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A U.K.-based human rights organization has urged Britons living in the United Arab Emirates to not report incidents of rape or sexual assaults following the case of a British woman who was allegedly gang raped in Dubai and after reporting it was arrested and charged with "extramarital sex" charges.
[...] The organization Detained in Dubai, which provides legal assistance to foreign people arrested in the UAE regardless of their citizenship and financial status, has already launched a petition at Change.org, urging authorities to take action on the matter.
[...] Radha Stirling, a U.S. citizen founder of the charity, said to The Independent that following the recent case – as well as a number of other shocking incidents in recent years where rape victims have been detained in the UAE – she advises British tourists not to report crime.
Human rights organizations have asked the UAE monarchies to match their country's great economic growth and tourism potential with changes to its legal system to improve and develop the legal rights and process.
From guide2dubai.com:
In 2013, the total population of UAE was recorded to be 9.2 million. Out of the 9.2 million, the expatriates contributed to around 7.8 million with the Emirati Nationals holding a population share of 1.4 million. [...] South Asian countries alone contributes to around 58% of the total population of UAE. The western population shares to around 8% of the overall population of the country.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by wisnoskij on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:31PM
Should they make all accusers immune from criminal prosecution?
They have strict codes of conduct that are primarily designed to prevent rape, and in fact if you follow their laws you will be far less likely to be raped than in most other countries (as well as having proof of the rape if it did occur). And while they punish rape severely, they require significant evidence (the word of the accuser is not enough). If you go to the police and tell them you committed a crime, extramarital affair/sex and offer no evidence of rape beyond your word, of course you are going to end up in jail.
If you go to a foreign country, learn their laws. United Arab Emirates is not a Western, Christian nation. They simply do not work by the same legal concepts as our Christian based laws. In particular, as you can see in this example, the concepts are diametrically opposite (innocent until proven guilt to guilty until proven innocent). From my understanding in Islam, there were never any specific rules, accusing a man of rape is like accusing him of any crime, you generally are innocence until some physical evidence or witnesses are bought against you (or you confess). While the Bible says that unless significant evidence is found counter to the woman's claim of rape, that you must believe the woman.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:52PM
"Our" Christian laws? Fuck no. Have you read the Bible on rape? You pay the father 50 shekels (about $100) and marry her.
Or maybe you mean, the Conservative version of rape. Legitimate rape, not the other types that don't count. You know, like if she was asking for it. Good Conservative values.
No, our laws are secular nowadays.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:10PM
> "Our" Christian laws? Fuck no. Have you read the Bible on rape? You pay the father 50 shekels (about $100) and marry her.
That is no joke. I've told this story before- I have a friend living in the philippines which may be the most catholic country in the world. As a teen she was forced to marry her rapist. He was an altar boy who gave her a ride home from church on his moped and stopped off to rape her on the way. She was not poor either, she ended up attending Atneo de Manila which is one of the top universities in the country. He mistreated her, beat her, stole from her, etc until after about 15 years he finally beat her to unconsciousness and left her to die in the street. Only then did she qualify for an annulment (because divorce is illegal in the philippines) and even then he stole everything, secretly mortgaged her house and took all the money. And even after all that, the people she worked with at the office would give her shit for being a "feminist."
When you put rules before people that's what happens - it doesn't matter if christian, muslim or even secular rules. The problem is universally a lack of caring about (some) people.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:46PM
You pay the father 50 shekels (about $100) and marry her.
That's only applicable under Sanhedrin's laws which only dealt with the financial laws (דיני ממונות) as relating to compensating the victim. Specifically to the rape of a non-virgin woman, they only penalized the rapist with a fine and marriage to the victim should she demand it.
However, the Hebrew King's laws were a whole different matter. While they required two witnesses for a conviction, their sentencing went far and beyond anything the bible spells out. e.g. In the three accounts of rape in the old testament, the rapist was executed. Moreover, in 2/3 cases their family and neighbors were executed as well.
More over, double convictions were regular. That is, the King's court tried in rape cases of non-virgins as well. So in effect, a rapist could very well get executed, have their family get executed, have their village razed and have whatever left under their name transfer to the holdings of the victim.
compiling...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @10:37PM
While they required two witnesses for a conviction, their sentencing went far and beyond anything the bible spells out. e.g. In the three accounts of rape in the old testament, the rapist was executed. Moreover, in 2/3 cases their family and neighbors were executed as well.
I assume you're talking about Dinah, Tamar, and the concubine in Judges? It should be noted in those 2/3 of cases (Dinah and the Judges story) where you say "the family and neighbors were executed as well," that what happens NEXT is most telling. In the case of Dinah [wikipedia.org], her brothers (the sons of Jacob) trick the rapist and his tribe into getting circumcised, then kill all the men while they're in pain, and then take all the women (and children and goods) for themselves, thus presumably committing many more rapes on the rapist's tribe than what started this whole thing.
It gets even worse in Judges after the battle of Gibeah [wikipedia.org], where -- after the systematic slaughter of most of the Tribe of Benjamin for their kinsmen's role in the rape -- it is decided that the Tribe of Benjamin can't die off. (But, it's implied that most of the women of Benjamin were killed during these battles, probably after themselves being "abused.") Hence, they find a village that didn't show up to go out and slaughter the Benjaminites, and they decide the virgins from that village should be the new wives for the Benjaminites -- so they go and slaughter all the men and married women there, but they only got 400 virgins for their effort... which wasn't enough for the remaining Benjaminites. So, the Bible has its own "Rape of the Sabine Women" kind of moment, where the men of the Tribe of Benjamin go and literally grab a bunch of women from a neighboring town during a festival.
So, yeah, I guess you could say that the "rapist" was executed here, along with a lot of other people in revenge for the rape. But then they went out and found hundreds of other women to forcibly become the wives of the remaining members of the offending tribe. Not exactly modern "justice" when the remedy for one gang rape is committing systematic rape on a massive scale! (Though this sort of thing IS actually common in societies around that area of the world at that time. Legal codes often said that if a man raped a woman, then the family of the woman was allowed to rape his wife in retaliation.) And a similar thing is endorsed by Moses in Numbers 31, where he exacts revenge on the Midianites by commanding the army to kill all men and non-virgin women, while "saving" the virgins for themselves.
Oh, where was I? Oh, the third one -- Tamar [wikipedia.org]. Yeah, here we have a case where the rapist was murdered -- but only after his father (King David) didn't even bother to act. So it was only his jealous half-brother (Absalom) of the rapist who eventually had the rapist murdered on behalf of his sister... after waiting for two years. Anyhow, this is hardly an example of a functional legal system, when the king refuses to act (even though this involved not only rape, but what would have qualified as incest). Yes, the perpetrator was the king's son, but the whole business is a bit convoluted, and I don't think we can draw conclusions about the way the legal system was supposed to function from it.
More over, double convictions were regular. That is, the King's court tried in rape cases of non-virgins as well. So in effect, a rapist could very well get executed, have their family get executed, have their village razed and have whatever left under their name transfer to the holdings of the victim.
... and then all the unmarried woman of the relatives/village/entire society of the rapists could then be systematically "taken as wives" in return. It's important to mention that part. :)
Bottom line is that "justice" back then was a heck of a lot different from what we'd think rational today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @06:14PM
The point is that rape was considered a serious crime equatable to murder. And paying a token sum wasn't going to get you away with it.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 21 2016, @08:22PM
And paying a token sum wasn't going to get you away with it.
Except apparently if you participated in mass rape in retaliation for rape, in which case all is apparently forgiven. That was MY point.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 21 2016, @08:34PM
Also, I'd just point out one thing that may not be clear from my description above, which is that many ancient societies did not consider "marital rape" to be possible. That is, a man could basically do whatever he wanted with his wife, whether she wanted to or not, and that was considered perfectly reasonable and normal.
If anything, the distinction made by the Bible and its laws compared to the legal codes of other tribes in the region is that the Bible at least generally forced men to take responsibility for their rapes. Hence we have the statutes about paying the father a sum and then marrying the virgin he raped. Similarly, in the Benjamin accounts and the Midianites, we don't have random raping of married women or whatever condoned -- instead, they'd slaughter the rest of the population and take all the virgins -- forcibly, if necessary -- as "wives."
So, no, you couldn't just get away with rape by paying a small fine in general -- in Hebrew society, you were expected to marry the girl and potentially keep abusing her until she produced a son as heir. I don't mean to put it in such stark terms, but that was simply the norm of MANY ancient societies. Women often didn't have a lot of choice in these matters. That's just the way it was, and the biblical accounts aren't outliers here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:33PM
ancient societies did not consider "marital rape" to be possible
Not in Hebrew law. They even had legal exemptions in the marriage agreement allowing the husband to dissolve a consummated marriage if the wife wasn't willing or able. That is, she was in her right to refuse as he was in his right to walk away from the marriage if she did. But he wasn't in the right to force sex.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:54PM
You are correct that Islamic law is utterly unlike Western law. However, you are off on a few points.
- Western law does now say "you must believe the woman". You yourself pointed out that the foundation of Western law is "innocent until proven guilty". While there is a tendency to believe the victim, this is mostly a problem in pseudo-legal settings, like university- or employer-run disciplinary proceedings.
- Rape is not the same as any crime. Islamic law is quite clear, when it comes to prosecuting rape [islamhelpline.net]: "But if the woman who is raped accuses that so and so specific person or people raped her, then there are only two ways an Islamic Court can convict the accused rapist/s: The accused rapist confesses to his heinous crime; or she produces four witnesses to justify her claim that so and so person raped her. If the accused rapist does not confess, and the woman is unable to produce the four witnesses; then the Court can levy upon her the case of kazaf or falsely accusing somebody. Of course, practically speaking, the winesses must be male.
So ask yourself: What four men will have witnesses a rape, done nothing to prevent it, and yet be willing to testify against the rapists in court? Practically speaking, this is an impossibility. For this reason, the advice to Westerners to *not* report sexual assault is correct. Frankly, I am of the opinion that Westerners should simply avoid countries that refuse to guarantee what we regard as basic human rights. No commerce, no tourism, no aid, accept no refugees - no traffic of any kind. Of course, that also means no bombs, no overthrowing their governments, no funding rebels.
If they are content with their ways, fine, no problem. If they want exchange with the West, they will have to accept basic Western values.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:37PM
The four witnesses mentioned in Quran is for accusation of adultery to a woman. That is simply not how rape is tried, all sorts of physical and medical evidence is allowed and examined.
You yourself said, that any legal system that used your methods would never find a single raper guilty, and yet many rapists are tried and sentenced in Sharia countries every years. Rape is far less common than in most of the rest of the word, but it still happens, and the perpetrators are caught and punished in the hundreds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:20PM
Rape is far less common? And how can you actually prove this scientifically?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @09:49PM
By pointing to the number of reported cases, of course.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 20 2016, @10:27PM
No, the number of convictions.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:56PM
While the Bible says that unless significant evidence is found counter to the woman's claim of rape, that you must believe the woman.
[citation needed]
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:20PM
in fact if you follow their laws you will be far less likely to be raped than in most other countries
That may be true of "official statistics," but the actual incidence of rape may be more or less than those official numbers. I'm reasonably sure that if a rape report is likely to get you arrested (and possibly even executed, depending on the circumstances), most people who ARE raped probably will NOT report it.
From my understanding in Islam, there were never any specific rules, accusing a man of rape is like accusing him of any crime, you generally are innocence until some physical evidence or witnesses are bought against you (or you confess).
Another post has already pointed out the actual standard here -- you generally need either the confession of the rapist or four men testifying to the rape. That's a pretty high standard for any crime.
While the Bible says that unless significant evidence is found counter to the woman's claim of rape, that you must believe the woman.
The Bible says no such thing. In fact, the woman's testimony is almost irrelevant, if you follow the Old Testament legal code [biblegateway.com]. Basically, you have three cases: is the woman married, unmarried but engaged, or not married nor engaged?
So, yeah, the Bible basically assumes innocence for the woman IF she is engaged AND the rape happened "in open country." Otherwise, she will likely be stoned to death or end up married to her attacker if she complains. I don't think this is really an improvement on Islamic law in terms of basic human rights.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:33PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:02PM
Your third point is a distortion. This law appears twice, in slightly different words, and if you read the version in Deut. only it could be ambiguous, but if you look at the other occurrence in Exodus it's much more clear.
No, sorry, but you are the one distorting the text. This is a common way for modern Christian fundamentalists to "explain away" this passage and make it sound less bad to modern sensibilities.
But these passages deal with two different scenarios. In the Exodus version (22:15-16), it clearly is about seduction. But in that case, there is no specific monetary penalty, and the father gets the choice of how to handle the situation. (Presumably because the woman's value in a marriage transaction is reduced, due the fact that she is "damaged goods.")
But in Deuteronomy, the situation is quite different. The man "seizes" her. The Hebrew root word [biblehub.com] means:
catch, handle, lay, take hold on, over, stop, surely, surprise,
A primitive root; to manipulate, i.e. Seize; chiefly to capture, wield, specifically, to overlay; figuratively, to use unwarrantably -- catch, handle, (lay, take) hold (on, over), stop, X surely, surprise, take.
If you look at the other Biblical occurrences of the word at that link, you'll see it tends to be used in cases not only of grabbing or seizing something or someone, but for terms like capturing a person or a city. It does NOT mean simple seduction. It clearly implies rape. (Also, the word translated as "violated" later in the passage is the same Hebrew word used to refer to the Rape of Dinah in Genesis, which led to the well-known retaliation from her brothers.)
And the additional penalties in the statute make the distinction in this case clear -- here the monetary penalty is mandatory and specific, and he has no option to divorce the woman in the future. This is a significant additional penalty and is also mentioned earlier in the Deuteronomy chapter for a man who falsely accuses his new wife of not being a virgin.
For a more detailed analysis by an actual Hebrew scholar, you might look here [thetorah.com]. By the way, in practice, from other Biblical passages, it appears that such rapes of virgins were dealt with haphazardly with retribution from the woman's family, so yes -- practically, the father probably still had a choice about what would actually happen in such a case. And if the father made the determination that she should be married to her attacker, she presumably would obey, according to customs of the time. (If she didn't, and she didn't publicly report the incident at all, then when she DID get married, Deuteronomy makes clear that if her husband discovers she is not a virgin, she could also be stoned to death.)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Arik on Sunday November 20 2016, @11:12PM
I don't think I am but I'll be happy to consider your argument.
"This is a common way for modern Christian fundamentalists to "explain away" this passage and make it sound less bad to modern sensibilities."
Even if that's true, it's not relevant to the truth or falsehood of the proposition.
"But these passages deal with two different scenarios. In the Exodus version (22:15-16), it clearly is about seduction."
Indeed. Keep that in mind.
"But in that case, there is no specific monetary penalty"
Well, ok. I suppose that's true. It does not set a specific measure of the price, it refers to the bride price as something that was understood and varied with time and place. But there's certainly a monetary penalty there.
Now, t-ph-s means to hold in the hand or to take hold of with the hand, either literally or figuratively. Your own list of translations illustrates this clearly, most of them are immediately recognizable as related through that concept. NOT all of them have violent implications, though obviously it occurs quite frequently in senses like 'capture' (as in take him in your hands) which do have violent overtones, but in Habakkuk it just means 'wrapped' (as in fingers wrapping around a pole) and there's no implication of violence or even animation of any kind. Ezekiel uses the same root several times, both for 'capture' but it can also simply mean 'handle' as in 21:11. So I don't think you can rule out the possibility that this verse is referring to unauthorized seduction, not on the strength of that word alone at least.
"And the additional penalties in the statute make the distinction in this case clear -- here the monetary penalty is mandatory and specific, and he has no option to divorce the woman in the future. "
It's certainly an interesting difference that Exodus speaks of a 'bride price' while Deut. sets a specific amount of silver, but I don't see it helping the case that this is about rape. The exact same thing goes for the no-divorce clause, it's potentially interesting that this particularly element is added in Leviticus, but there's nothing here that forces us to parse t-ph-s as 'rape.'
"For a more detailed analysis by an actual Hebrew scholar, you might look here."
Are you Eve?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:12PM
Is this like saying that we have to give the bible credit for introducing slavery lite? Come on now.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:43PM
Is this like saying that we have to give the bible credit for introducing slavery lite? Come on now.
Huh?
I don't know what you're getting at, but all I'm saying is that women had precious little rights under biblical law. Yes, both Judaism and Christianity have evolved a LOT since then. But a lot of people like to "project" modern ideas back onto biblical texts. In most ancient societies, women were basically treated as property, or at best with the rights equivalent to minor children. In fact, that's somewhat true up to the 19th century in Western society, when coverture [wikipedia.org] laws were finally starting to be overturned and women started to be given equal legal standing. This isn't blaming anything on the Bible or any other religious text, just noting that societal principles were vastly different back then.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday November 20 2016, @09:12PM
You are looking at a small selection of primitive cultures. The relative rights of men and women even varied a lot within the middle east, much less if you go outside that area. Equality (well, of a separate but equal kind) wasn't rare, and there were even cultures where the women were dominant, although these seem to be largely (though not entirely) pre-agricultural. Men seem to have become culturally dominant on a wide scale only when armies became economically feasible.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @10:02PM
The relative rights of men and women even varied a lot within the middle east, much less if you go outside that area. Equality (well, of a separate but equal kind) wasn't rare, and there were even cultures where the women were dominant, although these seem to be largely (though not entirely) pre-agricultural.
I merely said "most" ancient societies treated women as inferior, not that there weren't significant variations from place to place or over time. Women in Islamic areas, for example, often enjoyed much greater rights during medieval times than they did in "Western" (European) areas under Christian rule. (And fewer rights than they tend to enjoy in many modern Islamic states.)
I also am familiar with the theories of "matriarchal prehistory" that emerged in the 19th century and enjoyed a popularity in the late 20th century. At least as I understand it, while there is some speculation of greater matriarchal societies in neolithic and pre-agricultural cultures, there seems to be little direct evidence of large numbers of historical matriarchal societies (and even debate among anthropologists over whether a truly matriarchal culture has existed; not just a matrilineal or matrifocal one). Regardless, I guess my previous post was geared toward societies with advanced legal codes, which tend to come about with the rise of agriculture anyway.
But if you have a significant source you can share about matriarchal or gender egalitarian ancient societies, I'm legitimately curious to know more.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 21 2016, @06:19PM
I'm not talking about matriarchal. I'm not sure that this has ever been demonstrated anywhere at any time. Matrilineal is a different matter..that HAS been demonstrated. And when I said "equality of a separate but equal nature" what I meant was that in some roles men were dominant and in other role women were dominant. This establishes an interdependence such that there MUST be agreement between the two or you don't do well at all. Women were always disadvantaged due to their greater investment in and attachment to children, but an outcast man was quite likely to die...and men were more likely to be outcast. And in matrilineal societies many of the male roles were filled by the woman's brother. This provides some protection against abuse, and there was much less pair-bonding between lovers. The man invested less in the children that he fathered, so fidelity was less important.
It's always a matter of power and economics, but the culture has a lot to say about how those manifest, and can act as a balance wheel...or the opposite.
N.B.: Matrilineal societies have their problems, e.g. what if a woman doesn't HAVE a brother, but they all have ways of dealing with that situation, usually better than "If she's got no brother then she's been cursed by the gods.". I believe in some she becomes the official sister of the chief...but I'm really not sure what that means.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 21 2016, @10:27PM
Now playing "crickets.wav"
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:54PM
Another post has already pointed out the actual standard here
Yes, it pointed out false laws that no country has ever followed. Sharia law simply does not work like that
That is a misrepresentation of the Bible.
The Bible says believe her, unless you have proof that she did not cry for help. That is why it mentioned "open country", if the circumstances are such that she might of called for help but not been heard, she is assumed innocent. In all scenarios, she is only assumed to be guilty if their are witnesses who can corroborate her guilt.
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/28613/3480 [stackexchange.com]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:21PM
Your link to Stack Exchange has most of the highly-rated answers more-or-less agreeing with my interpretation of the passage. At NO POINT in that passage does it explicitly mention any doctrine of "believing the woman" about a rape charge EXCEPT in that one scenario, which basically fails the usual "test" for valuing male testimony because there are no other (male) witnesses around to provide corroboration for either side. (In fact, the Bible explicitly compares it to a MURDER case in open country, i.e., where the victim is completely silent and unable to testify on his own behalf, like a woman in the case who normally would have no legal standing.) The historical evidence of legal proceedings we have show that women weren't even allowed to make legal testimony in Israel. Yet you somehow claim the Bible says in rape cases we not only must accept the woman's legal testimony but believe it over a man's??
Please cite ANY Biblical passage that clearly states that we must believe a woman over a man in any other circumstances, particularly when there are numerous examples of laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy that put more trust in the testimony of men and their accusations. (See e.g., the passages in Numbers which allow fathers and husbands to cancel oaths by a woman, or the passage where a woman is accused of being unfaithful and must be taken to a priest to make a determination rather than simply asking the woman... or even the same chapter in Deuteronomy which we're discussing where a false claim of virginity is treated by stoning the woman to death, but a false accusation that a woman was not a virgin is treated by fining the man and forcing him to be married to the woman for the rest of his life... a similar penalty to rape passage a few verses later.)
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday November 20 2016, @09:20PM
From the link:
25 But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. 27 Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to rescue her.
When a woman accuses a man of rape, and their are no witnesses to disprove her, she is innocent and he is guilty. Period.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @10:52PM
When a woman accuses a man of rape, and their are no witnesses to disprove her, she is innocent and he is guilty. Period.
Except if he gags her, in which case she is to be stoned to death for not crying out. (Period?)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 21 2016, @10:31PM
Not "If a woman, ..."
"If a woman *who is promised as property to a man* ..."
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday November 21 2016, @12:41AM
After reading this thread, all I can say is Fuck the Bible, Fuck the Koran and thank the earth I walk on that I live in a place where neither of these insane works hold much sway in the law.