Reported Raped After Being Drugged By Syrian: Dutch Woman Jailed In Qatar For Adultery
Jun. 13 2016, Updated 10:04 p.m. ET
A Dutch woman held in a Qatar jail for three months after she reported being drugged and raped at a nightclub was found guilty on Monday, June 13, of “illicit consensual fornication” and being “drunk in a public place.” She was also handed a one-year suspended sentence, given a three-year probation for the sex charge, and fined 3,000 Qatari Riyals ($823) for public drunkenness.
Syrian national Omar Abdullah Al-Hasan, who she had reported to have raped her, was sentenced by the same Qatari court to 100 lashes for illicit fornication and a further 40 lashes for the illegal consumption of alcohol. The two charges were identical to what she faced, though Al-Hasan, as a Muslim, is not allowed to drink at all under sharia law.
According to Aljazeera, a court official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, described the one-year suspended sentence as “lenient.” He explained what could happen to a woman if she reported she had been raped.
-“Had she been a Muslim woman, she would have received at least five years in jail. No one can get out of such charges here in Qatar.”
