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Female World Cup official flees Qatar to avoid a sentence of 100 lashes
and seven years in jail for 'extramarital sex' after reporting she was raped
By LAUREN LEWIS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 12:58 EST, 22 February 2022
A female World Cup official is facing a sentence of 100 lashes and seven years in jail for 'extramarital sex' after she reported being raped while working in Qatar.
Paola Schietekat, 28, from Mexico, was working for the World Cup organising committee when she complained that she was raped by an associate who broke into her apartment and threatened to kill her.
She reported the June 6, 2021 attack to the Qatari authorities, who responded by accusing her of having an affair and charged her with 'extramarital sex', which is illegal in the Gulf state.
Schietekat was told by lawyers that one way of avoiding conviction was to marry her attacker but instead decided to flee the country, leaving behind what she called her 'dream job'.
The charges against Schietekat, who is a behavioural economist, are still valid and she is expected to be sentenced in absentia on March 6.
Paola Schietekat, 28, from Mexico, was working for the Qatar World Cup organising committee when she complained she was raped by an associate who broke into her apartment and threatened to kill her
Schietekat, writing on Julio Astillero, explained the attacker was able to gain access to her apartment in Doha because it is common for residents to leave their doors unlocked and rely on the security of the building.
The man, who Schietekat said she considered a friend, allegedly managed to wrestle her to the floor and rape her, leaving her arms, shoulders and back covered in bruises.
Schietekat said she took pictures of the scene and documented what had happened on her phone before fleeing her home and spending the night in a hotel, fearing her attacker would return. The following morning she got a medical certificate and, with an official from the Mexican consul in Doha, reported the alleged rape to Qatari police using her limited Arabic.
Police asked whether she wanted a restraining order against the attacker or to press criminal charges against him. Schietekat told police she wanted to press charges and signed a statement in Arabic to the effect, giving officers the name and details of the man.
However, hours later, around 9pm, she was called and told to return to the station where she was put in front of the man she had accused and questioned for three hours in Arabic.
The alleged attacker had told police that he and Schietekat were in a relationship, so officers asked to look at her phone to find evidence of intimacy, which she denied.
Police then asked her to undergo a virginity test, accusing Schietekat of extramarital relations, before recommending the case to the public prosecutor's office to bring charges against her.
Her attacker was acquitted on charges of assault because 'there were no cameras pointing directly at the door of the apartment, so there was no way to verify that the assault happened', Schietekat said.
She was then warned by lawyers that one of the only ways to avoid a conviction would be to marry her alleged attacker. Schietekat chose to flee the country instead, leaving behind what she later described as her 'dream job' and was helped out of Doha by the World Cup committee.
'I had never breathed with more relief than when my passport was stamped,' she wrote. 'In Mexico the adrenaline stopped and a slower process began, although just as complex and painful.'
She has since claimed that Qatar, which will be the first Arab state to host the FIFA World Cup in November 2022, cares more about protecting the attacker than the rape victim.
She also revealed she was previously raped when she was 17 but that she did not speak out about the ordeal at the time, as she explained why she chose to go public with the allegation.
Schietekat has spoken out over the ordeal, telling El Pais: 'The heart of the matter isn't what we can or cannot do on the Qatari laws, as Qatar is a sovereign state. We won't be able to change it, but the valences of Mexican institutions is something that can get better and that we can demand it as a society.'
The 28-year-old accused the 'cynical' international community of continuing to back Gulf states embroiled in allegations of 'flagrant human rights abuses'.
'Without a firm stance on the part of the international community, draconian, retrograde and even absurd laws will find a little hole to continue justifying themselves, in the shadow of major sporting or cultural events,' she wrote.
She also attacked the Mexican foreign ministry for failing to protect its 600 citizens living in Qatar, especially against gender-based violence.
Since publishing her account, Schietekat has met with Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard who announced the state would provide her with legal representation 'ensuring that all her rights as a Mexican citizen are respected.'
Qatar has been embroiled in scandals as the World Cup approaches, with reports of thousands of migrant workers dying in the country since it was awarded the tournament in 2010 and stinging criticism of the government's human rights record.
Pakistani-American sentenced to death in beheading
of diplomat's daughter
By Sommer Brokaw
Zahir Jaffer, convicted of murdering Noor Mukadam, the daughter of a former ambassador is escorted by police as he leaves from a court after the case verdict Thursday in Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo by Sohail Shahzad/EPA-EFE
Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A Pakistan court sentenced Zahir Jaffer to death Thursday for killing a diplomat's daughter in a beheading case that drew attention to lack of protection for domestic violence victims.
An Islamabad judge sentenced Jaffer, a 30-year-old dual Pakistan-U.S. national, to death for killing Noor Mukadam, a 27-year-old daughter of a diplomat, last July in his family home in Islamabad.
The high-profile case, dragging on for more than four months prior to the conviction for murder and sentencing, brought attention to domestic violence in a country that does not have a national law criminalizing it.
"This case is for all the daughters of Pakistan," the victim's father, former Pakistani ambassador Shaukat Ali Mukadam, told reporters at CNN. "The society and media came to our side, the entire nation and the world was on our side."
According to the victim's father, Jaffer had used a sharp instrument to kill his daughter and sever her head on July 20, 2021, GEO News reported.
Jaffer was arrested on the day of the killing with a murder weapon and bloodstained clothes at the scene, police reported, and he was later charged with premeditated murder, rape, abduction and confinement. Jaffer had pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Jan Muhammad and Muhammad Iftikhar, the gardener and security guard at Jaffer's house, who were indicted in the case last October, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison each.
Expat tosses housemate, a woman, off 5th floor in Bahrain
The suspect says he had a heated argument before throwing her off a tower
Published: February 26, 2022 14:56
Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent
Gulf News
Cairo: An Asian expatriate in Bahrain had admitted to having thrown a female housemate to death from their fifth-floor apartment after a dispute between them, a local newspaper has said.
Prosecution chief in the Bahraini capital governorate was quoted by Akhbar Al Khaleej as saying that public prosecution had been notified by security agencies that a foreign woman had fatally fallen from a fifth-floor apartment in the city.
Police investigations discovered that the woman had shared a fifth-floor residence with an Asian man and that he had tossed her out of the window following an unspecified row, the report said.
After arrest, the suspect confessed to the act, saying he had lost his temper during the sharp dispute and resorted to such a deadly measure. He also re-enacted the crime at its site as part of investigations.
Prosecutors have charged him with premeditated murder and ordered his remand, pending further questioning.
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