"Despite its shortfalls, the United Arab Emirates have combined Islamic values with the best practices from the West to create 'the most modern legal system among the Arab countries,' said Salim Al Shaali, a former police officer and prosecutor who now practices criminal law." Oh yes.
By Thanassis Cambanis in the New York Times (thanks to Sr. Soph):
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.
The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.
“They tried to smother this story,” Alex said by phone from Switzerland, where he fled a month into his 10th-grade school year, fearing a jail term in Dubai if charged with homosexual activity. “Dubai, they say we build the highest towers, they have the best hotels. But all the news, they hide it. They don’t want the world to know that Dubai still lives in the Middle Ages.”
Alex and his parents say they chose to go public with his case in the hope that it would press the authorities to prosecute the men.
United Arab Emirates law does not recognize rape of males, only a crime called “forced homosexuality.” The two adult men charged with sexually assaulting Alex have pleaded not guilty, although sperm from all three were found in Alex. The two adults appeared in court on Wednesday and were appointed a lawyer. They face trial before a three-judge panel on Nov. 7. The third, a minor, will be tried in juvenile court. Legal experts here say that men convicted of sexually assaulting other men usually serve sentences ranging from a few months to two years.
[...]
Mr. Demas, from the Dubai attorney general’s office, said he had no intention of prosecuting Alex and was seeking the death penalty for the two adult attackers. “This crime is an outrage against society,” he said.
However, the investigation file in Alex’s case and a pair of confidential French diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times confirm the accounts of inexplicable and at times hostile official behavior described by Alex and his parents.
“The grave deficiencies or incoherence of the investigation appear to result, in part, from gross incompetence of the services involved in the United Arab Emirates, but also from the moral, pseudoscientific and political prejudices which undoubtedly influenced the inquiry,” the French ambassador to the United Arab Emirates wrote in a confidential cable dated Sept. 6.
Most infuriating to Alex and his mother, Véronique Robert, is that police inaccurately informed French diplomats on Aug. 15, a month after the assault, that the three attackers were disease-free, the diplomats say. Only at the end of August did the family learn that that the 36-year-old assailant was H.I.V. positive. The case file contains a positive H.I.V. test for the convict dated March 26, 2003.
“They lied to us,” Ms. Robert said. “Now the Damocles sword of AIDS hangs over Alex.”
So far the teenager has not tested positive for H.I.V., but he will not know for sure until January, when he gets another blood test six months after the exposure.
A doctor examined Alex the night of the rape, taking swabs of DNA for traces of the rapists’ sperm. He did not take blood tests or examine Alex with a speculum. Then he cleared the room and told Alex: “I know you’re a homosexual. You can admit it to me. I can tell.”
Alex told his father in tears: “I’ve just been raped by three men, and he’s saying I’m a homosexual,” according to interviews with both of them.
The doctor, an Egyptian, wrote in his legal report that he had found no evidence of forced penetration, which Alex’s family says is a false assessment that could hurt the case against the assailants.
In early September, after the family learned about the older attacker’s H.I.V. status and the French government lodged complaints with the United Arab Emirates authorities, the Dubai attorney general’s office assigned a new prosecutor to the case. Only then were forensic tests performed to confirm that sperm from all three attackers had been found in Alex.
Alex stayed in Dubai in order to testify against his attackers, and went back to school in September, despite suffering unsettling flashbacks.
In early October, however, the family said, their lawyer warned Alex that he was in danger of facing charges of homosexuality and a prison term of one year.
Veteran lawyers here say the justice system is evolving, like the country’s entire system of governance that has blossomed as the economy and population have exploded in just a few decades. Despite its shortfalls, the United Arab Emirates have combined Islamic values with the best practices from the West to create “the most modern legal system among the Arab countries,” said Salim Al Shaali, a former police officer and prosecutor who now practices criminal law.
In business and finance, the nation has worked hard to earn a reputation for impartial and speedy justice. But the criminal justice system has struggled, balancing a penal code rooted in conservative Arab and Islamic local culture, applied to an overwhelming non-Arab population of foreign residents.
With the oncoming War for Talent, it will be easier in the future to find employment in other countries.
Will a non-muslim be able to make a case against muslims?
The one BIG secret in arab countries is that the men are rampant homosexuals. I lived there and it was shocking to the point of laughter to see the rich and well connected going around with a following of young boys. The arabs that worked with me would explain that as long as the children were under 12 it was OK to rape, sodomize and abuse as you wanted. I have met thousands of arabs and known well a few hundred. Only the Christians were uninterested in boys. Generals, businessmen, politico's all wanted the plump backsides.
This is not "homosexuality." It is rape and molestation, practices Mohammed partook of himself and (at least the latter) promised to his followers in Paradise.
Sickos.
Just the good ol' boys,
Never meanin' Mo harm,
Beats all you've ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.
Straight'nin' the crescent,
Flat'nin' the infidels.
Someday the 72 virgins might get 'em, but the law never will.
Makin' their way,
The only way they know how,
That's just a little bit more than the law will allow.
Just good ol' boys,
Wouldn't change if they could,
Fightin' the system like a true modern day Mohammed Hood.
Just lovely.
I have compassion for Alex, and contempt for the adult men who raped him. I'm sure Alex was uninformed about the Qur'an and ahadith's teaching with regard to sex with children, and specifically sex with boys. I'm sure Alex was uninformed about the fundamental distinction Islam draws between Muslims and non-Muslims, and the way that Muslims are allowed to behave towards each group.
--BUT--
This is surprising.
"... This is surprising."
With respect, he is a very brave young man.
It would appear that "the most modern legal system among the Arab countries" just isn't modern enough.
Boycott Dubai.
It's not homosexuality, but sexual abuse of children. Indeed it could be argued that it is hatred of homosexuality that makes these men turn towards children.
Let me explain: Up until the late 17th century, men in christian countries who wanted same sex, would have sex with "beardless youths". This is because, for a man to be the passive recepient in the sex act was seen as humiliating and demeaning, as he was seen to be "the woman" in a same sex act. Since women were seen as the lowest of the low, and to be like a woman was seen as disgusting, gay men would hunt around for boys who they could have sex with, since it was not considered demeaning for a boy to have sex with a man.
That began to change in the late 17th century, when gay men began to have sex with other gay men, instead of "beardless youths".
The gay liberation movement has it's beginnings in the late 17th century, and early 18th century when gay coffee houses began to open in Paris, London and Amsterdam.
Now, in the Arab world, the status of women has NEVER improved, and indeed is incapable of improving, therefore men who want to have sex with men, would have the same sexual attitudes that gay men in the west had many hundreds of years ago. To be with a beardless youth, a child, is somehow more honourable than to be with another man, since to assume a woman's position in the sex act is considered humiliating and demeaning.
Also, given the prohibition of homosexuality in the Koran, since gay men who have sex with other men, are flogged and executed, the desire to use children for sex acts can be seen as almost acceptable.
Has anyone wondered, that the violence in Islamic countries could have something to do with the sexual abuse of children which is rampant there?
Vulcan wrote: "The one BIG secret in arab countries is that the men are rampant homosexuals."
Wrong, Vulcan, they are NOT homosexuals. Homosexual men are sexually attracted to other MEN. You point out yourself that these men preferred to abuse children under 12. They are sick, twisted pedophiles, pure and simple. The reason they abuse mostly boys is because they have access to them. Girls are kept secluded from men until they're sold to one in so-called "marriage."
All this is highly characteristic of a culture that obsessively values female "purity."
Sexual abuse of male children (and also of animals) seems to be a common and widely-tolerated practice in Arabic countries, judging from the accounts I've read. It shouldn't be surprising, considering a mindset that (unlike conservative Christian and Jewish communities, for example) doesn't expect men to control their urges, yet disallows any access to adult members of the opposite sex. That doesn't excuse the individual men who commit these disgusting acts, but it's a cultural phenomenon.
Unsuspecting infidels who believe in the unassailability of human rights and human dignity would do well to avoid putting themselves where Islam rules. For, in Islam, victim and perpetrator take on shades of inversion.
This Egyptian doctor's name should be published so that infidels can, in future, avoid his services as a medical healer. Blaming this boy for his trauma is the mark of a truly evil person. For, at the precise moment, when the patient trusts the physician to protect him from further psychic trauma, this physician dismissed the boys' claims and blamed him for inviting his abuse. I want the name of this doctor's name to be emblazoned in large letters within this story so that if this boy's case is jeopardized by his report that no rape occurred, but that there was evidence of concensual relations, then he can receive the infamy and notoriety that he deserves.
That this country would lie about the HIV status of one of the assailants indicts both the UAE medical community, their courts, their government and their filty religion.
In another version of this story, they reported the that the boy's mother had constructed a website at www.boycottdubai.com. The link to that website yielded an error and I cannot find any listing on either yahoo or google.
Does anyone here know whether the site has been removed or is active under another name?
Well, I just tried the link on another version of this story on the Drudgereport and its also returning the same "cannot display this link."
You live with lunatics, you get treated to their madness.
Islam is a mental condition.
The kid should sue his parents, too, for taking him to this backward ("modern") Muslim hellhole.
The link does work for me. I congratulate jihadwatch for the mature discussion of this terrible case: yes, it is the sexual abuse of a minor. No, it's not homosexuality between consenting adults. Good to see most jihadwatchers understanding the difference.
No, it may not be between consenting adults, and yes it is sexual abuse of a minor, but it is homosexual abuse of a minor.
The idea of consent does not legitimize an evil.
Under Islam, so far as I can see, men are taught to see themselves as 'slaves to allah' - i.e. as things, forbidden to question, forbidden to think for themselves in any way at all. The reward for thus 'selling their souls', is to be granted the status of Top Predator. Programmed by this abusive meme (rationalist view) or possessed by this demon (spiritual/ religious view), they proceed to imitate allah (who treats THEM as 'things') by treating anyone over whom they have or can gain power - the woman, the child, and above all, any and every Infidel - as a Thing. Does the theology/metaphysic produce the abusive practice or is it created in order to justify the abusive practice? Whatever. The suicide attack is the logical end-point: one treats ONESELF, one's own body, as a thing, to the point of total destruction, while committing murder at the same time. The spiritual or psychological perversions involved in this are horrifying.
A total failure of empathy.
A total failure to begin to imagine reciprocity.
They abuse their own (see Pierre Rehov and Phyllis Chesler, also Nonie Darwish).
And then take it out on the Infidel. Alex is an Infidel. Under the Dhimmi rules he is a Thing and may be used and abused with total impunity and a total absence of empathy. Indeed he is by definition Guilty and deserves everything up to and including death. The doctor was just acting out the classic projection/denial typical of Islam - no Infidel could not POSSIBLY be an innocent victim of a vicious gang rape by Muslims, for Infidels are Guilty and Muslims are Pure and Innocent.
One really has to wonder about the "acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student AT THE AMERICAN SCHOOL, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home". Presumably Alex thought he could trust his schoolmate. Sadly, Alex had not read those horrid verses in the Quran that forbid Muslims to make friends with Infidels. It seems obvious that this 'acquaintance' was in on the rape plot. How long had this vicious humiliation been planned? Had Alex been watched? Stalked?
It all suggests to me that the glimmers of humanity one sees in Islamic history, and among 'ordinary' Muslims, are NOT the fruit of the Muslim theology or [UN]ethics. They are a testament to what Christians call Common Grace.
However, although 'allah' has not been able to twist ALL his victims into orcs (to use Tolkien's terminology), this story makes it horribly clear he (or it) has been very successful with most of them.
I expect he braved Dubai to confront the attackers after the rape, and applaud the ill-conceived attempt at bravery. It's just entirely the wrong location for a non-Muslim ever to be caught dead (apologies for poor choice of words, but seems apropros nonetheless).
To put it simply? NO.
The whole of the religion of Islam is built upon the principals of insecure men that want sex and can't trust a woman.
Examine all of their rules, reasons, motivations, and goals.
Islam was created by a guy that never could 'get some'
The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity
........................................
Poor kid.
This reminds me of all the female rape victims in Muslim countries languishing in prison. Rather than being seen as victims, they have been charged with "adultery", for having engaged in extra-marital sex. That it was forced on them is not seen as relevant. It has been estimated that up to seventy-five percent of women in Pakistani prisons are serving time for this "offence".
Rape victims are also frequent victims of "honor killings", first victimized by their attackers--sometimes members of their own families--then killed to erase the stain on their familiy's "honor". The perptrator apparently leaves no such stain.
There is little sense of responsibility for one's own actions in Islam.
I don't blame Alex for leaving--I doubt there is any way this kid or his family can win this case in Dubai. I'm glad he is safe in Switzerland, and fervently hope that he has not contracted AIDS from his craven attacker.
The multiculturalist dimbulbs here in the West continue to insist that "All cultures are equal."
( said in a whining tone of voice ) and that "We should respect all cultures." ( whine again. )
I smell HOSS MANURE.
The ultra violent Mahometan thug cultists are a bunch of PERVERTS.
It's not just women languishing in Muslim prisons - girls as young as six and eight have been raped and jailed for unlawful "sexual activity". Other rape victims, once jailed, have been raped, sodomised and brutalised by the mainly male guards.
Very very nasty.
Just tried the BoycottDubai.com.website and it works. Those who couldn't get there, try it again.
vulcan wrote:
Correct. The "Palestinian" arch-terrorist Yasser Arafag was a notorious homosexual and pedophile who died of AIDS.
Koran 52:24
Koran 56:17
Koran 76:19