Norwegian woman sentenced to 16 months jail in Dubai after reporting rape

[Famous Mortimer]

If you drink alcohol in the UAE, you are kind of stupid.

Doesn't justify the treatment but still.

Also, any company that sends a single woman to the UAE on a business trip is a morally reprehensible and/or stupid.

If I was a woman, I simply wouldn't go. I might quit. If they paid me a massive amount, I might reconsider but I would be on edge the whole time, I would never let my guard down, certainly never drink.

[Silent Hunter]

You can get alcohol in the UAE; just only in hotels, IIRC.

[dead0man]

she's been released

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good to know. I hope she'll soon manage to get out of this sh*tty excuse of a country.

[opebo]

It is really too bad we ever let extraterritoriality slip away in the colonies.

[Mr. Morden]

Yeah, she's been pardoned: http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-norwegian-rape-dubai-pardoned-20130722,0,7666359.story

[Cory]

Yeah, she's been pardoned: http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-norwegian-rape-dubai-pardoned-20130722,0,7666359.story

The "soft" power of the West wins again.

[Mr. Morden]

Apparently her alleged attacker had also been charged with having sex outside of marriage and consumption of alcohol (but not rape), and he's now been pardoned too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Apparently her alleged attacker had also been charged with having sex outside of marriage and consumption of alcohol (but not rape), and he's now been pardoned too.

[politicus]

Apparently her alleged attacker had also been charged with having sex outside of marriage and consumption of alcohol (but not rape), and he's now been pardoned too.

Yes a 33 year old Sudanese guy. He only got 12 months, 4 months less than his victim, because she was also convicted for false accusations. The double pardon is logical seen from their POV because they where both convicted for the same "crimes".

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Apparently her alleged attacker had also been charged with having sex outside of marriage and consumption of alcohol (but not rape), and he's now been pardoned too.

Yes a 33 year old Sudanese guy. He only got 12 months, 4 months less than his victim, because she was also convicted for false accusations. The double pardon is logical seen from their POV because they where both convicted for the same "crimes".

Since their system did not merely find that her rape claim was not provable beyond a reasonable doubt but could be proven to be false, then yes they were both convicted of the same crimes with no quotes needed.  Now one can dispute whether her claims were provably false beyond a reasonable doubt and of course here in the West, illicit sex and drinking are no longer seen crimes, but the UAE is not part of the West.  Would you advocate Sharia law being used to judge people from Dubai who are sojurning in Denmark?

[Sbane]

I don't intend to waste time in google searches or stuff like that, but come on, I'm sure you know that, even as far as in the early 20th century, women who claimed to have been raped were, at best, told to shut up,

At best?  Come on man, you know that's not true.  Maybe they didn't get the support they usually get today, but the best they got was certainly better than being told to "shut up"

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Indeed, the local culture of Steubenville is horrible....or the society there...I don't funking know, but look how the rest of the country reacted to it.  Is the rest of the UAE or the Arabian peninsula blowing up over this case?


I do agree with you that we in the west still have a ways to go before we are perfect in regards to rape, but we're light years better than rest of the world ("rest of the world" being asia and africa....I'm not sure how it goes in S.America or if you consider them "west" or something else).


But we don't need to go on with this as I agree with the last line in your initial post on the subject that "while in fact it is just a measure of a society's level of advancement".

I think it is highly unfair to compare all of Asia and Africa to the Arabian peninsula. Obviously women have it better in the west than in Asia and Africa, but how many places in the world could this happen outside the Muslim world? Even in the Muslim world, I doubt this could occur in many places outside the Arab world. While rapes do sometimes get hushed up in these places (usually when the victim is poor), the victim DOES NOT GET PUT IN JAIL!!! This is a higher level of fukced up behavior and that needs to be acknowledged. And what's messed up is westerners visit these places and support their economy more than the countries in Asia and Africa you are maligning.

[dead0man]

Agreed, Asia and Africa are better than the Arab world when it comes to this kind of thing (or female rights in general).  And I agree we shouldn't be giving them our tourist dollars (or our oil dollars).  I should have been more clear.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Apparently her alleged attacker had also been charged with having sex outside of marriage and consumption of alcohol (but not rape), and he's now been pardoned too.

Yes a 33 year old Sudanese guy. He only got 12 months, 4 months less than his victim, because she was also convicted for false accusations. The double pardon is logical seen from their POV because they where both convicted for the same "crimes".

Since their system did not merely find that her rape claim was not provable beyond a reasonable doubt but could be proven to be false, then yes they were both convicted of the same crimes with no quotes needed.  Now one can dispute whether her claims were provably false beyond a reasonable doubt and of course here in the West, illicit sex and drinking are no longer seen crimes, but the UAE is not part of the West.  Would you advocate Sharia law being used to judge people from Dubai who are sojurning in Denmark?

Dear God, shut up.

[Cory]

If you drink alcohol in the UAE, you are kind of stupid.

If this were even remotely true they would have no tourism. You honestly think that white people in Dubai by and large don't drink?

[Vosem]

The "soft" power of the West wins again.

Thank God it still regularly does.

If you drink alcohol in the UAE, you are kind of stupid.

If this were even remotely true they would have no tourism. You honestly think that white people in Dubai by and large don't drink?

You honestly think people by and large aren't dumbs?

[Cory]

You honestly think people by and large aren't dumbs?

That's beside the point. Alcohol is only "technically" banned.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Apparently her alleged attacker had also been charged with having sex outside of marriage and consumption of alcohol (but not rape), and he's now been pardoned too.

Yes a 33 year old Sudanese guy. He only got 12 months, 4 months less than his victim, because she was also convicted for false accusations. The double pardon is logical seen from their POV because they where both convicted for the same "crimes".

Since their system did not merely find that her rape claim was not provable beyond a reasonable doubt but could be proven to be false, then yes they were both convicted of the same crimes with no quotes needed.  Now one can dispute whether her claims were provably false beyond a reasonable doubt and of course here in the West, illicit sex and drinking are no longer seen crimes, but the UAE is not part of the West.  Would you advocate Sharia law being used to judge people from Dubai who are sojourning in Denmark?

Dear God, shut up.

I agree that it is highly doubtful that it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she made a false claim.  But if she had, then being charged with such a crime would be appropriate.  Just because the crime is rape does not mean that there cannot be false accusations, just as there can be of any other crime.  The problem here is not that she could be convicted of such a crime, but that is exceedingly unlikely that the evidence should have led to her being convicted.

The major problem is that the system there is very much binary.  From their POV either she was raped or she was guilty of fornication, and there is no consideration given to there being insufficient evidence to prove one way or the other because of course justice must be swift and certain.