do you really go around on other forums claiming to be an international lawyer? Its sad what people will believe nowadays.
Before I get wrongly accused of something let me just flat out say that I am on the side of the woman here and I believe that the people who raped her should be severely punished. If my posts earlier might have suggested otherwise I apologize for that. What I was merely trying to say is that it could have been that the UAE government made a mistake and falsely accused her, however like adeelsiddiqui said I will not be surprised if the Hotel and authorities planned together to shut her up due to the impact this story may have on tourism which is a heavy part of their economy. The reason I jumped on ATW was due to his personal agenda to turn everything into an Islam smear campaign which he seems to have started doing already.
What I understood from the news reports is that the Hotel actually assisted in alerting the authorities of the rape. That does not sound like they tried to shut her up. She got shut up by the authorities who threw her in jail for 8 months for reporting a rape.
Oh my apologies then, I am not surprised the authorities tried to shut her up because of the potential PR hit this will have on their tourism market. I don't think she was jailed because she said that she was raped and they were trying to oppress her because she was a woman.
I haven't read this thread completely, but from the first page I'm not sure why I'm getting grief for saying: 1) I'm glad she's suing. 2) I hope it puts pressure on the authorities to change the laws. 3) There was no evidence of rape or drugs, and 100% of the time these tests are administered immediately in the UAE. I'm not sure how this got misconstrued as me being happy with the laws or happy that things went the way they went. This woman is not filing a lawsuit against the country, it's against a hotel chain, and I'm happy that she's getting her chance to speak up. You would be hard-pressed to find ANYONE in the UAE who believes that these laws are sensible, and I'm in the same boat.
My objection to what? My objection is to people who break the law which I hate as well, and that's not specifically related to this case. I know that if I have consensual sex outside a marriage, I will go to jail. A survey would show that 100% of people know this. It will also show that 90% of the population disagrees with it. But disagreeing with a law is not grounds for breaking it, unless you want to test your luck in court. I'll answer your questions based on the law. According to the law, adultery is a crime. The typical crime for this is lashes or stoning, and none of this happened it seems here, not sure why, but thank God. Your second question addressed the specifically messed up part of the law. According to Sharia, there are only 2 ways to prove adultery. First way is to have 4 independent witnesses (essentially never going to happen), and the second way is admission of guilt by the accused. Rape also has similar rules. 4 witnesses or admission of guilt. Now the UAE does not practice pure Sharia therefore hard evidence is also considered a legitimate "witness" to the crime. In this case, we are talking about testing samples from clothing and most of the time they use a rape kit (which is for collecting evidence in such cases). In the case of this girl, they would also use a drug test. Here is the messed up part: when you accuse someone of rape, they will first check if it's true. In the case of the article, this went: 1) admission > none, 2) 4 witnesses > none, 3) testing > no evidence of accusation. So essentially there is no rape. Here is where it gets really twisted: if you accuse someone of rape, and tests show you are lying, there is a huge problem. Basically, now you have made the ADMISSION of having sex, and since it was not rape, then it was consensual sex. On top of this, it gets worse, because you also are liable for a counter-accusation from the accused for attempting to tarnish their character. That's why she was arrested. She was not arrested for being raped. She was arrested for breaking the medieval law of having consensual sex. If rape is proven, there is no punishment whatsoever. Pardons are granted routinely, and they are specifically granted for crimes which the ruler believes are not serious > essentially sending out a message to those people who are getting in the way of him fixing the rules. Personally, I'm 99% sure that there was never rape in this case. A huge part of the UAE's economy is tourism and reliance on expatriate workers. If the police were biased or immoral, they would in fact do everything in their power to not jail the girl. I assure you they would rather deport the 3 guys than ruin the life of an expatriate Australian. Those 3 guys are a dime a dozen in Dubai, but this kind of publicity is terrible. I'm also certain that the tests are conducted all the time every single time unless they want to be personally castrated by the Sheikh. Think about how important safety is to the UAE's image. It would not make sense to go out of your way to screw this poor girl's life up and destroy your own image, when the UAE has shown time and time again that it will do anything to make bad PR disappear. This is all made to look terrible by the mere mention of the word rape. If this woman was raped, then I'm totally in agreement that this is a disgusting situation > we don't disagree. But over here, the way I see it, this woman and those men broke the law, and they were all arrested, and the woman was pardoned, and we don't know what happened to the men. Right now after years in prison, I'm fairly certain that the men are the only people in this story to have been raped. If that's the case, then it's a messed up situation, and I feel bad for all of them.
dear lord, Mathloom, if ATW had hijacked your account with the intention of besmirching your character he couldn't have done a more thorough job then your response to JV.... yikes
"Must spread rep around before giving it to JV again." Well put. Not usually on ATW's side of things in these types of discussions, but I think some people's defensive reflexes in regard to him are clouding them from seeing this clearly. It's not remotely the same as being wrongly accused of threatening someone. The fact that someone who reports being raped to the authorities would be imprisoned for adultery under actual laws is a travesty, and if that is backed up by normal protocol in this case, or even defended in a "well that's the law" kind of way no matter how heinous, this defines a gap in thinking between two societies regarding sense and justice that I can not bridge. That alone makes it worthy of discussion, I would think. That said, as with any case, we really don't necessarily know the truth of the details, but on the surface it looks like there's a serious problem with the way alleged rape victims are treated there, to say the least. It doesn't make them the only place, but that doesn't make it ok or unworthy of discussion.
My guess is that she thought she was raped, but I suppose there is any number of possibilities, including that she was raped but there is no evidence. Maybe her employer pushed her to do it or they did it themselves.
Mathloom, from your perspective, what you have said appears perfectly normal. From a Western perspective, it is unbelievably calloused and displays a profound disrespect of women and women's rights. You don't even realize how so...
Ok, either I am completely wrong, completely misunderstanding or failing to communicate. Maybe all. Could you explain to me specifically what I've said that disrespects women's rights, keeping in mind that I am in total disagreement with the law where people are jailed for having consensual sex? I'm also totally confused as to what this has to do with women's rights if these tests have shown that there was no rape? I'm basically begging for this explanation because I consider you to be a fair person who will be totally honest.
Here's what went down.... Mathloom: She claimed rape but authorities discovered it was consensual and jailed her for sex outside marriage (which is a stupid law). ATW: She was raped but authorities consider rape the same as sex outside marriage and put her in jail. It basically comes down to who you believe, the authorities or the woman. I can see how everyone in interpreting what Mathloom says as bad because everyone came into the thread believing the woman and accepting it WAS rape. Then somehow turned it around to saying Mathloom supports raped women being put in jail. I disagree with Mathloom. I have a feeling she did get raped and the authorities fecked up investigating (or are lying) but I don't see how what Mathloom said was immoral. Can't blame him for trusting his govt's judicial system. But we can blame him for the horrendous choice of words (the pot metaphor uhhhh wut?.....) I disagree with ATW as well. I don't think that UAE law says that rape is considered sex outside marriage (unlike a couple of other muslim countries). I think ATW jumped the gun. When it comes to a woman's word vs a man's word, the woman gets the benifit of doubt here in USA. But I think in UAE, that's not the case. Like I said, I think Mathloom is alone in believing that she did get a proper investigation. I agree with you that it makes no sense for her to go to the authorities if she was raped. But it doesn't make Mathloom backwards or anything.
Sounds like it is open season on women. If you can't prove it is rape, you better not report it; otherwise you are now considered a criminal. This would be a pretty chilling Catch-22 situation. I think Qball gives a good breakdown.
