Modern times, medieval justice

When we think about the Middle East, we tend to confine the discussion to oil, to international conflict. We don't often think about the woeful way women are treated in too many countries there.

Case in point: In Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old woman was abducted and gang raped by seven men.

Now here's the Saudi sense of justice: The men were sentenced to prison. And she was sentenced to 90 lashes because she had violated the country's strict gender segregation laws by being at the mall with a male friend. A Saudi woman can't go out in public with a man to whom she's not related.

It gets more astonishing. Two weeks ago, a Saudi court upped her sentence to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison because, according to the Saudi Justice Ministry, new evidence showed she was having an affair with the friend.

Arab News, a Middle Eastern newspaper, reported that the heavier punishment was imposed only after the woman took her story to the news media. Her attorney's law license also was suspended because he criticized the court's handling of the case.

Outrage at this treatment by the Saudi courts has poured in from around the world. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called the situation "outrageous." In the face of criticism, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in the U.S. for a Mideast peace conference, said Tuesday that the case is being reviewed.

The courts may bow to such broad and fierce criticism and soften the sentence. But that shouldn't take the pressure off the Saudi rulers. They've talked about granting more rights to women, but it has largely been empty rhetoric.

In Saudi Arabia, women can't drive, vote or make their own decisions about medical care. They're almost entirely absent from civic life.

Saudi Arabia was founded on the precepts of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam that flourishes in the Persian Gulf. The ruling monarchs, fearful of the threat to their power posed by fundamentalist clerics in the country, try to appease them by keeping a hard line. So the Saudi system tends to be more conservative than other countries where Wahhabism dominates.

Adherence to a religious edict is no excuse. The Middle East has made some halting progress in the rights of women. Qatar -- like Saudi Arabia an oil-rich, Wahhabite monarchy -- gave women the right to vote in 1999. Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait -- also Wahhabite states -- have done the same.

Saudi Arabia, though, remains stubbornly wedded to repressing women. Oil may be counted on to bring riches, but consigning half the population to live in the shadows only guarantees a bleak future.