Saudi Rape Victim To Get Additional 110 Lashes For Speaking to News Media

Because I believe that a country's laws that are clearly stated and uphelpd is not doing something incorrect?

I hope you realize that the law also applies to men. Men can not be alone with a woman that is not a relative. And that is THEIR law, if their citizens can not follow the law, they need to leave.

Just like in this country, if we violate a law, no matter what our personal views on it are, we deserved to be punished.

 

Your "logic" is silly. The Nazis had "laws" as well. According to your logic, killing millions of people was ok because their "laws" said it was.

 

WTF - so Rosa Parks was wrong to sit in the front of the bus or black protestors were wrong to sit in at white lunch counters. I guess Harriet Tubman was wrong to help free black slaves, after all they were violating US law. After all, those things were illegal. South African Apartheid should be respected?

I don't plan on respecting laws that I find to be blatantly offensive and blatant challenges to basic human dignity.

 

Not driving and wearing an extra layer of clothes is the biggest issue that you are worried about? There is a reason why people in that country aren't raped every two minutes (US Department of Justice). There is a reason why in that country there aren't a whole crap load of b*stard children born every year. There is a reason why that country doesn't have as much of an issue with STD's and Aids, the Adult prevalence of HIV and aids in that region is only 0.2%. The lowest of all regions.

Again, im not justifying the laws that they have, that is not the purpose of this thread. I am simply stating that THEY have a law, and it is a well known law, and anyone that breaks it should be punished, Otherwise they can leave the country.

 

seems like robbing a bank is different than riding in a car w/ a dude. and if i remember the story correctly from the original thread a few months back, wasnt she forced/coerced into the car in the first place?

 

Actually they were punished and they probably should have been. They then worked a way to revolt/protest and change the law, and that is what should happen if the citizens of that country choose.

 

and that is why i said, neither you , nor I have the facts of the case that were presented to the judges.

 

My understanding of Saudi laws regarding the treatment of women have far more to do with Saudi culture than religion and that there is nothing in Islam that would prevent a woman from driving, working and even being seen with an unrelated male.

 

Can a Saudi woman leave the country legally without the approval of her husband and/or family?

 

If the above reasoning is true (she was abducted), and the judges still handed out that sentence, then they are wrong. There is no justification for that.

Also, The lawyer's right to practice shouldn't have been taken away.

 

Please. Just stop. You're seriously embarrassing yourself with these arguments.

 

Unfortunately, it means very little. As long as "universal human rights" are selectively applied -- usually in situations where there is a need to justify intervention for other unstated objectives -- and are the realm of international hypocrisy/geopolitical chess games, there is very little anyone can do about it. As long as there is no universal jurisdiction -- universal citizenship, even -- then universal human rights will continue to amount to little more than 'lip service'. At the end of the day, individual states/regional blocs could take action on their own behalf to punish violators (e.g. different forms of sanction regimes), but it is proving more and more -- not less and less, as some political scientists had predicted -- difficult to get any sort of international consensus on such issues, especially now with the rise of an 'Eastern pole' that has little interest in investing much time/resources to support human rights-based policies (e.g. Russia, China, Iran, etc).

Didn't mean to pounce on you, but just thought I would counter what seems like popular sentiment that rarely translates into reality. There is certainly a concerted effort on part of some countries in the Western world to push for international human rights enforcement, but EVEN when consensus is arrived at by the usual suspects, it turns out that most are unwilling to do much beyond verbally admonishing the offenders. Not even the United States is willing to accept 'international law' by submitting itself to ICJ rulings, and we're unlikely to submit to it anytime in the near future. State sovereignty still trumps all...

 

Shut up, Sishir, you're ruining a perfectly happy occasion of 'Islam bashing': the favorite past time in the D&D, and a Thanksgiving favorite...

 

And you would have the perfect right to do so...ONLY if you were willing to face the consequences under the existing laws.

"One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." -- Martin Luther King

Even Socrates refused to escape his imprisonment because, he argued, he had an obligation to obey the laws, as part of his contract as a citizen of Athens, however unjust he felt it may have been.

So yes, you don't have to respect it, you can have the courage and admiration of many by breaking what you deem are 'unjust' laws, but you must be prepared to pay the consequences; anything less would be outright cowardice.

A society of endless individuals protesting an endless number of laws by not obeying them, and not receiving proper punishment for it under the existing system of laws, would no longer be considered a society; it would spell the very end of any sort of 'social order' and would destroy the community.

 

One thing I think would benefit the process is if some of the religious police/courts had some sort of checks and balances. Given free reign, it takes a very special kind of person to not become a petty tyrant. As I understand it they have a free reign that is not healthy and even the King will not take them on.

Also, I am not sure what makes someone eligible to become a religious judge or policeman, but they should have some basic non-religious training as well as some sort of body which judges their work and investigates complaints. As I understand it these elements are lacking. If I am wrong someone please let me know.

I think people would be crying bloody murder if the same conditions applied to a non-religious justice system. I don't see why religious police shouldn't be held to the same standards.

 

These types of irrational behavior is what makes it hard for me to defend Islam. I'm a Muslim and I defend Islam as much as I can when I'm in discussion with friends and strangers. But when stupid countries with their stupid laws do make stupid decisions like these... it really makes it hard for me to defend.

I can tell you right now that what the middle east is doing DOES NOT represent ISLAM. At all. Arab is not synonymous with Muslims.. it couldn't be any more further than the truth. Even in the Muslim world non-Arabs tend to think that the Arab Muslims are arrogant pricks who think they're better than the rest.

DD mentioned earlier that we should've invaded Saudi. I couldn't agree more. I HATE the middle east with a passion because those bastards down there really make Muslims in the rest of the world look barbaric and stupid.

When something like this happens in the mid east the media spins it off like it's an Islamic thing. If anything it should make Arabs look bad, not Muslims. In fact, IIRC Arabs make up of only 8% of the whole Muslim population.

I wish people would stop taking whatever the Arabs do as a representation of Muslims.

I grew up a Muslim and even went to an Islamic school for a bit and never did I learn about these whole "radical" Muslim beliefs that the media love to talk about. People should actually take the time to meet some Muslims of different backgrounds and ethnicities so they'll know what Islam is all about.

 

Otto,

You're absolutely right. And, if I am not mistaken, a recent case that created quite an 'uproar' in Saudi has -- in fact -- prompted the King to institute new laws that would check the powers of the religious police.

EDIT: Here's a link...

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/51218647-6330-4021-AD89-4CC6F26BEB33.htm

The interior ministry issued a decree in May 2006 aimed at reining in the religious police by requiring them not to interrogate detained suspects, as they had previously done, but to hand them over to the regular police instead.

 

Way to make a 'rational' argument/rant against people lumping all Muslims together by lumping all Middle Easterners together.

The MENA region is one of the most diverse regions in the world. That region that you're trying to lump in as one spans so many cultures/traditions and practice Islam in such different ways that only a 'fool' who's ignorant of the region could make such generalizations.

But you're right, Saudi has the exact same traditions and practices as Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon...

Generally speaking, it's a bad idea to take the 'practitioners' of a faith as representative of what the faith itself is all about. It would be far more 'just' to judge something on its own merits. It's difficult, it's time-consuming, and the vast majority of the time people have little interest in seeking that sort of knowledge, because they're far more interested in engaging in demagoguery.

 

Hey guys adeelsiddiqui is right, obviously any law from another country should be respected. And if something is a law then it is also morally correct.

Signed,
Slave owners

 

isn't there a contradiction somewhere in here? the adherents who are committing actions are justifying it by saying these actions are from the teachings of islam. but i can't judge islam by that, because i should form my own independent analysis of islam not based on what its adherents understand it to mean?

i dont think its fair for you to criticize many of us who have been critical of saudi on this thread as being busy in attempting to engage in demagoguery.