A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.
A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.
Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.
But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.
In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.
The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.
He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."
King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.
Según informó la prensa árabe, un tribunal en Arabia Saudita condenó a una mujer de 19 años, víctima de una violación colectiva, a 200 latigazos y seis meses de prisión. La condena fue a causa de haber estado en el automóvil con un hombre que no era familiar suyo.

Inicialmente, la pena de la mujer iban a ser 90 latigazos, pero la corte aumentó ésta a 200 latigazos – más del doble de la condena inicial – bajo la justificación de que "ella intentó influenciar a la corte a través de los medios".

Los sospechosos de violar a la mujer, seis hombres sauditas, habían sido sentenciados el año pasado a encarcelamientos de 1 a 5 años de duración. El abogado de la víctima apeló al fallo diciendo que las penas eran poco severas.

En su nuevo veredicto, el tribunal decidió que los hombres acusados de haber violado a la mujer debían ser condenados solamente a entre dos y nueve años de prisión. El tribunal también decidió condenar a la mujer.

En Arabia Saudita está prohibido que una mujer maneje; además, las mujeres no pueden estar con un hombre que no sea un pariente.