This text was initially published on the occasion of Manufacturing of Rights a pluridisciplinary colloquium in Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, 2015.

CASE #2

Date: 1996–2004
Location: Lebanon

The term act or intercourse against nature has been mentioned in two judg- ments of the Lebanese Court of Cassation, within the frame of a sexual act through the anus between a man and a woman. In the first case, the court considered that the sexual act occurred with the woman’s consent, thus convicted the defendant on the basis of Article 534 of the Penal Code. In the second case, where the use of violence, threat and coercion was proven, the court convicted both defendants on basis of the Article 507—commit- ting an act against decency using violence or threat—after having excluded the act of rape, and considered that any act against nature is considered an act of indecency.

In the proceedings of the first case ¹ :
Whereas the accuser testified that the defendant had sex with her by force, she later dropped her charges. After trying to summon her as a witness, it was revealed that she had left the country.
And whereas the defendant stated in the initial investigation that he laid the maid on her stomach and put his penis between her thighs,
And whereas I make clear his statement of the interrogatory phase in the third page of the lawsuit record repeating what he stated in the first investi- gation, and that he put his penis between her thighs from behind,
And whereas the forensic doctor who examined the accuser presented a report containing that there were no traces of contusions, beatings or violence on any part of the body, and that he detected no trace of bruising or redness or bleeding in or around any of the genital organs, and that the hymen had been broken for a long period of time and that he was unable to find any tangible evidence of intercourse,
And whereas the defendant insists on what happened with the accused woman who dropped her charges was with her consent,

In the court ́s reasoning:
And whereas the court, after examining the investigations and both the accuser’s and the defendant’s statements in all stages of the litigation and in all documents including the doctor’s report, considers that it is not unequivocally certain that the defendant’s coerced the accuser to perform an act against decency, but through her, it was proven that he had a copulation against nature with the accuser; an act punishable under Article 534 x. x,
For these reasons, the defendant was sentenced guilty by the court accord- ing to Article 534 and imprisoned for one year including the arresting period.

In the facts of the second case2:
A girl with last name +++ was taking a walk with her friend (female) in that area around 3:00h in the afternoon in a car model +++, when both defend- ants approached her and led her far into the urban park after having threat- ened her with their military gun, and then he proceeded to undress her and performed a sexual indecent act with her from behind until he reached orgasm… forced her to undress and undergo the indecent sexual act with her from behind until he reached orgasm;
She (…) with her friend (male) … on day … were taking a walk in his car at that area, and when they coincidentally parked on the side of the road, they were shocked by … mentioned before, along with his ² accused friends … approaching them (…) so they led them into the urban park and by gun threatening, they force … to climb the car’s trunk and they shut him inside, then led the girl into a secluded zone and forced her to undress and performed the indecent sexual act with her from behind until he reaching orgasm whether by or without inserting the penis, or by putting the penis between her thighs;

In the court ́s reasoning:
“And whereas, from one side, what they committed together consists with … and he forced her by coercion and threatening to undress and then introduced his genital organ in her from behind or put it between her thighs until reaching orgasm; applies to the provisions of Article 507 x. differently to what mentioned in the indictment that refers to the applying of Article 503 x.,
This is because the Lebanese Penal Code, which used the term “sexual intercourse” in Article 503 x. as a translation of the original term on French “acte sexuel,” was still attached to the prevailing point of view of the French doctrine and jurisprudence, devoted in the first paragraph of Article 332 of the Penal code, that used to limit rape to the natural sexual physiological act between a man and a woman using coercion of violence, in line with certain philosophical reflections that entrusts women with nothing but the triple equation based on marriage, family founding and childbearing, to avoid introducing illegitimate births in families;
The elements of a “forced intercourse using coercion of violence” are not presented except by the illicit conjunction of the male and female’s sexual organs—“conjonction illicite des sexes,” penis and vagina—as a result of practices and harassments that fall under the punishment of Penal Code. Every act “against nature” of any kind is considered an act of indecency. And while the French Penal Code has adopted a modern point of view, derived from a current interpretation of woman’s role in society, where every sexual insertion of any kind applied by force, pressure, or shock on another person, is considered as rape; the Lebanese Penal Code has not yet reached that point and is still attached to the previous point of view.