Norwegian woman in Dubai raped: gets 1 year 4 months for "sex outside marriage"

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Because you are a guest in thier country.

So does that mean we don't have to respect the cultures of people who visit our country?

Candie wrote: »

That's exactly what the Irish did.

Rape victims pregnant out of wedlock were locked away in laundries and exploited as slaves for profit.

It may no longer be the case, but neither is it that long ago.

Yes, that happened. It doesn't anymore. Hence, we are progressive.

ScumLord wrote: »

I thought tourists could drink in their hotel?

I don't know why anyone would want to go to these places. I wouldn't step foot in the country, I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself with the fear of doing something wrong and ending up in prison.

Well a lot of people go for work, most of those 'do a few years' keeping their head down and get out of the place once they've made a bit of cash, it's not somewhere you'd want to retire.
What get's me are the fools who bough apartments in the middle of a scorching desert during the Dubai building boom and yack endlessly about 'how great the shopping there is!' Ugh. They are invariably the same 'types', absolute tossers, let them have their bling and shiny malls, there is real tension between a very resentful local population and the 'mass migrating' westerners, and cases like this are generally the result.

Boom_Bap wrote: »

We dont know the full circumstance of the girl in the articles story.

It sounds like she made the mistake of telling the police that she got raped.

=-=

The f**ked up thing about some interpretations of Sharia Law is that the if the womans family is of high standing within the community, her "dishonour" and his prison sentence gets migated if he marries her o.0

Sinfonia wrote: »

Yes, that happened. It doesn't anymore. Hence, we are progressive.

It happened less than 20 years ago. Not very progressive. And compared to the rest of the ME, SA is progressive, but this is thanks to the Kings view changing.

Having spent time in an Islamic country as a single male and again with the missus.
I can honestly say I would never move or travel again in a majority muslim country with my good lady.
The crap she got from the locals,filthy looks and a general unwelcome feeling because she did not wear the headgear.
To me its one massively flawed religion,they hate dogs ffs just one example.

OP, this is the middle east - are you even remotely surprised ?

Criminal men have more rights than women there...

I cant believe that nothing is being done about this by Norway, shame on them

Nuke the bastards !

I hope people won't use incidents like this to castigate all Muslims, as some are wont to do. Already I've seen posts in which the only apparent concern was in using the plight of this poor woman to have a go at Islam and Muslims.

Unlike many posting here, I actually live in the UAE and have, I think, a more nuanced outlook on things. Do cases like this arise? Yes, and they shouldn't. However, there are hundreds of thousands of ex-pat woman in the country who enjoy life there, and who wouldn't live anywhere else at the moment. It's completely unfair to label the entire country, its people, and Islam on the basis of this one incident. Are all Americans racist because of the Trayvon Martin verdict? Are all Indians rapists? Are all Irish people backward misogynists because of the Savita Halappanavar incident? Of course not- how then can Islam and Emiratis be condemned because of relatively isolated incidents like this?

As for te slave labour charges, well there is some merit to them. The average Indian or Pakistani construction worker gets paid approximately €200 a month from what I can gather. Taxi drivers and those in more "professional" jobs get paid more. Those lower down the professional ladder live in workers' camps outside the cities, and yes, their passports are sometimes confiscated.

Yet, there are nevertheless millions of such workers in the country, with more arriving every day. Their lives are certainly not easy, but it's obviously a better life than staying in their own countries. I did a little bit of research, and found that even those earning very low wages in the UAE are still on multiples of what they'd receive at home. From conversations I've had with such people, they are saving away with a view to building a better life for themselves and their families when they get home. The UAE affords them a brighter future, and quite often, a better quality of life, than if they stayed at home. I was speaking to one taxi driver recently, and he is putting his children to school in Pakistan, and hopes to have saved enough to open a convenience store when he returns to his home country in two years.

The conditions that workers toil in in the UAE have also been improving. Workers camps now generally have air conditioning, and the conditions, whilst basic, are certainly not squalid. I've travelled throughout Asia, and the conditions I see in the UAE are often a good deal better than those I've seen in many parts of Asia. Furthermore, laws have been enacted to improve the lot of such workers. They are now to have full health insurance; they cannot work in the middle of the day during the summer, and they have rights which can be upheld through recourse to the Labour Board etc. Are these rights universally applied- no. But in my apartment complex, all work on new buildings ceases for three hours around midday, and I know of workers who have had their rights vindicated through appeal to state bodies.

The UAE has come a massive way in a short few years. Twenty years ago, a huge percentage of the population was illiterate in Arabic, let alone English. The institutions there have been built entirely from scratch, and a society that was destitute, nomadic, and highly conservative a few decades ago, is now open to the world, and gradually maturing. This isn't to defend those who exploit workers, or to gloss over what happened to that Danis woman, or those like her, but rather to give a little context, and point out that entire peoples or religions cannot be condemned on the basis of such isolated incidents.

By way of aside-: to those criticising the UAE for the wages and conditions paid to workers- who do you think the workers appreciate more, Ireland, which won't let them near the country, or the UAE, where they can go and improve their lot? Easy to carp about the poor Indians and Pakistani while we stand atop our ivory fortress.

As to those who advocate the boycotting of the UAE, and wonder why woman expats in particular go there- again it's easy to make such statements when in secure employment at home. Some of us have little choice but to seek employment elsewhere.

I do not agree with this HOWEVER it is an added risk travelling to these area and it is well known their human rights are completely upside down and this sort of thing can happen. Travelling to that area has the added risk of this sort of madness happening.