After all, they have disbarred a human rights lawyer for engaging in a series of actions that qualify as internationally recognized human rights.

Saudi officials have revoked the license of human rights lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, who has handled the country's most controversial cases and defended a gang-rape victim sentenced to jail time and lashes.

Lahem, 36, faces a disciplinary hearing Dec. 5 to determine the length of his suspension.

Lahem is accused by the prosecutor general of "belligerent behavior, talking to the media for the purpose of perturbing the judiciary, and hurting the country's image," according to an official letter he received Monday.

Since he started practicing law almost five years ago, Lahem has defended clients whom other lawyers refused, including a school administrator suspended for criticizing the religious establishment, a man convicted of promoting homosexuality for saying it was genetic, three political reformists seeking a constitutional monarchy, and the first Saudis suing the country's powerful religious police.

Lahem said that losing his license would be a blow to the country's budding human rights movement.

"If I am banned from practicing law, nobody will dare go up against the judiciary again," said Lahem, a slight man with a limp from a childhood accident. "If I win, it will open a new chapter for human rights in Saudi Arabia."

But the reality is that Lahem will not win, given the repeated insistence of the forces of Islam upon placing sharia dictates ahead of human rights. Time and again we have seen Islamic law trump such things as religious freedom and freedom of speech, both of which are recognized as basic human rights under international law. For that matter, this action by the Saudis grows out of a case in which a rape victim was sentenced to be whipped because of the attack -- and had her sentence more than doubled for publicly speaking out against such barbarism.

Such actions in the name of Islam do nothing to contribute to the image that its followers and apologists seek to present -- that of an enlightened, peaceful faith. Instead, it shows quite clearly that Islam has no respect for human rights, and that sharia law is nothing less than a crime against humanity.

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