JUSTICE.....you decide

[Diet Coke]

HAIL: Vice cops in Hail arrested on Monday a young Saudi nurse who attempted to rape a woman patient by posing as a doctor at a government hospital.

The male nurse, an employee at the hospital, told the woman, a teacher, that he was a specialist doctor and needed to carry out a detailed examination to diagnose whether she had an abdominal disease.

The nurse asked the woman to come for an examination the next day and to come alone and send her driver away as he would drop her off at home, Al-Madinah newspaper reported.

Following examinations a day after, the man told the woman that she was suffering from a rare and serious disease, and that he had the correct medicine for her but that it was at home. He then asked the woman to come to his apartment where he tried to rape her. The woman, however, managed to escape.

The man then contacted the woman and tried to blackmail her into starting an illicit relationship, threatening to inform her husband of their "relationship" if she did not succumb.

The woman then contacted the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice and explained her situation. Commission members asked the woman to arrange to meet the man at an apartment. As soon as the woman entered the apartment, commission members entered and arrested the nurse.

"The commission members caught the man and handed him to police for further investigations," said Suleiman Al-Redaiman, director of the commission in Hail. "People should not send their women folk alone to hospitals or other places where men work," he added.

Meanwhile, a court in Sharourah in Najran province handed varying periods of jail time to five men who were convicted of sexually attacking a boy.

Two of the men were jailed for two years and given 500 lashes each, a third was sentenced to 26 months and 600 lashes, a fourth, at whose home the crime took place, was sentenced to 12 months and 150 lashes, while a driver who helped the men abduct the boy received six months and 150 lashes.

A 13 year old girl get's stoned to death for being raped........jail and a few lashes for men

[Hardy]

I presume she'll now be nearly stoned to death for nearly being raped.

[pintsofguinness]

Two of the men were jailed for two years and given 500 lashes each, a third was sentenced to 26 months and 600 lashes, a fourth, at whose home the crime took place, was sentenced to 12 months and 150 lashes, while a driver who helped the men abduct the boy received six months and 150 lashes.

That's probably harsher punishment than some rapists and child abusers get here!

[mylestheslasher]

Thats it Hardy - keep the brainless cliche responses coming. The Daily mail will be onto you any minute now to offer you the editors job. This proves what myself and Donagh were trying to tell you about the variations in Sharia law across the muslim world. In one extreme interpretation (Somalia) a child get stoned to death for being raped, in another (Saudi) the perpetrators of the rape get jail and lashes. Do you agree with the punishment of lashes since you were commenting on the injustice of lobbing of hands on another thread.

Btw, I do find sharia law a very conservative and backward law set but I don't think it serves any purpose blowing it up to be worse than it isl like some people on this board. That is what the brits and yanks want us all to think to justify there war crimes now that the older justifications are outdated (Weapons mass destruction, capturing Bin Laden, removing Sadaam evil dictatorship). Just like the brits justified invasions of ireland through the centuries as they were bringing civilisation to the savages of Ireland.

[Hardy]

Myles, I won't be responding in kind to your abuse. I'm really grateful to yourself and Donagh for trying to educate me, but being brainless, I probably won't derive any benefit from it.

I don't know why you're making political speeches at me about "brits" and "yanks" and weapons of mass destruction and I don't see their relevance to my observations about the advisability or otherwise of introducing sharia law into Europe. I merely informed people that sharia law now operates in Britain, with official legal status, that I didn't think it was a good idea and why. But again, being a mere dupe of US and British propaganda, I'm probably missing the point and failing to understand the benefits of this initiative.

I accommodated your and Donagh's contention that sharia-lite, UK-style was not to be confused with the stoning/maiming version and your comparison with the extremes of European-model jurisprudence that can accommodate the death penalty. I don't know whether you're right or not, but I left aside the extreme manifestations of islamic justice to facilitate your argument and asked you and Donagh are you comfortable with the version that operates in Britain that includes vicious discrimination against women, non-believers and "blasphemers".

I notice I got no answer to that question because it must have been too hard. I noticed the thread slip  off the first two pages and still no response until you seized on a flippant remark that was much easier to respond to than the hard question.

I'll answer your question – no I'm not happy with medieval punishments like lashes. Now, will you answer mine? Are you comfortable with importing laws into the European Union (that now frames and approves all the law we live under) that viciously discriminate against women, deniers of muslim tenets and "blasphemers" and can you make the case for, since all I'm doing is making the case against?

[Donagh]

I must say I'm surprised at you getting carried away with all of this hyperbole Hardy. Of course, I'm not going to approve of any law that discriminates against women or anyone else in society but as our exsisting laws share many of the basic tenets of of Sharia, particulary in those areas which are operating in the UK (family, finance and business), it hardly lives up to your representation.

Besides this is nothing new. Jewish courts have been legally recognised in the UK for hundreds of years and deal with the same kind of issues that the Sharia courts deal with. In fact these are seen as a cost effective method of arbitration which takes pressure off the local courts. At the end of the day, if a person doesn't want to abide by Sharia, they have access to the established legal system, if they do abide by Sharia, then the choice is theirs. 

Apologies for not responding to you on the other thread - busy day in work today and I had forgotten about it.

[Hardy]

Not getting carried away. Simply stating a fact. It's the reactions to my statement that are over the top. Nobody here has refuted the fact that the sharia laws now in operation in Britain are unacceptably discriminatory to a wide range of people. Nobody here has made a compelling case for introducing this new body of medieval law after we in Europe have spent centuries in eliminating the unacceptable medieval barbarities and casual discriminations from our own law. In fact nobody has made any case at all, except for your justification that it takes pressure off the courts. Well, I don't mean to get hyperbolic (again), but so would internment or shoot on sight, so that's not really a justification.

Finally, the point you make about choice in whether to abide by sharia law is in fact the nub of the problem and the false premise under which these changes are justified. What choice has a teenage muslim girl, dominated by her father, male relatives and male community members? What proportion of girls and women are going to feel able to stand up in their communities and declare that they are not accepting a sacred judgement handed down by the islamic court?

[Over the Bar]

A 13 year old girl get's stoned to death for being raped........jail and a few lashes for men

My understanding was that the stoning to death was in Somalia.   This alleged incident happened in Saudi Arabia.  What's the connection other than the obvious racist, anti-muslim one that you appear to insinuate?

[Zapatista]

I presume she'll now be nearly stoned to death for nearly being raped.

Is this supposed to be black humour or are you actually looking to maintain a standard set by a questionable report from another country?

[mylestheslasher]

Hardy - I forgot about your question on the other thread. I would be against the introduction of sharia law in any country that I lived in. I am against the introduction of sharia law into a country in order to appease a minority of people in that country. I do, however, respect the laws of any country I visit no matter how much I disagree with those laws.

Also, you may be against the lashing of rapists but I bet if we held a poll on these pages a majority of people would be in favour of it and I'd hazard a guess that not one of them would be a muslim.

[Hardy]

I presume she'll now be nearly stoned to death for nearly being raped.

Is this supposed to be black humour or are you actually looking to maintain a standard set by a questionable report from another country?

Neither, though closer to the former. It's a comment (admittedly flippant) on the barbaric law that penalises a woman for a crime committed against her. There is no implication intended that this is more or less reprehensible dependent on the society/country/religious group/racial grouping that perpetrates it. It would be equally abhorrent if it were enshrined in the by-laws of County Meath and I would feel even more compelled to condemn it. Equally it's not acceptable to imply that condemnation of it is some form of racism or xenophobia, simply because its practice is associated with a particular grouping. Likewise, it's a ridiculous leap of logic to assume that those who condemn it are thereby supporting US policy in the Middle East or to suggest that opposition to US policy must entail turning a blind eye to the barbaric practices of their opponents. Particularly since the state most associated with medieval barbarity in its laws is an ally of the USA.

Myles - fair enough and understood.

[Zapatista]

Neither, though closer to the former. It's a comment (admittedly flippant) on the barbaric law that penalises a woman for a crime committed against her. There is no implication intended that this is more or less reprehensible dependent on the society/country/religious group/racial grouping that perpetrates it. It would be equally abhorrent if it were enshrined in the by-laws of County Meath and I would feel even more compelled to condemn it. Equally it's not acceptable to imply that condemnation of it is some form of racism or xenophobia, simply because its practice is associated with a particular grouping. Likewise, it's a ridiculous leap of logic to assume that those who condemn it are thereby supporting US policy in the Middle East or to suggest that opposition to US policy must entail turning a blind eye to the barbaric practices of their opponents. Particularly since the state most associated with medieval barbarity in its laws is an ally of the USA.

Myles - fair enough and understood.

I agree, but a deliberate and direct connection to the laws practiced in some unnamed place in Somalia, a court in Saudi and a court in Britain could be seen as xenophobia.  In fact i think it is taking 'guilty by association' to an new level.

[Diet Coke]

A 13 year old girl get's stoned to death for being raped........jail and a few lashes for men

My understanding was that the stoning to death was in Somalia.   This alleged incident happened in Saudi Arabia.  What's the connection other than the obvious racist, anti-muslim one that you appear to insinuate?

Lot of insight there

Somalia is a Muslim country, and Saudi is the "home of Islam"............therefore one would expect the law to be enforced even more strictly here.

[Rav67]

The two incidents happened in different continents FFS, how can you compare them.  You may as well take 2 incidents from the UK and USA, they're both liberal democracies.  In UK you'll usually serve 12 yrs for murder, you'll get death in a lot of US states.  Every country's different.

[Main Street]

There is an excellent book "The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, by a harvard law professor Noah Feldman on Sharia law,
here is an extract from it in the NY Times Magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16Shariah-t.html?_r=1&ei=5070&em=&en=5c1b8de536ce606f&ex=1205812800&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

An informative read.