Holy Punishment

Courtney Keeton
IGS 233B
13th Blog
Crime
http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=3927504&page=2
This week my article is about the punishment side of crime. How do you feel about corporal punishment? Well, if you lived in a predominantly Islamic country, you probably would be indifferent to it or maybe even support it as the main way to shell out consequences. Recently, a British school teacher was barely spared the consequence of a possibly public flogging because of letting one of her students name his teddy bear Muhammad, after the prophet. She was sentenced to 15 days in jail before being deported, instead. In another case, a 19 year old woman was sentenced to a public flogging of 200 lashes because she was the victim of rape. The justification was that she deserved it by being in the car of a male who was not a relative. I guess on the other end of that spectrum is a man who was publicly flogged 100 times before being hung (also in public) for the rape and murder of 22 people.
Now the whole corporal punishment thing to me is okay as long as the consequence is as severe as the crime committed. But in the case of the 19 year old woman, I’m not so sure. What was her true crime? By Islamic standards, just being a victim of rape is unjust in itself. But on the other hand, did the murderer get what he deserved, or did the crime not fit the punishment? I think that any kind of consequences carried out that need to be justified by a holy book (in the case of the rape victim) are probably not so holy or just. But who am I to say to a number of countries whose laws and entire way of life is dictated by a holy book, instead of at times, reason and rationale?