Dropping The Charge "200 Lashes of The Whip To An Abused Girl" !!

I was really shocked when I knew that when a girl is being abused, she should be punished by getting struck and jailed!

Based on information provided by "reuters.com" (Nov 20, 2007):

This is what the Saudi court has settled on up to day to sentence a 19 years old girl who was gang-raped (by 7 men) in 2006.

At the beginning, the court had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes of the whip and to be jailed between 10 months and five years, and had blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated male companion.

And just in this Nov. 2007, the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison, and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.

The court also took the unusual step of penalizing procedures against her lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, by compulsorily removing him from the case for having talked about it to the media!

These decisions are being made according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, and the United States described the verdict as "astonishing".

New York-based Human Rights Watch called on King Abdullah, who announced (in Oct 2007) to drop all charges against the girl.

Just couple of hours ago, I received it from “Info2cell” that the charges are dropped by King Abdullah, and the girl won't be punished.

13 days ago, “reuters.com” published (Dec 4, 2007):
U.S. President George W. Bush avoided directly criticizing Saudi King Abdullah over a decision by his country's court to punish a woman who was gang-raped with 200 lashes and jail time.

Information from: Reuters, info2cell


Actually, it's really astonishing that the court was running after the girl and sentencing her while I didn't hear much about the rapists except that they would have to serve between two and nine years in jail.
In my point of view, the spot light in this case should have been focused (by the media, court and people) on the rapists more than the girl. Those criminals were the party who should been sentenced, not the abused girl!