General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnd yet another reason to stay out of the UAE.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/article/-/17094076/abandoned/Dubai is being promoted as a luxury high-class paradise in the desert, but the reality is brutally different, as Australian Alicia Gali discovered. Gali took a job in the UAE with one of the worlds biggest hotel chains, Starwood. What happened next makes this story a must-watch for every Australian planning on travelling through the region.
Gali was using her laptop in the hotels staff bar when her drink was spiked. She awoke to a nightmare beyond belief: she had been savagely raped by three of her colleagues. Alone and frightened, she took herself to hospital. What Alicia didnt know is that under the UAEs strict sharia laws, if the perpetrator does not confess, a rape cannot be convicted without four adult Muslim male witnesses. She was charged with having illicit sex outside marriage, and thrown in a filthy jail cell for eight months.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)The fundamentalists are pushing their agenda onto the non religious more and more.
It's a great shame.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)lots of reasons not to go to Israel, but that one is pretty ridiculous. There's actually increasing backlash on the fundamentalists there and they certainly aren't going to throw you in jail if you're a victim of rape.
GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)When they stop with the repression of women and the rest of the religiously insane nonsense maybe Israel would be worth a visit.
Though I look on Israel, along with most of the middle east, as places that aren't on my "most wanted to visit" list. Most of it having to do with the culture and some of it to do with the weather.
uponit7771
(90,359 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)I'm still surprised when people are surprised that foreign countries act foreign.
Who knew you couldn't go to a region that gives women no rights, rapes, and kills them without cause and expect to have a great time just like back home in a civilized place like Austrailia or Europe?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Not so much money marketing the primitive sharia laws that hundreds of millions of people live under.
Demoiselle
(6,787 posts)NoMoreWarNow
(1,259 posts)despite your world-weariness
GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)Woman is raped. Woman reports said rape. Woman is arrested and held in jail.
As I said in my subject line - another reason to stay out of the UAE>
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)THis story reminds me of people sailing their boats in areas known for piracy.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)represents itself as a western party town. It doesnt advertise that you can easily fall prey to Sharia law issues.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)I just googled Dubai westnerers arrested and came up with loads of cases
cali
(114,904 posts)that this woman did anything reckless or that ignorance played into her victimization.
sick shit blaming the victim and excusing the perps and the culture.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)it.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)as you probably know. Certainly, I support women's equality.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)mainer
(12,025 posts)For the tourist, it seems like a weird, over-the-top version of Vegas.
For those who work there (many of them poor Filipinos or Indians) it's a cage where you have no rights. Even if you're third-generation living in UAE, you cannot become a citizen. Of the entire population in the UAE, only 10% are citizens. So it's 90% servants tending to the 10% privileged. And those privileged don't even know how to work.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Mohammad ruled it requires four witnesses to testify about a woman being UNFAITHFUL to her husband, but RAPE is another story altogether. There has NEVER been a requirement for four witnesses to rape in Islamic law.
In a similar incident a British woman was raped, but two of the rapists were JAILED for the crime (The third skipped town):
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/call-me-a-survivor-says-gang-raped-woman-in-dubai-1.1155077
Now UAE has a ban on drinking that is NOT enforced in the Hotels, but will be enforced if a rape victim goes to the Police and said she had been drinking, thus you get reports of victims being fined while the rapist walk:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/briton-says-she-was-raped-in-the-uae--but-gets-fined-for-drinking-8390574.html
The Police then look for the Rapists, but that is a separate crime from using alcohol in the UAE. If The rapist are caught, they are Jailed UNLESS the rapist have political connections then they walk. This reflects the Tribal nature of the UAE, a victim's family is suppose to force the issue not the courts. If no extended family is involved (as in the above case with the British woman being rapped and her Iranian rapists going to jail), the courts have a simple time with jailing such rapists. On the other hand, if the victim is raped by someone from one of the tribes of the UAE, the UAE courts will stay out of the dispute unless forced to do so by the actions of the Victim's family. If a native UAE woman was the victim, her family will force the issue, but using one's extended family has NOT been the practice in the West since the Catholic Church outlawed Marrying one's cousin in the Dark Ages (Marrying Cousins is one way an extended family strengthen itself against outside forces).
Sorry, this sounds like the victim was raped by someone with Political Connections with one of the extended families (Otherwise known as "Clans" or "Tribes" of the UAE. The Rapist may being members of such a family and can count on that family's protection. The Victim may be trying to force her Government to do what her "Tribe" would have done had she been a member of a Arabic Tribe. Will her Government put the pressure on the UAE?
Just a comment that something is NOT as it is written in this report.