Things that make you go What the F**k?

[stephenite]

Eight-year-old divorced after rape
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font April 17, 2008 - 9:57AM

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A Yemeni judge dissolved the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a man 22 years her senior, and the court today ordered her taken away from her father, who allegedly forced her into the marriage, the girl's lawyer said.

The lawyer, Shatha Ali Nasser, said the case is but one of thousands of under-aged girls forced into marriages in this poor tribal country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

But the girl's story, which came to light when she took the unusual step and sought out a judge on her own in early April to file for divorce, has drawn headlines here.

The girl recounted her ordeal after the Wednesday ruling, speaking to reporters outside the courthouse in the Yemeni capital, San'a.

She said her father had forced her into an abusive marriage to 30-year-old Faiz Ali Thamer, who she told reporters constantly beat and raped her. The two-month union to Thamer was terminated in court Tuesday.

"I used to run from room to room to escape from him. But he would catch up with me, beat me and then would use me," the girl said, her tiny frame swallowed in an oversized robe and headscarf, standing with her lawyer.

The Associated Press is not publishing her name in line with its policy of not identifying rape victims.

The 8-year-old said that when she told her parents that her husband abused her, they refused to help her.

"They told me, 'Go to court. Complain to them. We are not going to interfere,"' she said.

The ruling judge Mohammed al-Qady said in court that he sympathised with the girl and was moved by the case from the start.

At the first session of the trial on April 9, her parents testified that they refused to divorce their daughter from Thamer and conceded to overlooking their daughter's complaints about the marriage.

Within a week, al-Qady ordered the couple be separated, and the marriage terminated because the girl "had not reached puberty", the judge said.

An article in Yemeni law allows parents to sign marriage contracts for children under the age of 15. However, the article states that the husband can only consummate the marriage when his wife reaches puberty.

"But we know that this is not what happened" in the girl's case, her lawyer Nasser said.

The girl's family was ordered to pay $US250 ($A266.30) as "compensation" to her ex-husband Thamer, although the judge did not specify the reason.

Thamer, who was briefly detained for questioning in April, was quoted Wednesday by a local independent English-language newspaper as saying he saw nothing wrong in being intimate with his wife.

"Yes, I was intimate with her, but I have done nothing wrong, as she is my wife and I have the right and no one can stop me," he told The Yemen Times. "But if the judge or other people insist that I divorce her, I will do it, it's OK."

Thamer is unlikely to be charged because Yemeni law does not recognise rape in a marriage.

It also doesn't provide for punishment if a marriage is consummated before a child-wife reaches puberty.

After the verdict, Nasser said she will make sure that the girl gets proper education.

AP

[ziggysego]

What can you say, other than it's a sick world.

[MayoMan]

[AFS]

I'm sure someone has probably posted this already, but in case they haven't this is possibly the most disturbing things that I have ever watched:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGkxcY7YFU

And the South Park version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMQ650GdqUo

[unforgiven]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7353025.stm

Sounds like a night out in Bradbury Place

[Puckoon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7358644.stm

Wrong kidney removed from child 

The hospital has apologised for the error

A hospital in the Republic of Ireland has admitted removing the wrong kidney from a sick child.

The mistake, that led to a healthy kidney being removed, was described by Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin as an "unprecedented error".

The Dublin hospital said it had given its sincere apologies to the family.

The young child now faces regular dialysis unless a donor kidney can be found. An internal investigation is being carried out by the hospital.

The hospital described it as a "significant and regrettable medical error".

The child has been discharged from the hospital.

The hospital said its board of directors will consider the detail of the review and act where appropriate.

Our Lady's said the family was continuing to receive full support by the hospital staff and were happy to remain there for follow-up care.

Clinical errors


Irish Health Minister Mary Harney has indicated there may need to be an outside enquiry, even though she said she had total confidence in the internal review.

She said that unfortunately clinical errors occur in the best healthcare systems

The Labour Party said the findings of the hospital inquiry must be made public.

The party's Jan O'Sullivan said: "While I would accept that private aspects of this case must remain private, any findings of an investigation that indicates that there may have been systems failures or other shortcomings, should be published.

"The parents of this child, as well as parents of other children who are being treated for similar conditions in the hospital, need reassurance that this kind of incident does not recur."

[passedit]

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080423/NEWS/80423011

Police officer accused of sex assaults also faces animal cruelty charges

Gannett News Service • April 23, 2008

MOUNT HOLLY — New charges involving sex acts with cows have been brought against a Moorestown policeman who last week was charged with sexually assaulting three girls.

Officer Robert Melia Jr., 38, of Moorestown, remained in the Burlington County Jail on Tuesday with bail of $510,000.

Superior Court Judge John Almeida raised the bail $10,000 as a result of the addition of four charges of cruelty to animals, a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.

Kevin Morgan, an assistant county prosecutor, said in court Tuesday that the new charges involve sex acts with cows between June and December 2006 at an undisclosed site in Southampton.

Melia and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis, are charged with three counts of
aggravated sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual contact on three girls at his home between 2003 and 2006. Lewis, 32, of the 200 block of Stocktons Bridge Road, Pemberton Township, is in jail on $300,000 bail.
In your voice

I spose if it had been pigs it wouda bin ok.

[Hardy]

Lord he must be a horse of a man if "sex acts" with a cow constituted animal cruelty!

[ziggysego]

Drunk Darth Vader's Jedi assault 

A man posing as Darth Vader attacked a Star Wars fan, who had founded a Jedi Church, a court has heard.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, from Holyhead, Anglesey, admitted assaulting Barney Jones and cousin Michael with a metal crutch. They suffered minor injuries.

Hughes, who was drunk and dressed in a black bin bag, shouted "Darth Vader!"

Earlier, when Hughes failed to arrive on time, District Judge Andrew Shaw issued an arrest warrant, adding: "I hope the force will soon be with him."

In the event, Hughes turned up and the case at Holyhead magistrates court resumed.

The court heard he had jumped over a garden wall wearing the bin bag before the attack.

Outlining the case againt Hughes, prosectutor Nia Lloyd said Barney Jones had recently started the Jedi church in Holyhead - in honour of the Star Wars' good knights.

It had about 30 members locally and "thousands worldwide".

The cousins had been filming themselves playing with light sabres in the garden before the attack.

Hughes admitted two charges of common assault.

The court heard he has a "chronic alcohol problem" and had drunk the best part of a 10 litre box of wine.

Mrs Lloyd said: "He was wearing a black bin bag and a cape and had a metal crutch in his hand."

Mrs Lloyd said he was shouting "Darth Vader".

She added that Hughes hit Barney Jones over the head with the crutch, leaving him with a headache.

He then laughed and hit Michael Jones in the thigh, causing bruising.

Both men were left upset by the incident and they believed it was pre-planned.

She added that the pair believe "very strongly in the church and their religion".

Hughes could not remember the incident and only realised what had happened when he read about it in local newspapers, the court told.

Defending, Frances Jones said alcohol was "ruining his life" and he had no idea where he got the crutch from.

The court head Hughes had previous convictions, including affray, assault and disorderly behaviour.

The judge warned Hughes that jail remained a possibility before adjourning for pre-sentence reports until 13 May.

Sourced BBCi: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/7360871.stm

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital


By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

[Puckoon]

I got confused - who was hung in the end up?

[passedit]

I spose they'd be no use to the cows so.

[MayoMan]

That spring, boinnnnggggg noise that you hear when you open a thread ! ! 
Whats all that about.....   

[Niall Quinn]

The cousins had been filming themselves playing with light sabres in the garden before the attack.

Totally deserving of a drunk Vader assault.

[AFS]

Bet ya the penguin was asking for it...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7379554.stm