Clinton Condemns Saudi Ruling On Rape Victim

November 21, 2007 8:44 p.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on Wednesday called a Saudi Arabian court's decision to sentence a gang-rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in prison "an outrage."

The Democratic presidential front-runner criticized President George Bush for refusing to condemn the sentence on grounds that the U.S. government could not protest an internal Saudi ruling.

"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman," Clinton said.

The White House expressed "astonishment" at the sentence on Tuesday, but did not directly call on the Saudi government to overturn it.

Recalling how she had condemned human rights violations at a conference in Beijing in 1995, Clinton said, "As president I will once again make human rights an American priority around the world."

A 19-year-old woman was sentenced to 90 lashes by a Saudi Arabian appellate court in October 2006 for violating the country's laws requiring segregation of the sexes. The woman, who had been raped by seven men, appealed the decision, only to have her punishment increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison term. The court also punished the woman's lawyer for making the appeal by suspending him from the case and having his professional license confiscated.

The sentenced has received strong criticism from international human rights groups.

Clinton's Democratic rival Sen.Barack Obama (D-IL) had previously called on White House to condemn the Saudi ruling in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday, saying it was "unjust, but that the court doubled the sentence because of efforts to call attention to the ruling is beyond unjust."

Saudi Arabia is governed by a strict form of Islamic law that prohibits unrelated men and women from associating with each other and requires women to use clothing to cover their bodies from head to toe when in public.