In Saudi Arabia, You Can Pay $50,000 Blood Money In Exchange For Raping Your Child To Death
Warning: This article is amazingly graphic and beyond terrible and will probably cause your heart to break in a million pieces, like it did mine. But I feel it is our responsibility, as women, as mothers, as humans to know about these things. I’m not sure what exactly we can do to make a difference in cases like this, in the mindset that lets men in faraway countries get away with this type of brutality, but we need to do something. This story is appalling to the millionth degree. Lindsay Cross covered this story a few months ago, but we have new information regarding this horrific case.
In October of 2012, Lama Ghamdi died. Her father Fayhan Ghamdi, a former drug addict who later became a prominent religious scholar and preacher is famous for appearing on Muslim network television speaking of his repentance. The parents has been divorced and per the custody agreement, Ghamdi was able to take his little girl for visitation. In April, her mother then received a call from the public prosecutor in Hotat Bani Tamim asking her to go to the Shamisi Hospital. When she arrived she found her daughter has been brutally injured. From RT.com:
In December 2011, Lama was admitted to hospital with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, and extensive bruising and burns, according to the activist group. Hospital worker Randa Kaleeb said that the girl’s back was broken, and that she had been raped “everywhere.” The hospital told the victim’s mother that her child’s ”rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed.”
The following November, the father was arrested. The judge ruled that the “blood money and the time the defendant had served in prison since Lama’s death suffices as punishment,”activists reported. According to Islamic law, the ‘blood money’ can be paid in lieu of the death penalty. The preacher’s fine was reportedly half the usual amount because the victim was a girl. According to reports, the reason Ghamdi tortured his daughter is because he questioned whether the five-year-old was a virgin. When the child’s mother questioned him the hospital, he just laughed.
From Al Jazeera.com:
Three Saudi activists, including Manal al-Sharif, who in 2011 challenged Saudi laws that prevent women from driving, have raised objections to the ruling.
The ruling is based on national laws that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, nor can husbands be executed for murdering their wives, activists said.
Manal al-Sharif has launched a campaign on Twitter using the hashtag ‘Ana Lama’, which is translated as I am Lama, calling for better protection for children and women.
(photo: You Tube)
