A 15-year-old girl who was sentenced to 100 lashes1 for engaging in premarital sex has had her punishment overturned by a Maldives court.
马尔代夫一名15岁少女因婚前性行为被判鞭笞100次,不过该判决近期被最高法院推翻。
The High Court ruled on Wednesday that the girl, whose stepfather is on trial for
raping2 her, had been wrongly convicted by a
juvenile3 court of having premarital sex with another man.
Premarital sex is illegal in the Maldives, a popular tourist
venue4.
The case caused
outrage5 among rights groups who welcomed the latest ruling.
"We are relieved that the girl will be spared this inhumane 'punishment' based on an
outrageous7 conviction, which we hope has also been quashed," said Polly Truscott, Amnesty International's deputy Asia-Pacific director.
"No-one should ever be
prosecuted8 for sex outside marriage in the first place."
Ms Truscott said that
flogging(鞭打) amounted to cruel,
inhuman6 and degrading treatment. She called on the Maldives government to
annul9 all outstanding flogging sentences.
In its ruling the court said the sentence of the lower court was based on a
confession10 that the girl made while she was suffering post-traumatic stress
disorder11. It said that she had been "unfit for trial" after the
alleged12 rape13.
The Maldivian government appealed on behalf of the teenager following international outrage in February to punish her with 100 lashes when she reached the age of 18.
The girl - who cannot be named for legal reasons - was only charged after police investigating the rape allegations discovered that she had been having consensual sex(认同的性行为) with another man.
Dead baby
President Mohamed Waheed said that he was "overjoyed" with the ruling, his spokesman Masood Imad told the AFP news agency on Thursday.
Mr Imad said: "It is the government's policy to protect victims, but we had to do it within the framework of the law."
The case was sent for
prosecution14 after police were called to investigate a dead baby buried on the island of Feydhoo in Shaviyani Atoll, in the north of the country.
Her stepfather was accused of raping her and impregnating her, then
killing15 the baby.
The legal system of the Maldives, an Islamic archipelago with a population of some 400,000, has elements of Islamic law (Sharia) as well as English common law.