Whenever I read horrific stories like this one from the Magic Kingdom, I’m reminded of former ArabNews editor John R. Bradley (who really, really hated us) and his now-famous (among lizards, anyway) comment in July 2002:

I’m off for a stroll down Jeddah’s fabulous Corniche, the longest in the world and a kind of open air museum peppered with famous, giant-size sculptures. At dusk the largest fountain in the world bursts into life. Ordinary families settle down to have picnics. Polite smiles and hellos from strangers. A completely crime-free environment. Ah! A bit of civilization …

Saudi gang-rape victim faces 90 lashes. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

RIYADH - A Saudi woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped and then beaten by her brother has been sentenced to 90 lashes — for meeting a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported on Monday.

In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, the 19-year-old said she was blackmailed a year ago into meeting a man who threatened to tell her family they were having a relationship outside wedlock, which is illegal in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

After driving off together from a shopping mall near her home, the woman and the man were stopped and abducted by a gang of men wielding kitchen knives who took them to a farm where she was raped 14 times by her captors.

Five men were arrested for the rape and given jail terms ranging from 10 months to five years by a panel of judges in the eastern city of Qatif, near the woman’s hometown.

But the judges also decided to sentence the woman, identified by the newspaper only as ‘G,’ and the man to lashes for being alone together in the car.