Despicable sexual assault on a girl minor from Tripoli with media complicity

Some of the local media yesterday, unknowingly or knowingly, were complicit in the act of rape committed by three young men against a minor girl from Tripoli, when they exposed the identity of the victim without consulting with her in a society whose traditions and norms condemn the victim in sensitive issues like this one. In the details, that three young men took turns in raping a 16-year-old orphan girl from Tripoli. The assailants seduced her and drove her from the house of her grandfather where she lives to Dahr el Ain in neighboring Kura, where they drugged, raped and filmed the girl to blackmail her. While keeping to herself in fear of reprehension, the underage girl finally decided to speak up to her aunt. The latter accompanied her to a gynecologist for examination and he confirmed the act of rape. The aunt reported the case to the Security Forces of Mina unit and news spread. Appallingly, some of the media aired the full name and address of the victim, which yet exacerbated the girl’s emotional trauma. The crime has rocked the northern city and the whole country, prompting an instant backlash on all the social media networks. Activists called for a sit-in at 5:30 pm tomorrow at the Justice Palace in Beirut with one main heading, ‘fight rape’. Similarly, civil associations and figures, notably the director of projects at the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering, lawyer Manar Zeaiter, demanded competent authorities to show zero tolerance towards the savage rapists, and to override Article 522 of the Penal Code. The latter, to recall, provides for dropping the personal and public rights of the rapist, in terms of ending the tracking, punishment or sentencing of the rapist should he decide to marry his victim. Zeaiter requested maximum penalty for the offenders and provision of the proper psychiatric treatment and social assistance for the girl victim . (As Safir, Al Akhbar, Al Mustaqbal, Al Diyar, July 12, 2016)