Saudi Justice: 10 Years and 2,000 Lashes For Internet Video of Naked Dancing 537
An anonymous reader writes with a link to The Huffington Post, which reports "that a Saudi man was sentenced to 2,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for dancing naked on the roof of a car and posting the video online, according to multiple reports. Three other men were also sentenced to three to seven years in jail and hundreds of lashes each for the incident, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Arabic-language paper Al-Sharq. The four men were hit with a number of charges, including "encouraging vice" and violating public morality, according to the report. The prosecutor in the case, which was heard by a judge in Saudi Arabia's conservative Al-Qassem province, reportedly objected to the sentences for being "too lenient," Gulf News notes. The video was reportedly circulated widely on the Internet, but could not be found by The Huffington Post."
Re:Why do we bother with the barbarians? (Score:4, Interesting)
They abuse women, have a cave man's idea of a criminal justice system, are a theocracy and fund terrorism. What else do they need to do before we decide to stop tolerating their shit?
Are we still talking about Saudi Arabia?
Re:Coming soon to your country. (Score:4, Interesting)
> Yes, there are hate crimes... but usually someone caught doing a "fag bash" will get a 10+ year
> sentence just due to the pressure put on the judge and DA by the press and other groups.
But of course, part of that is because violent crime isn't generally all that punishable itself without "hate crimes". We had a prosecutor arguing to extend hate crimes legislation to homeless people.
Why? Because a homeless man was beat within an inch of his life by two guys for kicks, and because there was nothing stolen, no home to invade, and no defined hate crime, they were out in a couple of months...for coming just short of murder.
Seemed to me at the time the problem was not that homeless people need a special designation but that violent crime is poorly differentiated and there are gaping holes in the law that they are now trying to fix....with duct tape.
Re:Why do we bother with the barbarians? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm unclear on one point here, since you're using the broad term "theocracy" (any religion's government would be the same for all practical purposes? Taoism? Zen?)...
The criminal justice system in the West is formed entirely from norms formed from its Judeo-Christian history.
The cave man has no basis by which to consider any action better or worse ethically than any other action, and neither do you, today.
Go ahead. Show me on the basis of Naturalistic evolution how anything about this, or anything else, is at all is the least objectionable, should the action happen to net out in more efficiently propagating one's own DNA, by any indirect route.
Re:Why do we bother with the barbarians? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why the UAE is trying to kick-start a world-leading financial industry. Their plan is to throw oil money into getting it started, so once the oil money runs out they'll have a new service industry ready to take over.
Re:Human rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they're not, under international law. There is no way to justify Sharia law with human rights other than by abandoning the concept of human rights altogether.
In fact, most Islamic countries try to do exactly this because they don't have a legal construct by which human rights can be acknowledged. Under Sharia, humans don't have rights, god has rights, humans only have responsibilities to god.
This is why the UN Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml [un.org]
Is drastically re-written by most Islamic countries:
http://www.alhewar.com/ISLAMDECL.html [alhewar.com]
In the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, one has the right to obey god without question or hesitation. Here, "rights" are derived from divine law, and though there is lip service paid to the freedom of religion, every country that has adopted it has interpreted it as intended, that is, that everyone has the right to obey the Koran, the hadith, and the sunnah.
Re:Stop Dismissing this with False Equivalencies (Score:2, Interesting)
A lot of your points either have no basis at all or are ill-informed. I'd just like to state here that I'm from Pakistan and I've lived their for 30 years (pretty much all of my life, can't vouch for anything that happens in Saudi though).
* It's not the women only who are 'routinely' murdered, it happens to men too, and as frequently. The problem is not religious, but cultural (please mind the difference).
* I've never heard of such a room in my entire life, may be it's more prevalent in Saudi.
* There is no law in Islam that states that female testimony is not valid. Only that it takes 2 women's testimony to be counted as 1.
* I'm not sure where you got this from, but it's kind of rare to even hear of it in news, and news in Pakistan spread quite rapidly.
* Yes, that is true, and I'm totally against it. Fair point.
* The driving part is also true, and it is kind of stupid. Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) wives used to ride camels, used to go out on their own and do all the chores, so it's ridiculous to not follow that and follow your own ideas.
P.S. I'm not here to justify anything I've said above, I'm only stating the facts and correcting the wrong perceptions of people who think Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and Egypt are one and the same!
Re:Why do we bother with the barbarians? (Score:4, Interesting)
The US spent the 80s arming Saddam for his war with Iran, and he borrowed money from Kuwait to finance his war. When it was over, Kuwait refused to discharge the debt. They also refused to raise prices and cut oil supply, both of which would have helped Iraq pay off its war debt. Saddam bitched the US, and the US said "deal with it yourself," after spending over a decade and a half helping him out. Saddam felt betrayed by the US, and invaded Kuwait to show them a thing or two about his ability to wage a war. The US has had a history going back decades of getting involved with Middle Eastern politics, and its bit them in the ass on more than a few occasions. Shah of Iran, anyone?
Re:Why do we bother with the barbarians? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I am arguing that theocracies aren't inherently a bad idea, primarily because of the fact they aren't inherently a bad idea.
Including the context of the post I was responding to in this discussion, it is the responsibility of the person arguing against a "theocracy" to define it in a meaningful way and thereafter use it consistently.
Since he/she didn't, I'll give you the opportunity again here--what do you mean by "theocracy", specifically? Again, if we are talking about all religions, are you suggesting that a government of Taoist religious leaders, holding as their perspective there is some broad, spiritual "world force" that aligning oneself with will lead subtly to a more harmonious existence, and who do not have any particular behavioral mandates at all, would be functionally the same to you as a government of Islamic extremists?
But, really, the Argument From A Void gets a bit tiresome. You are arguing the preferability of a government founded on the basis of ethical axioms that are nonexistent. I'm sure you'll claim there are valid ones you can back, that you have to offer as a suitable alternate guiding ethical framework for government. You don't. Assuming you're even going to have enough personal consideration of the question to forward one of the historical ethical systems proposed by secular philosophy, of which I submit I am probably well-more versed in than you, a bit of discussion of the "is-ought dichotomy", as well known in formal philosophy (and particularly unanswerable to a material-reductionistic worldview) should rapidly disabuse you of the notion you have a functional system.
You have what ethics you've culturally assimilated from present Western culture--that is, you have it because of religion. If you think you got it elsewhere, and think you can back that source as meaningful objectively, feel free to do so here.
The common complaint about religion in government is like arguing how you like your apartment's 10'th floor view, you just want to get rid of the building itself. You didn't build the floors beneath you. More importantly, you -can't- build those floors beneath you. 2500 years of unsuccessful attempts to do so, and build the most fragile, broad consensus on any core axiom in ethics by secular philosophy more than adequately demonstrates this.
So, in reality, you have a choice between religion as the basis for morality that the legal system broadly fashions itself after, or having nothing as that basis. In practice, that will mean we will continue, as we have been, having religion being the unstated formative underpinning, and anti-religion people pointlessly complaining about it, while offering no alternative.
Thus giving us a "quasi-theocracy". I don't know your degree of objection to that (that is, to reality) is, but when one sees "theocracy" equivocated and vague aspersions and non-arguments being presented regarding it, it generally doesn't bode well.
If nothing else, though, be clear that your claim as to the nature of a theocracy and citizen recourse as it is "by definition", is just false because of the actual definition, and what definitions actually are.
A religious leader could certainly set up any degree of "liberality" toward the citizen he/she found appropriate (and, indeed, were we discussing specifically Christianity, this is extensively advocated in its defining documents)--precisely as would be the case for a hypothetical atheist ruler. The only difference would be, there is generally an objective reference to refer to in terms of evaluating that leader's actions, as opposed to unbacked, ultimately-unaccountable secular whims. The results of such whims we saw quite clearly last century in the USSR, as having accomplished more genocide and public misery in 20 years, as a formally-atheist nation, formally and explicitly following an atheist agenda, than religion has in all of history.
Does this clarify my stance? If not, I'll need more information as to what exactly you are talking about with "theocracy".
Owning Rape Slaves legal in Saudi til 1960s (Score:0, Interesting)
Slavery was not abolished in Saudi Arabia until the 1960s. This was NOT a formality of a situation that was true for decades earlier. Almost every powerful male in Saudi Arabia owned rape slaves until this date.
The most famous Saudi is Bandar 'Bush'- so-called because he is a personal friend of the Bush crime family (the one that gave you Yanks THREE presidents, the third yet to take office). Bandar had a rape slave as a mother. And by rape slave, I MEAN rape slave- a woman purchased by his father for the single purpose of RAPING.
On Wikipedia, the usual zionist goons constantly erase the fact that Bandar's mother was a rape slave. Israel and Saudi Arabia are, of course, Siamese twins, and both receive absolute support and loyalty from those that rule the USA.
Saudi Arabia is NOT run by Muslims. The religion of the rulers of Saudi is actually a form of Judaism, and is one of the reasons Saudia Arabia and Israel are so closely linked. Of course, the people of Saudi Arabia are mostly Muslim by heritage, but the form of society they suffer under has NOTHING to do with Islam or the natural inclination of the ordinary people.
Saudi Arabia is kept by British, American, Israeli and French influence as a source of Islamic extremism that drives depraved, racist, violent thuggish movements into the hearts of nearby Muslim nations, denying these nations the ability to function as modern democratic states. If any nation with a Muslim heritage DARES to try to escape Saudi controlled theocracy, America and Britain ensure this nation is utterly destroyed (see Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran for examples).
The Saudi elite follow NONE of the rules of their nation. They drink, gamble, use prostitutes, and generally piss all over the holy books of Islam. Meanwhile they fund schools of ultra religious extremism (identical to those found in Israel and Pakistan) that create the vile 'religious' goons that keep the ordinary people in their place.
Today, Saudi Arabia still has tens of thousands of rape slaves, but they are foolish migrant workers who lose all rights once they enter Saudi Arabia. While technically, treating these workers is illegal, Saudi Arabia uses RELIGIOUS law in place of civil and criminal law, which means the word of a master ALWAYS outweighs the word of a servant. Declaring yourself a victim of sexual assault in Saudi Arabia, for instance, is a self-confession of 'illegal' sexual activity, unless you can find FOUR witnesses to the rape.
Filthy filthy shills, posing as citizens of this depraved nation, will attempt to deny what is written above. They MAY point to cases where Westerners have received something approaching true justice, but this is a farce. Of course the filth that 'rule' Saudi Arabia do what the British and American governments tell them to do. If a citizen from Western nation is being mistreated, and the case reaches the attention of the public in the West, Bandar and the other Saudi depravities bend over backwards to seem reasonable.
However, most people that go to Saudi are from third-world nations, whose governments have no influence or power to protect their citizens. Migrant female workers from these nations, for instance, may NOT leave Saudi Arabia until they have been given forced pregnancy tests. If they are found to be pregnant, they are flogged (and I mean in the same brutal way slaves were flogged in the USA) and imprisoned. The doctors and nurses that conspire in these crimes against Humanity are frequently from the West, and are NEVER struck-off for engaging in such sickening, abusive and illegal (by UN conventions) acts.
Saudi Arabia does NOT simply have a culture different from our own. Saudi Arabia was created by the USA and UK. The perverted cult that controls Saudi Arabia was empowered EXCLUSIVELY by the USA, and has no popular support whatsoever. The evil of Saudi Arabia is entirely a post-war creation of the West power bloc to ensure no socialist unity arises from the nations of the Middle East.
Political activists in n
Re:Why do we bother with the barbarians? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know wikipedia makes a lousy citation [wikipedia.org], but you can go from there.
In case you don't understand why this would make sense, and can't be troubled to click the link:
Most oil sales throughout the world are denominated in United States dollars (USD). According to proponents of the petrodollar warfare hypothesis, because most countries rely on oil imports, they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of dollars in order to continue imports. This creates a consistent demand for USDs and puts upward pressure on the USD's value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States. This in turn allegedly allows the US government to gain revenues through seignorage and by issuing bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. As a result the U.S. government can run higher budget deficits at a more sustainable level than can most other countries.
-- Wikipedia
Re:Being a Saudi (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, dancing naked on the hood of a car—presumably in public—violates even America's public morality standards, and can get you jail time for indecent exposure [foxnews.com].