiming that she gave consent and so it wasn’t rape, by allowing her rapists to go free and virtually unpunished. He asked the judge not to impose custodial sentences on the rapists and so abdicated his responsibility to see that the girl received justice. At the best, he’s incompetent beyond belief. Whichever the truth is, his actions then and his bleating now are sickening and he shouldn’t be allowed to serve as a government prosecutor.
I’m not sure where to begin on Carter’s attitude toward his client. As has been pointed out before, the girl in question was 10 years old at the time of the rape, below the age of consent, and so any sex with an adult is automatically statutory rape. She’s too young to understand what consent means and therefore unable to give it in a meaningful way. In addition, she’s mentally impaired and suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome (see my last post). Furthermore, she was gang-raped at the age of seven. Cara’s post explains how the prejudices the girl faces, being an Aboriginal female and disabled, intersected in the rape, the rapists’ sentences, and Carter’s statements about her to produce a thoroughly abominable result.
Carter can’t claim to be innocent, he can’t claim that he’s being used as a fall guy, he can’t claim that he’s only concerned about the girl’s well being. He’s the one most at fault in the situation, after the rapists, for ensuring that the girl won’t be protected and taken care of, because he’s the one who didn’t ask for maximum prison time for the rapists (one of whom has also raped another child), he’s the one who argued it wasn’t rape, he’s the one who argued that the girl consented, that she wanted it, and that she deserved it. His statements about the girl being “sexualised,” a “willing participant,” and “in a non-legal way,” consenting, are willfully, if not maliciously, blind to the reality of the girl’s situation: if “sexualised” means that she’s had sex before, that would be because she was previously gang-raped, when she was seven years old (The Australian). She contracted the STDs when she was gang-raped by five juveniles, “receiving severe genital injuries” (The Australian). Something about the phrasing there makes me think that the rapists didn’t bother to use condoms, thus passing on the syphilis. Furthermore, in a rape case, the victim isn’t the person on trial, the rapists are, a detail which Carter appears to have forgotten. As for her consenting “in a non-legal way,” that phrasing covers it all: “non-legal” means that according to the parameters of the law, the girl could not, and did not, give consent worth a damn.
His comments sparked public outrage with calls for both the judge – who has a history of leniency – and the prosecutor to be sacked.
…
He said he felt harassed and threatened by the global exposure surrounding the case.
“My little girl is too scared to go to school, and that is wrong,” he said. “I’ve had enough exposure and I run the risk of a breach of ethics if I am seen to talk about the case.”
Ah, the internet is a wonderful thing. It allows us to find information about events all over the world. Conversely, it allows people to spread information all over the world, so that people who fail to do their jobs can be held accountable. For feeling “harassed and threatened,” read, “I completely failed to do my job, and now I’m being called out on it. Woe!” His attempts to divert media attention to the welfare of the girl are nothing more than a ploy to step out of the limelight and cast everyone hounding him as villains more concerned with harassing an innocent lawyer than with taking care of a rape victim. However, he failed to take care of her first; if he’d done his job and prosecuted the case as he should have, he wouldn’t be the focus of media attention and public outcry now.
Carter’s wailing about media attention reminds me a lot of the Saudi rape case, where the female victim was punished for trying to use the media to call attention to her case/influence her case, according to the Saudi justice department. I’m not saying that Carter is on a level with the Saudi justice department; after all, he didn’t go so far as to punish the rape victim for being raped, he only let her rapists go free. But the claim that legal justice and the courts should be free of media attention is intriguing, because it seems that it’s only called upon when the lawyers and courts are in the wrong and they’re being held accountable for it. Their wailing is proof that the fourth estate is important: ultimately, they’re saying that if only the media hadn’t publicized their failings, they wouldn’t be held accountable and everything would be dandy (for them. Not so much for the people they’ve failed.). The idea that justice ought to be impartial is a good one; the problem is that so often it’s not, and the antidote for that is public accountability.
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The Sydney Morning Herald, Prosecutor in gang rape case stood aside, 2007/12/11
Links Roundup
I had some links and posts in progress I wanted to make, but I don’t have access to them right now. The biggest one was “Why I Do Not <3 Huckabee,” which was about the many reasons it makes me angry to see people embracing Huckabee as the best of the Republican candidates, the Republican answer to Obama, and a viable candidate for president. I might still make that post, because some of the links are eye-opening in a sheer “How can people vote for this person?” WTF way, but Gail Collins wrote a good column on that subject yesterday.
Huckabee! Huckabee! The man of the hour! What is it that voters love so much about this guy? Is it a hitherto inchoate yearning for a president who knows less about international affairs than they do? Hope that a man who can lose 100 pounds could also get rid of the federal deficit? …
Mike is soaring ahead in the early polls, in a surge to the front of the pack that suggests Republicans cannot come to grips with the idea that they are supposed to nominate either Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani for president. There has to be a way out! What about Huckabee? He has a good heart! True, his brain doesn’t seem to have a single thought about foreign policy or know much about domestic policy, for that matter. But one well-functioning body part is better than nothing.
Collins’ writing style makes me laugh while I cry:
The Huckabee strong suit is morality and the Republican voters are clearly yearning for someone without a record of spectacularly public adultery who also does not remind them of a snake-oil salesman. The party base, we know, tends to be pro-life. Does that really mean they want a president who tried to stop an abortion for a 15-year-old mentally retarded girl who was raped by her stepfather? The primary voters are obviously not keen on gay marriage, but do they really want to be governed by somebody who suggested quarantining all the people with AIDS?
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More on the Australian case of the 10-year-old girl gang-raped by nine juvenile and adult males:
Via Cara at The Curvature: The Australian reveals that this isn’t the first time the victim, who is “mildly intellectually impaired” and suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome, has been raped:
The committee also found the child had first contracted syphilis in April 2002 when she was aged seven and was raped by five juveniles in Aurukun, receiving severe genital injuries.
The Sydney Morning Herald has more information about how the rapists got off scot-free: the Crown prosecutor for the case told the judge that it wasn’t rape, it was just “childish experimentation” by kids being “naughty.” But these backwards Aboriginal people are just like that, you know:
“they’re very naughty for doing what they’re doing but it’s really, in this case, it was a form of childish experimentation, rather than one child being prevailed upon by another …
“children, females, have got to be – deserve – the same protection under the law in an Aboriginal or an indigenous community as they do in any other community,” Mr Carter said.
“But sometimes things happen in a small community when children get together.”
I want to know how an intellectually impaired 10-year-old can give consent to sex in any meaningful fashion; I want to know how a twenty-six-year-old raping a 10-year-old can be considered “childish experimentation.” I want to know how to get that incompetent, misogynist, racist asswipe fired and his bar privileges revoked.
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More via Cara:
From The Australian: The little girl who was gang-raped in the Cape York community of Aurukun was subjected to a six-week reign of sexual abuse by her attackers
Lauredhel has a post on indigenous responses to the Aurukun rape.
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Melissa at Shakesville has an answer to the victim-blamers, in response to another rape case where the judge blamed the victim.
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And via Jill at Feministe, Courtney writes about the emotional wear and tear of staying informed when you feel unable to do anything. Jill hits the nail on the head when she points out the contradiction between “feeling very tiny and very powerless and at the same time recognizing one’s status as a person of incredible privilege and relative power. And not knowing what to do with that.” I think that’s what gets to me the most, the feeling that I should be able to do something, because my life is such that I have the leisure time, energy, and money to invest in solving social ills. However, the forces of violence and misogyny are so pervasive and overwhelming that it’s hard to figure out where to begin, and sometimes it feels like battling the ocean with a bucket.
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I’m trying this “balance out the good with the bad” thing to maintain my sanity, so The Ethicurean has an interesting post on wild yeast and bread starters and this xkcd comic strikes the right note of geekery and romance.
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Collins, Gail, NYT, The Man From Target, 2007/12/13
Cara, The Curvature, Prosecutor: Gang-rape of ten-year-old was “childish experimentation”, 2007/12/11
Koch, Tony, The Australian, Child safety failed rape girl, 2007/12/11
The Sydney Morning Herald, Prosecutor in gang rape case stood aside, 2007/12/11
Cara, The Curvature, Sobering, 2007/12/13
Meade, Kevin, and Elks, Sarah, The Australian, Girl endured six weeks of sex attacks, 2007/12/14
Lauredhel, Indigenous voices on Aurukun; and the Law Society tells the public to butt out, 2007/12/13
McEwan, Melissa, Shakesville, This is really shaping up to be a “back-to-bed” day of the highest order, 2007/12/13
Fernandez, Pablo, Calgary Morning Sun, Judge calls rape victim ’stupid’, 2007/12/13
Jill, Feministe, Boy do I know that feeling, 2007/12/11
Martin, Courtney, The American Prospect, All the News That’s Fit to Depress, 2007/12/3
Mental Masala, The Ethicurean, Bake on the wild side: Part 1, the sourdough starter, 2007/12/12
xkcd, Angular Momentum
Links roundup
After the last two posts, I’m mentally knackered, so I’ll leave the more thoughtful stuff for later in the week and stick up some nice links instead.
Al Gore’s Nobel Lecture on climate change:
The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act? “
Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”
We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.
So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”
NYT’s Roundtable Discussion on the environmental fallout of China’s growth. I haven’t read it all so I can’t guarantee it won’t be racist, isolationist, scapegoating, stereotyping, smugly superior, or otherwise narrow-minded and fucked up, but I think it’ll be interesting.
A cute, evocative description of NYC’s Upper West Side by Arthur Frommer. His joy in his neighborhood is evident and it reminds me of cities and locales I’ve fallen in love with.
And yet, walking north from Lincoln Center, on a totally untouristed segment of the great Broadway avenue, I pass such a festival of local life and culture that I feel like shouting out my appreciation of it.
The libretto of La Rondine, in Italiano and en Español
Also, have a picture of a happy crostata di marmellata di more (blackberry jam tart):
16 Days: “She Probably Agreed”
Today’s the last day of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence and it’s also International Human Rights Day. I’ve made posts on a couple of issues: widespread rape in Congo; the 200 lashes + jail time punishment of the female rape victim, the suspension of her lawyer’s license, and the 90 lashes for the male rape victim in Saudi Arabia; the 1989 Montreal Massacre; and (on a much brighter note) Devildoll’s interview with girl-wonder.org. All these posts can be found under the 16 Days tag.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to close off my 16 Days blogging. I almost wrote a post on why I blog, why I care about feminism, and why I haven’t just given up and shut up in response to the endless, depressing barrage of outrageous violence against women. I trawled the NYT, the blogs I read, and other sites, collected links, began a draft, and then got stuck, because I couldn’t figure out a conclusion. As I reread the links and articles, I felt like Sisyphus with his rock. I wondered, why do I care? It would be so much easier to stop thinking about feminism, stop paying attention to the news articles on violence against women, and stop caring. It would be less depressing for sure.
And then I saw this article from Australia’s Herald Sun. Six boys, aged 14-16, and three men over the age of consent, aged 17, 18, and 26, gang-raped a ten-year-old girl and the judge said, “The girl involved was not forced and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you.”
Judge Bradley also said, apparently without giving herself an aneurysm from the incredibly contradictory thoughts in her brain,
“All of you have pleaded guilty to having sex with a 10-year-old girl and (one of the juveniles) has pleaded guilty to having sex with another young girl as well.
“All of you have to understand that you cannot have sex with a girl under 16.
International Human Rights Day: Rhetorical Hand Grenades
Today is International Human Rights Day:
Last Monday, the NYT Editorial Board blogged about the resignation of Michael Guest, the first openly gay ambassador in the U.S., former ambassador to Romania, and Dean of the leadership and management school at the Foreign Service Institute. Guest gave a speech at his retirement party outlining the reasons why he’s retiring, after twenty some years in the Foreign Service:
Before friends, colleagues and top officials in the State Department Treaty Room, Mr. Guest took Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was not present) to task for failing to treat the partners of gay and lesbian foreign service officers the same as the spouses of heterosexual officers. And he revealed — with eloquent sadness, not anger — that this was the reason for his departure.
“Most departing ambassadors use these events to talk about their successes . . . But I want to talk about my signal failure, the failure that in fact is causing me to leave the career that I love,” said Mr. Guest, 50, whose most recent assignment was dean of the leadership and management school at the Foreign Service Institute, the government’s school for diplomats.
“For the past three years, I’ve urged the Secretary and her senior management team to redress policies that discriminate against gay and lesbian employees. Absolutely nothing has resulted from this. And so I’ve felt compelled to choose between obligations to my partner — who is my family — and service to my country. That anyone should have to make that choice is a stain on the Secretary’s leadership and a shame for this institution and our country,” he said.
Here’s a list of some of the benefits provided to heterosexual spouses and denied to same sex partners:
* State Department-provided security training
* free medical care at overseas posts
* guaranteed evacuation in case of a medical emergency
* transportation to overseas posts
* special living allowances when foreign service officers are assigned to places like Iraq, where diplomatic families are not permitted.
The post continues,
The good news is that unlike the military, which subscribes to a counterproductive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that forces gays to pretend to be otherwise, the State Department does not consider open homosexuality a firing offense. And Mr. Jensen says the State Department is a much more tolerant workplace for gays than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
“In the past, there was quiet toleration. Now, it’s accepted,” Mr. Jensen says. “But it’s fair to say there’s been no focus on equality of benefits for gays and lesbians and their families in the State Department.”
Well, gee whiz! Open homosexuality is not a firing offense at the State Department! Good God, that’s some damned progressive thinking right there!
There’s a clear belief that queer diplomats in same sex relationships are inferior to their heterosexual, married counterparts, and that same sex relationships are inferior to heterosexual relationships. Denying transportation to an overseas post indicates that you think the same sex partners either don’t desire and need each others’ presence in the same way that heterosexual spouses do, with the subtext being that the relationships just “aren’t the same” in terms of commitment and love, or that because they’re queer, same sex partners don’t deserve the same emotional support as heterosexual spouses. The lack of employer-provided security training, free medical care, and guaranteed evacuation in case of medical emergency more directly and simply states that queer lives are not as valued as heterosexual lives. “What’s that? You think your partner’s at risk of kidnapping, murder, and other danger because of your position as a U.S. diplomat? Because you’re stationed in a dangerous area? Too bad.” “Your partner’s sick? Well, you’re not married because we don’t let anyone but heterosexual people marry, so you’re going to have to pay for treatment out of pocket unless s/he/it has separate health insurance.” “Your partner’s deathly ill and needs to be evacuated to another hospital for treatment? Oops, not straight. We might be able to arrange it, sooner or later, but we can’t guarantee it’ll happen. Too bad!”
Characteristically, the State Department and Rice have said nothing:
Some changes would require congressional action; others Secretary Rice could implement by fiat. Mr. Guest told The Times that he has heard nothing from her, even after his speech.
This kind of discrimination is a blatant statement that, as far as the State Department’s concerned, the lives and well being of queer Foreign Service employees and their same sex partners are worth less than those of heterosexual couples. It’s a measure of progress that we’re able to have this conversation publicly, but the content of the conversation is a measure of how much further we have to go before equality.
(And people argue that state-sanctioned civil unions are enough or that marriage doesn’t confer important legal benefits on the spouse. Bullshit.)
16 Days: Montreal Massacre, 1989
Via Lamardeuse and Justice is a Woman with a Sword: 18 years ago today [1].
Justice is a Woman with a Sword has a very good post discussing the murders within a larger context of indifference toward violence against women:
It’s completely unacceptable that this sort of attitude and behaviour is still tolerated in 21st century Canada. It has to stop. This is why feminism exists. This is why women’s fight to be treated as equals both under the law and in our day-to-day dealings with one another, must continue until the day women will really be respected and valued – and not despised, feared or hated – by men.
The Gazette article ends, “Six-hundred and sixty-four women have been murdered in Quebec since Lepine’s rampage, the speakers noted.”
Go read the post and the article and remember.
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[1] Bruemmer, René, The Gazette. Montreal massacre remembered, 2007/12/06
16 Days: DevilDoll on Girl-Wonder.org
Just a quick note on DevilDoll’s recent interview at girl-wonder.org. Devildoll is active in comics fandom and last May, she made a post about an officially licensed Mary Jane figure that showed a barefoot, sexed-up MJ in pearls, ripped jeans, and a high-riding thong leaning over and washing Spiderman’s suit in a bucket. There was quite an uproar after the post, with hundreds of comments either expressing disgust at the statuette or saying that the statuette was hot and Devildoll should be raped, presumably for calling a spade a spade (or a disgusting, sexist figurine a disgusting, sexist figurine). The post eventually made the news at MSNBC, Fox, and EW.com. The interview is an interesting read about Devildoll’s experience in comics fandom, which tends to be male-dominated; her experience with female communities in comics fandom; and the reaction to her post. I’m clipping some of the bits that popped out at me.
Girl-Wonder.org: Talk about the response your post got. (Any hilarious trolls you want to share?)
“Well, the charming fellow who suggested some nice anal rape would straighten me out was one to remember.
“While the threats and the insults were by no means pleasant, I couldn’t have asked for the trolls to prove my point any more thoroughly than they did. “Degrading and sexist images are not harmful! They don’t have any affect on society as a whole! And to prove it, I will make degrading and sexist statements about you! Wherever could I have learned that’s acceptable behavior?”
Why it’s important to point out that sexist, racist, homophobic, and otherwise offensive comments are, in fact, offensive:
Girl-Wonder.org: Has it affected your view of fandom?
“It’s reinforced my belief that a fuss needs to be made. The images we see and the things we read do make a difference, and they definitely influence how we see the world around us, and the way we treat the people we share it with. I don’t think anyone can look at the things that were said to me in that post and deny that. [emphasis mine]
Even if those offensive comments, jokes, etc. are passed off as ‘just a joke’ or ‘for laughs,’ which has to be the most overused excuse (hear that, man at the farmers’ market last weekend?):
“I personally have a hard time taking enjoyment from something that I know offends or demeans a specific group of people. I don’t think the status of something as entertainment gives it a pass on offensiveness.
The majority of our entertainment is geared toward the white, heterosexual male gaze. It’s so pervasive, and has been like this for so long, that most of us don’t even realize it. I didn’t realize it for years, and I can completely understand why someone wouldn’t notice the bias–it’s what we’re taught to like and identify with from the time we’re young children. I don’t blame someone for not realizing it, if it’s never been pointed out to them.
But once someone points it out, well, that’s your cue to pick up the ball and run with it. Take an honest look, ask yourself some hard questions, consider what it might feel like to be on the other side. [emphasis mine]
When you’re called out as racist, sexist, homophobic, and otherwise offensive:
I’ve been in that position, too, and still find myself there. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m exempt from perpetuating sexism, and I can be just as thick-headed about spotting racism and homophobia as the next straight, white person. So don’t think I don’t know how it feels to have to accept an ugly truth about something you enjoy–I have to deal with it, too. It’s hard, and it sucks, and it means you have to face unpleasant things about yourself and about the things you like, and I absolutely respect anyone who has done it, because I know how difficult it is.
I don’t always agree with accusations of sexism or racism or any other ism, but I always do consider them, and if I disagree, I take an extra second to think about why I’m reacting the way I am, and ask myself some questions.
1) Am I just being cranky because someone criticized something I like?
2) Do I feel like I’m being called a sexist/racist/homophobe because I like something that has sexist/racist/homophobic overtones?
If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then I know I’ve got my head up my ass and I need to remove it.
And sometimes… well, sometimes I know the complaints are valid, and I have to suck it up and deal with the reality of that.
Here’s what I know: liking things that other people find offensive doesn’t automatically make you a bad person. Threatening to rape or kill someone just because they don’t like those same things? Makes you a very bad person. [emphasis mine]
Well said, DD.
16 Days: Radio Silence
[up for revision]
What’s that old phrase? I remember using it as a closing tag for emphasizing dropped arguments back in my debating days. Oh, that’s right: Silence is acquiescence. Now, for the purposes of policy debate, the phrase is more of a rhetorical tag than anything else. When it comes to refusing to condemn the punishment of a gang rape victim, however, it’s true.
According to an article on CNN.com today [1], Bush claims that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia “knows our position loud and clear” on the sentence of 200 lashes and six months of jail time for a gang rape victim and the suspension of her lawyer’s license. I’ll grant you that the Bush administration’s position is clear, but the loud, not so much. After all, while silence is perfectly clear, it’s not very loud. Bush says, “I talked to King Abdullah about the Middle Eastern peace. I don’t remember if that subject came up. … He knows our position loud and clear.” Translation: “I didn’t condemn the sentence and I probably didn’t mention it.” (On a side note, what’s with the memory lapses in this administration? Gonzales, Scooter Libby, Tenet, and Bush–is there something in the water?) I suppose I should cut him some slack, since he claims, “And our opinions were expressed by [White House press secretary] Dana Perino from the podium.” If anyone finds Perino’s statement, please send me the link. Additionally, [a] state department spokesman on Tuesday [11/20] called the verdict “astonishing”, but said it was not its place to call for the ruling to be changed [2]. According to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack [3], “These kinds of decisions are going to have to be decisions that the people of that country — in this case, Saudi Arabia — are going to have to take for themselves.”
Calling the sentence “astonishing.” Saying that someone else said something about it. Saying that the Saudis have to make up their own minds and it’s not the U.S. role to advocate for human rights (just like the U.S. let Chile make up its own mind [4] about its elected government or let Iraq settle its own affairs, for that matter). Saying that your position is “loud and clear” but that you didn’t actually mention it while you were chatting with the king, come to think of it. That’s not taking a stand. That’s not condemning the sentence as a violation of human rights, as a punishment against a woman for speaking out against injustice and violent misogyny. Here are some examples of how to make your position “loud and clear”:
“In 1995, I went to Beijing and said, ‘It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.’ We have made some progress since then. But we have not made enough. The latest example is the punishment of 200 lashes that a Saudi Arabian court has given to a victim — the victim — of a gang rape. This is an outrage. The Bush administration has refused to condemn the sentence and said it will not protest an internal Saudi decision. I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman.” – Hillary Clinton [5]
Today’s news that a Saudi Arabian court has chosen to punish the victim of a gang rape is an appalling breach of the most fundamental human rights. I am outraged that President Bush has refused to condemn the sentence. John Edwards [6]
In a letter to Rice, Barack Obama wrote, “That the victim was sentenced at all is unjust, but that the court doubled the sentence because of efforts to call attention to the ruling is beyond unjust … I strongly urge the Department of State to condemn this ruling.” [3] Joe Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, said, “I’m outraged by the decision of a Saudi Arabian court to punish the victim of a brutal gang-rape … I call on King Abdullah to exercise his powers and overturn this sentence if the Saudi courts do not reverse their decision immediately. … I also would urge him to undertake reforms to prevent similar miscarriages of justice in the future.” [3]
