Muslim Man Who Raped Muslim Woman as "Punishment" for Reading the Bible Sentenced to Five Years

Told Victim "Let Your Jesus Help You"

In Australia, a Muslim man who raped a Muslim woman as "punishment" for reading the Bible has been sentenced to five years. This sexual attack follows in the wake of others in Australia by mostly immigrant Islamic men against Western women for religious or ethnic reasons. With many cases or rape, particularly gang rape, in Australia, France, Sweden, and Norway, some cite this as a growing epedimic that the media has left for the most part unreported.

Abdul Reda Al-Shawany , age 52, raped the unidentified Muslim woman as "punishment" for her reading the Bible. The Campbelltown District Court in Sydney heard how Abdula Reda Al Shawany sexually assaulted the woman, who was a practicing Muslim herself, and then said to her, "Let your Jesus help you."

The AAP reports that as was sentenced, the Downing Centre District Court heard a harrowing statement from the victim, revealing that her shame and fear had been compounded by her cultural background. The woman, who cannot be named, arrived in Australia as a refugee from Iraq. But she said that even when she was jailed by dictator Saddam Hussein, she never feared for her life the way she did after the rape. "It is better if I'm dead," she told the court.

The Daily Telegraph reports that when the woman came to Australia from the Middle East she began listening to Christian teachers and reading the Bible. The woman - who wears the Muslim hijab - had received threats from members of her faith for reading the Bible but had not converted to Christianity. Al Shawany lured her to a Warwick Farm railway station in September 2002 after he told her he had some mail for her from overseas.

Per the AAP, the court was told that Al-Shawany' visited the woman, an acquaintance, at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre with another man. The woman had been reading the Bible and Al-Shawany noted her contact with Christians. The men told her they were "infidel people" and if she went with them, her killing "would be halal" - meaning her killer would go to heaven.