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posted by martyb on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-blame-the-messenger-—-charge-them dept.

TeleSUR reports:

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 21 2016, @08:34PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday November 21 2016, @08:34PM (#430816) Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:33PM (#431198)

    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.