Dubai Rape Case Update
Here is an update on the case where the 15 year old French boy was kidnapped, taken to the desert and raped, and then the accused said it was consensual. The parents took them to court – and two have now been convicted; the third has yet to be tried. The doctor who examined this boy told the boy he was a homosexual, that there were no signs of rape. The parents were outraged, and pursued the case.
You can read the entire BBC Story HERE.
Emiratis jailed for raping youth
A court in Dubai, in the UAE, has jailed two men for 15 years for the abduction and sexual assault of a 15-year-old French-Swiss boy.
The men, one of whom is HIV positive, took the teenager to the desert and raped him at knifepoint.
The victim’s mother, Veronique Robert, says the authorities lied about the defendant’s medical status to hide the fact that Aids is present in the UAE.
“Fifteen years is nothing for someone who knew he had Aids,” she said.
A lawyer for the family said they would appeal against what they saw as a too-lenient sentence. A juvenile court is trying a third suspect in the same case.
The defence had claimed the victim had consented to sex and had lied to the authorities.
Treatment missed
Ms Robert has been campaigning to change the law in the United Arab Emirates to recognise homosexual rape as a crime and for more openness about HIV and Aids.
Blog Content
I have a feeling I already know the answer to this question, but here goes. In WordPress, you can see when people have referenced your articles in their blogs. Recently, I’ve been getting lots and lots of references. The websites that are quoting me are not bloggers like the Kuwait Blogs aggregated by Safat, but are blogs selling – in particular – Paxil, which I don’t even know what it is, but also some gambling sites, sites my content really has nothing to do with. Sites I am not sure I even want to be associated with.
Some actually give me credit, as Intlxpatr or Here, There and Everywhere, but some – even while they give a trackback to my blog – say something like MillionDollarWinner today posted on Christmas in Seattle . . . and there is one of MY blog entries.
So my question – is there anything I can do to stop this? (I think the answer is probably “no”) I have left comments on a couple saying they shouldn’t be stealing my content, but then nothing changes, and they have a valid blog address for me . . . What is my best course of action/inaction?
Do any of you have this same problem, people stealing your content?
Dharfur: Cat in Charge of Protecting the Mice
Today on an interview on BBC, I heard the UN Secretary General saying that the man appointed to be the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs had been responsible for co-ordinating and authorizing many of the Janjaweed attacks on Dharful villages. It’s the kind of thing that is so stunningly outrageous that sometimes I can barely wrap my mind around it.
I found an article on BBC News: Africa in which it says the following:
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he had strong evidence that the Sudanese Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmad Harun and the leader of the pro-government Janjaweed militia, Ali Kuchayb, were involved in attacks on civilians in Darfur.
The leadership of the Sudan pretends to be co-operating, pretends to be looking for solutions and working with the United Nations, and does exactly what it pleases, which is to work toward accomplishing the extermination of the people of Dharfur.
Happy Birthday, Law and Order Man
Thrills change as life goes on. We had a big thrill this week. We got a call from our son, a felony prosecutor, and we could tell from the second we answered the phone that he was happy, more than happy. You don’t hear this kind of happy all that often – it’s exaltation. It’s the call when he met “the ONE,” the look on his face when he graduated from law school, the sound of his voice when he snagged the exact job he wanted – prosecutor – in his field, his joy on the day he was married, and now, putting a bad guy away.
He just won a major case. You would think that this is a common occurrence, but it isn’t necessarily. The police have to gather the right evidence, the chain of custody has to be flawless, your witnesses have to be strong . . . one time, for example, his prime witness against the accused got on the stand and said SHE did it, not the gal she was supposed to be testifying against. She changed her story. Our son thinks they may have been watching Law and Order, or something, and figured out how to screw with the court.
This time, though, he had a major win, and put a bad man away for a long time. Every now and then, you get that exhilarated feeling that you are doing exactly what you are created to do – and we could hear it in his voice.
Thanks be to God. As parents, all you want is for your children to find their happiness, to find the purpose for which they were created, to find a good mate/partner to walk through life with. We don’t wish our children a life without struggles – struggles help you become who you are meant to be. Struggles are normal. Oh, how we dance with joy when you struggle and you prevail. We are dancing for joy for you, son.
Happy Birthday, dear son. We wish you a year full of wonderful new experiences.
Jail Problems in Seattle
When I was blogging about the upsurge of antibiotic resistant infections springing up in more hospitals, our son sent an article about problems in the Pensacola Jails. Arriving in Seattle, the Seattle Times published a report of jail violations in this area, including rising rates of MRSA related infections.
The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a sweeping condemnation of the operation of the downtown King County Jail, saying inmates’ civil rights are being routinely violated through physical and sexual abuse by staff and inadequate medical care.
King County officials released a 27-page letter from the Department of Justice’s Civil rights Division which says that the department has notified county officials of “life-threatening deficiencies in medical care” for some inmates at the jail and alleges that inmates were routinely pepper-sprayed by staff and subjected to “degrading” physical abuse, including hair pulling to force inmates to comply with guards’ orders.
The DOJ says the county has failed to adequately train its staff and has inadequate policies and procedures in place to protect inmates.
The Department of Adult and Juvenile Corrections’ internal investigations unit is also inadequate and routinely fails to follow up on reports of inmates complaints, the DOJ alleges.
Jail Director Reed Holtgeerts said the jail is addressing many of the issues but that the county disagrees that inmates rights are being violated.
“We strive at all times to provide safe, secure and humane conditions for the over 50,000 inmates for whom we are responsible each year,” according to a written statement released today by the county. “We disagree that the constitutional rights are being violated, but we are in complete agreement with DOJ that there is room for improvement in the areas they evaluated.”
Holtgeerts said the county has and will cooperate completely with the DOJ.
The DOJ says a lawsuit could be filed if the county fails to address the issues.
The DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into the King County Jail in November. Much of the investigation focused on jail health issues, including the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, a highly contagious bacteria that can lead to severe infections and even death. At least one jail inmate has died from a MRSA infection and hundreds of others are diagnosed every year.
Other issues the DOJ said it would look at included jail suicides and sexual abuse of inmates.
You can read the entire article HERE
Saudis Uphold Rape Victim Penalty
Several bloggers have brought this situation to public attention; BBC provides the full update HERE:
Authorities in Saudi Arabia have defended a judicial sentence of 200 lashes for a rape victim.
The justice ministry said in a statement that the sentence was justified because the woman was in a car with an unrelated man.
The case has aroused controversy at home and condemnation abroad.
The 19-year-old, who has not been named, was travelling in a car with a male friend last year, when the car was attacked by a gang of seven men who raped both of them.
She has become known as the “Qatif girl”, a reference to the largely Shia town which she comes from.
Four of the men were convicted of kidnapping – but the court also sentenced the woman and her friend to receive 90 lashes each for the crime of “illegal mingling”.
Last week the court increased the woman’s sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison.
It also banned her lawyer from the courtroom and took away his licence.
Most of the world was outraged when the penalty was doubled because the victim went public.
On What Grounds?
Let’s see. This guy was convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment, and upon appeal, his verdict was upheld. Then an upper court of appeals judge reverses the conviction. When the Arab Times prints a story like this, they need also to report what the judge said, on what grounds he overturned the conviction, dont’ you think?
Bedoun acquitted in kidnap, sale of maid to Asian pimps
KUWAIT CITY: The Court of Appeals Wednesday overturned the verdict of a lower court and acquitted a Bedoun taxi driver, identified as Mohammed S., who had been charged with kidnapping and selling an Asian housemaid to three Bangladeshi pimps.
On March 4, 2007, the Criminal Court had sentenced the driver to life imprisonment in absentia. He submitted an objection letter to the same court, but the court upheld the verdict.
According to case papers the driver promised the victim a better job and lured her to run away from her sponsor. On June 17, 2006, the maid escaped from her sponsor. The accused waited for her in his taxi with two Bangladeshi men and the ‘four’ drove to an apartment in Riqei. There the maid was introduced to another Bangladeshi.
The man, who gave her shelter in his apartment, informed her that he had bought her from the driver for KD 150. The confused maid discovered she had been tricked and requested to go to the bathroom. In an attempt to escape by climbing down from the drainage pipes, she slipped and fell to the ground.
The building caretaker informed the authorities and police investigations revealed the apartment was rented by the driver, who reportedly went underground after the incident.
The session was presided by Judge Ibrahim Al-Obaid.
Rape in Dubai
I saw this in ChillNight’s blog yesterday with a link to the Herald Trib, which wouldn’t work for me. Today, my niece,Little Diamond, sent me the same article with a link to the New York Times which did work. This is the third most e-mailed article this week; it is attracting a lot of attention world wide. About time.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 — Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade.
Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.
There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.
Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubai’s luxury hotel towers.
Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai’s status as the Arab world’s paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.
You can read the rest of the article at The New York Times.
Of course, I am sick for the victim, sick for his parents, and sick for a nation that can’t and won’t prosecute the rapists, even with evidence, and warns the victim to leave the country because he is about to be accused of the crime of homosexuality.
Rape is an invisible crime. You can’t look at someone and see they have been raped. Many, many rape victims never report the crime. This 15 year old kid has the courage to go public with probably one of the most humiliating crimes that can happen to a person and HE is threatened with prison?
Poor Witness
I had hoped to miss the worst of the traffic yesterday morning when I got on the highway, but for some reason, traffic was still heavy. Suddenly, in less time than it takes for me to write it and for you to read it, there were silver and red sparkles in the air, a shrieking of tires, and a car two cars in front of me trying to regain control, bouncing between two lanes.
Everything slowed to an almost halt, without – thanks be to God – any further collisions. One car, weaving in and out, had clipped another.
I’ve often been amazed at how closely these cars whip in and out without crashing. I think I’ve just never seen it happen before. That impact sends the car that’s hit totally out of control. By the grace of God, no one appeared to be physically injured.
I wondered if I should stop, but I realized I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know for sure which car had been the hitter and which had been the hittee. I would be a very poor witness. All I saw was this firework like explosion of silver and red – the tail light, I am guessing. And heard the sickening screech of tires as both cars tried to avoid a more serious collision.
A good witness isn’t someone who is guessing. I continued on. Saw the aftermath of an almost identical accident just another kilometer up the road. The good news is that it slowed down the traffic, made it more meditative. . . life is short, folks. There is nowhere we have to be in that big of a hurry.
NY Cover Giggle
I can’t help it, this just gave me such a giggle.
From The New Yorker
The cartoon refers both to an American senator, Larry Craig, caught playing footsie with the cop in the next stall in the Minneapolis airport and Ahmadinajad playing footsie with nuclear power.
YouTubers had a field day with Craig’s guilty plea, and then reversal. Here is one:
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