It seems scarcely believable that this could happen anywhere in 2016, let alone in a country voted to host a world sporting event but enough press sources have confirmed it and the world of soccer cannot ignore it.

A 22-year-old Dutch woman who was raped in Qatar, presumptive hosts of the 2022 World Cup, was charged and convicted by police when she reported it.

The woman, identified just as Laura a Dutch tourist, was jailed for three months and fined $845. She was visiting Qatar on vacation with a friend and drinking at  the Crystal Lounge at the W Doha Hotel, one of the hotels where alcohol is permitted.

She then remembers very little until she woke up as her lawyer Brian Lokollo told  Dutch newspaper Telegraaf:

“Laura realizes from that moment that she was drugged and raped  She suspects that someone in an unguarded moment threw something into her drink.”

On waking up, she was in a stranger’s apartment building with torn clothes.

What happened next should stun the free world and especially FIFA.

Laura went to the police and reported her rape. She was then tried and convicted of adultery, according to the Associated Press. Under Qatari law, it is illegal to have sex out of wedlock. 

Lokollo told the Dutch media what happened when she went to the police to report the rape:

“Laura was accused immediately. A prosecutor shouted at her constantly:

‘Why did you [sleep]with him!’

“Laura was terrified, intimidated, embarrassed terribly and finally signed an Arabic statement she could not read,” he added.

The rapist was identified by Al Jazeera as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, a Syrian citizen.

He was also arrested but astonishingly not for rape. He was charged with adultery and public drunkenness charges only. He will receive 100 lashes for adultery and another 40 for public inebriation and will be deported to Syria.

Yvette Van Eechoud, the Dutch ambassador to Qatar, told Arabic news service Al Jazeera after the hearing that Laura had received a one-year suspended prison sentence and will likely be deported back to the Netherlands later this week. On Monday of this week, she was released into the custody of the Dutch Embassy.

“I’m shaking in my legs. I can’t believe it,” Laura’s mother, Marian, told Dutch news program EenVandaag, according to Al Jazeera. “She has been sentenced. I don’t know for what but I don’t care. This is the best I could have wished for.”

Laura’s  deportation follows three months of relative silence from the Qatari authorities. Her case remained out of the headlines until last week when in frustration her mother decided to share Laura’s first name, photo and story with the Dutch media. Outraged people in the Netherlands shared posts and tweets appeared with the #freelaura hashtag.

The negative publicity forced the Qataris to act, perhaps with one eye on the 2022 World Cup whose location is already causing controversy for a multitude of reasons.

The country has also faced criticism from human rights groups for the harsh conditions in which many World Cup stadiums are being built with Human Rights groups estimating that up to 4000 workers will die building the stadia.

The Qatari authorities were unrepentant. A Qatari court official told Al Jazeera.

“Had she been a Muslim woman, she would have received at least five years in jail,” he said, adding that Laura’s sentence was “lenient.”

The demand to move the World Cup from Qatar can only intensify once Laura’s story is more widely known.

Thousands of female fans attended the World Cup in Brazil and are currently in France for the Euros. It is inconceivable that FIFA can allow female fans to be fair game for rapists in Qatar or subject to this sordid excuse for justice.

Earlier this week, US Soccer Chief Sunil Gulati rightly and courageously discussed the consequences  for US soccer if Donald Trump were elected President, as we had called upon the soccer authorities to do in an earlier article.

If he can speak about the dangers of not winning the hosting rights to a tournament, he surely can speak out against the risk to US fans and others if they attend World Cup 2022. The same pressure now needs to be also exerted on the Canadian Soccer Association and the FMF in Mexico.

If we in the Americas can make them listen and then speak out, the Europeans will be next. The only thing we cannot do … is nothing.