Posted by JadedSage

The courts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recently sentenced a rape victim to six months in jail and 200 lashes. Known as the Girl of Qatif, she was retrieving a picture of herself from a high school friend in a car when two men joined the girls in the car and drove them to a secluded location where five other men were waiting. She and her friend were raped by the men. The incident took place in 2006 when she was 19 and newly married.

The case went before the cleric run court in Saudi Arabia defined by the ultra-conservative Wahhabi sect of Islam. Saudi law forbids women to be in the presence of men who are not related to them. Saudi courts have no written law code and thus are open to interpretation. The arbitrary ruling by the judges was swift and harsh. The lawyer for the Girl of Qatif went public and the courts raised her sentence from 60  to 200 lashes. The boys also were sentenced in the case. President Bush, who has a strong familial relationship with the Saudi Royal family, finally denounced the ruling publicly but has been reluctant to confront the ruling family directly.

The Wahhabi clerics and the family of Saud share power in the Kingdom. Since its founding in 1932 there has been a balancing act between the religious influence of the Wahhabi sect and the political might of the House of Saud. Criticism throughout the world has come down on Saudi Arabia in the wake of the case. The King is slow to take a stand since the court lies outside the royal family’s jurisdiction. There is no doubt, however, that the verdict has hurt the image of the Kingdom; an image that has taken many hits since 2001. Most of the terrorists that struck the US on 9-11 came from Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden’s father, who made a fortune in the construction business was one of the country’s favorite sons. Furthermore, the nation uses its vast oil wealth to spread its virulent form of Islam throughout the world in the form of religious schools known as madrassas (after the arabic word for schools).

In a bubble, the rape case would be just another case of injustice but domestic American economic forces have merged the wealth of Saudi Arabia with a top bank in the US. Recently Citibank, has been taking significant losses in the subprime mortgage debacle to the tune of $17 billion and the bank could lose as much as $65 billion before the housing loan issue blows over.  Due to rising oil prices many cash rich Arabs are putting down stakes in corporate America. Citigroup, the parent company of Citibank, sold 4.9% of its interest to Abu Dhabi to soften the blow of the subprime mortgage crisis. Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of the aforementioned  Saudi Royal Family also owns about 5% of Citigroup.

Due to our free enterprise system we have the ability to make it known to institutions such as Citibank that we are not happy that now our borrowing practices are funding princes in Saudi Arabia who allow judicial verdicts such as the Girl of Qatif case or ultimately the spreading of Wahhabism throughout the world. We may not be able to influence Saudi Arabia directly but we can make it known to US companies like Citibank we don’t appreciate their economic alliance.