In my article Fewer Rapes in Muslim Countries, I explained that one of the reasons for fewer reported rapes in Muslims countries is that very few women are able to produce 4 male witnesses or 8 female witnesses to the act.

Jack Peterpen, a reader from Tunisia, disagreed with me arguing that I am confused, that the 4/8 witness rule only applies to adultery, not rape, and left a link to a Muslim site that rebuts anti-Islamic arguments.

Here is what they had to say on the matter:

Bismika Allahuma, Does Islam require four witnesses for rape?

Does Islam really require four witness for rape victims? This is a common argument used by those who usually attempt to make a false analogy with adultery by inferring from the following Qur’anic injunction:

Quran 24: 2-5

“And those who accuse chaste women [of adultery] and then do not produce four witnesses — lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after. And those are the defiantly disobedient. Except for those who repent thereafter and reform, for indeed Allaah is Forgiving and Merciful.”

...

Unfortunately for such people, this fallacy of equivocation has no basis in Islamic jurisdictions and the punishment for rape (which is defined as forced sexual intercourse) is certainly not equivalent to the punishment of adultery.

I do not confuse adultery with rape nor does my belief regarding rape depend on the reading of Quran 24: 2-5. What I know comes from the reading of actual cases reported in news media, for example:

MyDaily, 31 May 2011, Bangladeshi Teen, 14, Accused of Adultery After Being Raped Gets Lashed to Death

Many of us find it difficult to imagine anything much worse than an innocent girl being raped. In 14-year-old Hena Akhter's case, she was raped, accused of adultery and then lashed to death in public.

The Bangladeshi teen was beaten and raped by her cousin, an older man in her village, and when his wife heard Hena's screams she also beat her, reports CNN. The local imam issued his fatwa: Hena was guilty of adultery and her punishment under sharia law was 100 lashes in a public whipping (her rapist was also sentenced; he managed to escape after the first few lashings).

After 70 lashings, Hena collapsed and was taken to hospital, where she died a week later. Initially, her autopsy report reported no injuries and ruled her death a suicide.

Had Hena not screamed, she would be alive today. No one would have found out that she was raped and certainly she would not have reported it unless she had enough witnesses to prove the rape. In my article I wrote that rape victims are afraid to report rape because they know that they themselves would be prosecuted for having sex outside of marriage if they can't prove the rape. This is why there are few reported rapes in Islamic countries.

But from the above Shariah case we see two lies from the website Bismika Allahuma: that rape victims do not need witnesses and that to prove adultery one needs four (male) witnesses. Hena did not have four witnesses against her for adultery. Islamic Jurists do not need witnesses to adultery in rape cases if the girl admits she was raped but cannot prove it; she is automatically guilty of adultery - it is as if she confessed.

Bismika Allahuma also tries to obfuscate the matter regarding witnesses to rape by the following:

ibid,

An event concerning rape had in fact led towards the Prophet Muhammad (P) punishing a rapist without demanding or even hinting for four witnesses:
Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 38, #4366

“Narrated Wa’il ibn Hujr: “When a woman went out in the time of the Prophet (P) for prayer, a man attacked her and overpowered [raped] her. She shouted and he went off, and when a man came by, she said: That [man] did such and such to me. And when a company of the Emigrants came by, she said: That man did such and such to me. They went and seized the man whom they thought had had intercourse with her and brought him to her.

She said: Yes, this is he. Then they brought him to the Apostle of Allah (P).

When he [the Prophet] was about to pass sentence, the man who [actually] had assaulted her stood up and said: Apostle of Allah, I am the man who did it to her.

He [the Prophet] said to her: Go away, for Allah has forgiven you. But he told the man some good words [Abu Dawud said: "meaning the man who was seized"], and of the man who had had intercourse with her, he said: “Stone him to death.“

Is this supposed to prove that one doesn't needed witnesses to prove rape? That the rapist confessed? Even in America a woman doesn't have to prove rape if the rapist confesses. But if he doesn't confess she has to prove it in court.