A Woman Was Arrested for Reporting Her Own Rape in Qatar

The details are horrifying.

21 March, 2018
Woman Arrested for Reporting Her Own Rape in Qatar May Soon Return Home

Laura, a 22-year-old Dutch woman, was on vacation in Qatar this past March when she was having drinks with a friend and began to feel "very unwell," her lawyer Brian Lokollo told the Dutch News Media​. 

The next thing she knew, the woman alleged, she woke up in an unfamiliar place and realized she had been raped. Upon reporting the incident to the police, the woman herself was jailed. In Qatar, sex outside of marriage is illegal.

Today, Al Jazeera reports that the Dutch woman was given a one-year suspended sentence and "ordered to be deported to the Netherlands once the ruling was formalized, which is expected over the coming days​."

The man, who is identified as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan​, also faced punishment, not for rape, but for illicit sex acts and public intoxication. He was sentenced to 100 lashes for the former, and 40 lashes for the latter crime.

The 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar, and this incident adds to the list of concerns many activists have about the country hosting the event, according to the New York Times.

Twitter users are also calling into question FIFA's choice of location for the 2022 World Cup because of the rape case and also because of their poor treatment of migrant workers.

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The Dutch ambassador to Qatar told Al Jazeera, "We will do everything we can to get her out of the country as soon as possible. Under the circumstances, Laura is doing fine." ​She also asked that we respect Laura's privacy at this time.

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Credit: Cosmopolitan
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