A Saudi Hero: Abdul Rahman al-Lahem

Spare a thought for the human rights struggle in Saudi Arabia, and for the remarkable Saudi human rights lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem.

That's not to shift the emphasis away from the shocking treatment of al-Lahem's client, a 19-year-old Saudi woman. In 2005, she was gang-raped by seven Saudi men in an assault in the Eastern Province. The attackers were from the Sunni Muslim majority, the woman a Shi'ite. In their trial, the men were handed sentences from 10 months to five years in prison. But the victim herself was sentenced to 90 lashes of a whip, on the charge that she violated Sharia law by being in the company of a man who was not a close relative.

AL-Lahem took her case to a Saudi appeals court, and a revised sentence came in on Thursday. Al-Lahem had argued that the rape sentences were too lenient, and the lashing sentence for the victim was unjust. "This is not justice," he was quoted saying. "This is jungle Sharia"--referring to the harsh reading of Islamic law common in the Kingdom. The court increased the rape sentences to up to 10 years. But, bizarrely, it also doubled the sentence for his client to 200 lashes and added a six-month prison term for her.

According to the Arab News's intrepid human rights reporter, Ebtihal Mubarak, the judge in the Qatif court immediately removed al-Lahem from the rape victim's case and confiscated his license to practice law. The Judicial Investigation Department of the Ministry of Justice then summoned al-Lahem to a disciplinary hearing next month, apparently to face charges that he allegedly advertises his services in violation of Saudi regulations.

The case of the rape victim is typical of the work that has brought al-Lahem wide acclaim as one of Saudi Arabia's most courageous human rights campaigners. Few have done more to defend the basic rights of women in the Saudi courrts. In most of his cases, he takes on the powerful Wahhabi religious establishment that dominates or strongly influences many government institutions, including the judicial system and the religious police. Many of his clients are victims of abuse at the hands of the latter. One of his highly publicized cases was defending a Saudi couple with children who were forcibly divorced against their will after the wife's family accused the husband of lying about his tribal affiliation. He failed to prevent the divorce and then had to spend nine months trying to get her moved from a prison into a social services shelter. (Explanation: because she refused to move in with her family after the forced divorce, she was given the choice of going to the shelter or a prison; she initially chose the latter, to keep a safe distance from her intrusive brothers and to better publicize her plight.)

Al-Lahem started having run-ins with Saudi rulers as well. He was jailed starting in 2004 for about six months. He apparently irritated the authorities for speaking out about Saudi human rights abuses on al-Jazeera and in Arabic newspapers. He also was representing three leading reformists who were jailed because they called for a constitutional monarchy and rejected official demands that they apologize for doing so. King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who favors gradual reform in the Kingdom, freed al-Lahem unconditionally a week after ascending the Saudi throne in 2005. But despite the intense political, religious, social and legal pressures that are brought to bear on rights activists in Saudi Arabia, al-Lahem's important voice refuses to be silenced.

UPDATE: Human Rights Watch, citing a court official, says that the victim's sentence was increased, because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” Human Rights Watch called on King Abdullah to immediately void the verdict and drop all charges against the rape victim and to order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer.

From an HRW statement Saturday Nov. 17:

“A courageous young woman faces lashing and prison for speaking out about her efforts to find justice,” said Farida Deif, researcher in the women's rights division of Human Rights Watch. “This verdict not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.”

CORRECTION:

A human rights source in Saudi Arabia says that the ethnic identity of the convicted rapists was misreported in this blog post as well as by many other news organizations. They were Shi'ite Muslims, not Sunnis, as reported. The ethnic identities added an additional element to the report because of a history of some Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in the Kingdom. Many thanks to my source for alerting us to this and apologies to readers for our apparent mistake.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo