That hed's totally unfair. There's absolutely no evidence that the monarchy would step in to stop this outrage even if they weren't busy trying to help the State Department screw Israel out of the Golan. After all, the 19 year old gang rape victim had the bad taste to complain about her initial sentence of 90 lashes. Is it the court's fault that Islamic law obligated them to bump up the sentence to 200 lashes and jail time? There are some things you've just got to let go, ya know?

By "these things" he means unjust rulings generally, not lashing a raped woman to ribbons because she violated some archaic cultural taboo. That particular thing is a specialty of Sharialand. We already sort of knew that the royals and the courts were at odds on this but it’s nice to have it confirmed. A senior Saudi official on Monday sought to distance his government from a court’s decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes."Unfortunately, these things happen. Bad judgments occur in legal systems," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters while in Washington to attend a Middle East peace conference in Maryland... Faisal said the judgment was being used to vilify the Saudi government even though it was not responsible because the courts are independent. “Issues like that, bad judgments by the courts, happen everywhere, even in the United States,” he said. “It is a process that is still going on. This is being reviewed by a legal process and we hope it will be changed.

Fair enough. There was this one time where we totally got screwed on a parking ticket. That's just like getting lashed 200 times and thrown in jail because you got gang raped. Glib equivalence: not just for Foreign Policy and Kos any more.

References:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - If You Complain About Getting Gang Raped In Saudi Arabia, They'll Double The Lashings To Punish You More [MR]
* Saudi foreign minister on gang-rape victim’s sentence: “These things happen” [Hot Air]
* State Department Bait And Switch Puts Golan Heights On The Annapolis Agenda, Gets Syria To Attend (Plus: Saudi Arabia Got Condi To Do It To Undermine US Anti-Terrorism Efforts)

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Academic Feminism Not Doing Much To Stop Teenage Girls From Being Lost In Pakistani Poker Games
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Your Saudi Husband Isn't Allowed To Beat You In The Face Because It "Makes Your Face Ugly"
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - You're Not Allowed To Sit Down When You Eat In Saudi Arabia Because You're Too Dolled Up