Madam, - Saudi Arabia seems like a country out of a horror movie. A 19-year-old Saudi girl is gang-raped by seven men, as is a male friend accompanying her. The rapists receive sentences of 10 months to 5 years, the girl and her friend are sentenced to be flogged for being in each other's company, and the girl's appeal against it doubles the punishment to 200 lashes.
Justice is not limited by boundaries. Irish political leaders are usually ready enough to orate about Ireland's unique sensitivity to injustice, arising from our nation's historical experience. Let the Government now show that we are not a hypocritical nation by instructing the Irish ambassador to Saudi Arabia to raise the issue with the Saudi authorities.
What says the Irish Muslim (Sunni) community? What is its view of the leniency of the rapists' sentence, the "crime" of being alone with a non-relative of the opposite sex, and the severity of the girl's punishment? - Yours, etc,
Fr SÉAMUS MURPHY SJ, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Milltown Institute, Dublin 6.