Saudi gang rape victim sentenced to lashes and prison

[Johnny Canuck3]

which begs the question, why is the legal system inefficient and/or unfair?

Er, because it decrees that a woman who was gang raped is to be whipped?

 

[subversplat]

Er, because it decrees that a woman who was gang raped is to be whipped?

I thought the question was the other way around, as in "Why has the legal system come to be..."

 

[Spion]

Er, because it decrees that a woman who was gang raped is to be whipped?

That's describing it - answering the 'how' question - rather than answering the 'why' question

What we have with Saudi is a society that was tribal and nomadic to within 3.5 generations ago, with one dominant clan. Then came oil and revenues that solidified that power structure while in some ways modernising it too. Now we have a society that is in some regards very rich, but with social structures and institutions that reflect that lack of development from tribal to modern.

Our society played that sort of development out over hundreds of years and is well-formed (tho not without its fissures). Saudi is like a child that grew to 6'4" in its first 18 months - it's all out of balance and malformed

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

That's describing it - answering the 'how' question - rather than answering the 'why' question

What we have with Saudi is a society that was tribal and nomadic to within 3.5 generations ago, with one dominant clan. Then came oil and revenues that solidified that power structure while in some ways modernising it too. Now we have a society that is in some regards very rich, but with social structures and institutions that reflect that lack of development from tribal to modern.

Our society played that sort of development out over hundreds of years and is well-formed (tho not without its fissures). Saudi is like a child that grew to 6'4" in its first 18 months - it's all out of balance and malformed

So it's a Saudi thing, as opposed to an islamic thing?

 

[Spion]

So it's a Saudi thing, as opposed to an islamic thing?

I don't know the roots of the anti-woman thing in Saudi Islam, and clearly not every Islamic country has the same attitudes to women, so it's not just Islam that's the cause

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The judges, basing their decision on Islamic law, also decided to sentence the woman and her original blackmailer to lashes for being alone together in his car.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256980,00.html

 

[Spion]

Errr, yeah, I thought we already had a link to this story. But then Fox News - it's good to up the quality of information we have, eh?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The Saudi Gazette and The Scotsman contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256980,00.html

 

[Spion]

One more time, for good measure? Some people may not have seen it

 

[isvicthere?]

You've gotta actually sit down and really imagine what's going on here, really think about it. A big man with an appalling whip lashing a defenceless woman who's been raped several time 200 times, half turning her into a raw lump of meat, never mind the dreadful damage mentally. And you gotta sit down and think how can people, cousins, fathers, brothers, throw stones at a young woman from their very own family. Throw stones at her head, body, enough times until she collapses and finally dies this torturous death.

It really brings home the power of cultural conditioning. What appears utterly beastly, and pitilessly barbaric to us is right and desirable to people brought up within a different paradigm. It reminds me of a bloke I used to know who was really left wing. He once honestly admitted to me that had he been a young German in the 1920s he almost certainly would have supported Hitler. It's all about the context.

 

[EddyBlack]

How much longer till you pass out?

Yes well I was pretty much getting there. Sorry Johnny, I take those comments back.
Sorry Warren.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yes well I was pretty much getting there. Sorry Johnny, I take those comments back.
Sorry Warren.

It's not a problem.

 

[Grandma Death]

It really brings home the power of cultural conditioning. What appears utterly beastly, and pitilessly barbaric to us is right and desirable to people brought up within a different paradigm. It reminds me of a bloke I used to know who was really left wing. He once honestly admitted to me that had he been a young German in the 1920s he almost certainly would have supported Hitler. It's all about the context.

Sorry thats cultural relativism bollocks.

 

[Spion]

Sorry thats cultural relativism bollocks.

More like the bloke he refers to is a complete arse. Millions of Germans opposed the rise of Nazism between the wars and many paid with their lives for it

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

both of you seem to have wildly missed the point.

 

[fela fan]

It really brings home the power of cultural conditioning. What appears utterly beastly, and pitilessly barbaric to us is right and desirable to people brought up within a different paradigm.

This may be true, but to what extent?

I would argue that it's not so much where you're from, just as whether you have adopted the human way of life, where you recognise that such behaviour is simply wrong. The only way to think that such actions are acceptable, never mind with a sense of justice being served, is through non-human ways. It is all about destruction, and only humans who have taken a wrong turning are happy to be destructive.

The ruling elite in saudi arabia are clearly some of the most barbaric humans treading our earth. And they're allies of US and UK...

 

[Badger Kitten]

What appears utterly beastly, and pitilessly barbaric to us is right and desirable to people brought up within a different paradigm

No it appears utterly beastly and pitilessly barbaric to pretty much everyone including the victim which is why it is international news

 

[stretchy18]

IIRC there was a 14 year old girl strung up for being gang raped in some arsehole of a country not long ago

I've just come from a country where I didn't see any women at all, my driver with 4 wives and 18 kids took time off for the circumcision/mutilation of his daughter

Industrial disputes ended with 16 deaths and revenge killings which echo on for years

The "men" were the campest bunch of halfwits I've ever met, eyelash batting skinny boys holding hands and mincing round the desert in dresses and high heel sandals combined with the big daggers and Aks they use to signal their apparent "Machismo"

I've never come across a culture that is that fucked up in terms of values, morals, status and hierachy

Feel free to knock me on my cultural stereo types but this was across the board. a terrible bunch of people

I've binned the job off as I couldn't stay there any longer, may have to go some where more civilised...............................like Iraq

 

[_angel_]

It really brings home the power of cultural conditioning. What appears utterly beastly, and pitilessly barbaric to us is right and desirable to people brought up within a different paradigm. It reminds me of a bloke I used to know who was really left wing. He once honestly admitted to me that had he been a young German in the 1920s he almost certainly would have supported Hitler. It's all about the context.

Oh dear this comment reminds me of a handwringing piece in ver gruniad about how bride burning in India. The piece wasn't looking at how awful the suffering of the young girl was, but sympathising with the perpetrator(s) (mostly in the cases cited the mother in law) and saying how awful it was for them to be punished for it. Because it was 'their culture' and they 'didn't understand it was wrong'.

Which is absolute b/s. Anyone dousing someone in petrol and striking a match knows what they're doing.

Patronising crap, like yr post.

 

[Spion]

Which is absolute b/s. Anyone dousing someone in petrol and striking a match knows what they're doing.

Sure they know what they're doing, but them actually believing it's wrong is quite another

 

[CyberRose]

Sure they know what they're doing, but them actually believing it's wrong is quite another

Who gives a shit whether or not they know it's wrong or not?

I'm sure some paedophiles think what they are doing is perfectly normal but that doesn't get taken into consideration when sentencing does it?

There are, imo, numerous universal rights and wrongs and just because some culture thinks its right to commit horrible acts of oppression against someone does not make it acceptable. Its not acceptable and never will be, and they should be made well aware of that (don't give me any cultural bollocks about telling other cultures what to do because cultures across Europe used to torture and oppress people until they learned "this wasn't acceptable" - no reason why other cultures can't figure it out too)

 

[Spion]

Who gives a shit whether or not they know it's wrong or not?

All I said was the blindingly obvious point that the people who do these things obviously think it's right. Why would anyone give a shit about that? I would think that if one was attempting to come up with, for example, a modernising policy in an African or Asian country against, say, bride burning or circumcision then it'd be best to understand why people do such things to be able to educate them out of the practice.

There are, imo, numerous universal rights and wrongs and just because some culture thinks its right to commit horrible acts of oppression against someone does not make it acceptable.

You might do, and I might do. But if 'some culture thinks its right' then it's clearly not universal, is it?

Its not acceptable and never will be, and they should be made well aware of that

Fair enough. But poor families in under-developed societies who believe that the things they do will affects their fortunes in life clearly aren't going to drop their age-old practices because somone says, 'that's naughty, stop it!'

NB: I'm not talking about the Saudi state here. I'm talking about the kind of folk practices we find distasteful, like circumcision etc

 

[_angel_]

Who gives a shit whether or not they know it's wrong or not?

I'm sure some paedophiles think what they are doing is perfectly normal but that doesn't get taken into consideration when sentencing does it?

There are, imo, numerous universal rights and wrongs and just because some culture thinks its right to commit horrible acts of oppression against someone does not make it acceptable. Its not acceptable and never will be, and they should be made well aware of that (don't give me any cultural bollocks about telling other cultures what to do because cultures across Europe used to torture and oppress people until they learned "this wasn't acceptable" - no reason why other cultures can't figure it out too)

That's a good point. A paedophile has sex/ rapes a child because they believe it's okay. Should we as a society go 'that's okay they just need a bit of re education?'

 

[CyberRose]

You might do, and I might do. But if 'some culture thinks its right' then it's clearly not universal, is it?

Universal rights means they should be applied universally, not that everyone agrees with them (I dare say a fair few people in this country do not agree with universal suffrage)

Fair enough. But poor families in under-developed societies who believe that the things they do will affects their fortunes in life clearly aren't going to drop their age-old practices because somone says, 'that's naughty, stop it!'

I don't think we should tell them they're being naughty, I think we should impose tough sanctions on them like we did with South Africa, isolate them politically.

NB: I'm not talking about the Saudi state here. I'm talking about the kind of folk practices we find distasteful, like circumcision etc

I think all horrible acts we do not agree with should be challenged

 

[DexterTCN]

That's a good point. A paedophile has sex/ rapes a child because they believe it's okay. Should we as a society go 'that's okay they just need a bit of re education?'

Well it's not a good point at all.

Spion was saying that these things are culturally acceptable, where the people practising it live. Culture and amorality cannot be conflated.

And as to your opinion as to why pedos rape kiddies 'believing it is ok' is well far from the mark, I'm sure.

In fact the only thing you got right imo was where you said re-education is needed, but even then you were being sarcastic.

 

[CyberRose]

Spion was saying that these things are culturally acceptable, where the people practising it live

Acceptable by who?

Have you asked everyone in Saudi Arabia?

Are you sure that everyone is free to actually say what they consider acceptable or not?

Where does being free to express what you find acceptable end and where does religious brainwashing start?

I'm sorry but I do not buy these "culturally acceptable" arguments because we are all human and are all programmed the same way. The most obvious example is sex. No matter who you are, or what you believe in, your body, at various times, tells you that you want sex. The desire for sex is completely natural so there is no way in hell people are not going to want to have sex (just ask members of the Saudi regime what they get up to on their weekends away to Beirut or the Emirates and they'll tell you!). Even the most religious persons in the world are going to have those urges. So to criminalise people for having consensual sex, to me, goes against what every human in the world is programmed to do and therefore these arguments about culturally acceptable don't wash with me.

 

[invisibleplanet]

You all realise that she won her appeal, don't you?

 

[CyberRose]

You all realise that she won her appeal, don't you?

Yes but I think the point that she was sentenced to 200 lashes in the first place for simply meeting a man that she wasn't related to is worthy of discussion no?

 

[invisibleplanet]

Did I imply it wasn't worthy of discussion?

 

[CyberRose]

Did I imply it wasn't worthy of discussion?

It sounded like you perhaps thought it less worthy of discussion as she won her appeal. Obviously you didn't