Recently in Abu Dhabi Category

And that's entirely reasonable. Remember: in Muslim countries, you should follow and respect the customs and practices of Muslims. And in non-Muslim countries, you should follow and respect the customs and practices of Muslims. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Abu Dhabi: "Abu Dhabi in dress modestly plea to non-Muslims," by Anwar Ahmad for The National, July 21 (thanks to Kenneth):

ABU DHABI // Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority has urged non-Muslim visitors to dress conservatively during the day, avoiding short skirts, tight trousers and low-cut tops in public.

Swimwear is acceptable at private hotel beaches, but tourists should "use common sense in selecting swimwear" for public beaches, a spokesman said.

The authority has also requested that passengers take care when dealing with taxi drivers as many will be fasting while working.

Good etiquette requires people not to drink, eat or smoke in public.

"You can eat and drink in the privacy of your own room but please do not offer food or drink to a Muslim," the spokesman said.

Safiya Darweesh Al Qubaisi, cultural and handicraft development officer at the tourism authority, said: "One important benefit of fasting is that it helps you to understand the suffering and pain of the poor. It also allows human beings to understand how those who do not have enough money for a meal survive through the day."

"He posted a photo of three naked women next to An-Nisa (women) chapter. In another he posted a photo of a table topped with alcoholic drinks next to Al Maeda (table) chapter, and in another, a cow next to Al Baqara (the cow) chapter."

This constitutes insanity? This constitutes an insult to Islam? Only in a severely authoritarian environment in which thought is tightly controlled.

"Man sent to psychiatric ward over Facebook insults to Islam," by Haneen Dajani for The National, May 1 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ABU DHABI // A man who posted images insulting Islam on Facebook was driven insane by an unhappy youth spent reading communist books and should be sent to a psychiatric institution, a court decided today.

Psychiatric tests conducted on the Egyptian graphic designer proved he was not responsible for his actions.

The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court requested the tests after the man admitted it was "possible" that he was suffering a psychological illness.

He confessed to posting the images, telling Chief Justic Sayed Abdulbaseer, head of the court, that he would withdraw his actions if he could.

The court also heard the man had suffered an unconventional upbringing after his father died when he was seven. The man's father was a communist and this influenced the man to read an excessive amount of communist literature that eventually drove him insane, the court heard.

Police arrested the graphic designer after members of the public complained about the posts. In one of them, he posted a photo of three naked women next to An-Nisa (women) chapter. In another he posted a photo of a table topped with alcoholic drinks next to Al Maeda (table) chapter, and in another, a cow next to Al Baqara (the cow) chapter.

Funny how that keeps happening. "I'm allowed to kill infidels, man tells judge," by Haneen Dajani for The National, December 29:

ABU DHABI // A mentally disturbed man who stabbed a witness to death in court told an appeals court judge yesterday that as a Muslim he was entitled to kill "infidels".

Insanity defenses sure are popular.

The judge told BAM, an Egyptian, that he should exercise his rights by using the law, "and not go around killing people".

BAM first appeared in court last year, accused of causing a permanent injury to a Nepalese man, LK. Released on bail, he then stabbed LK to death in his room.

Later he took the murder weapon to court and killed another Nepalese man who was giving evidence on behalf of LK.

Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance found him guilty, and ordered that he receive psychiatric treatment.

Prosecutors appealed on the ground that BAM was not mentally ill but knew perfectly well what he was doing. They pointed out that while claiming he killed the two men because they were infidels, he chose to kill only people who were giving evidence against him in a criminal court case.

The Court of Cassation returned the case to the Court of Appeals.

"I'm an Arab Muslim and in an Arab Muslim country," BAM told the court yesterday. "Those infidels are killing Muslims all around the world … there was a Muslim doctor just killed in Germany and when her husband wanted to defend her they attacked him as well."

The judge said he was not concerned with what happened in other countries, and that justice would be served.

He said it was never part of Islamic law, even in an Islamic state, to kill people because of their beliefs, or to take revenge....

All of the Arabian Jews in Medina wholeheartedly agreed. All 0 of them.

"Islam with its principles and values has become a target that is mixed with terrorism in a lot of Western circles." Yet again, for the umpteenth time, we see Islamic spokesmen blithely ignore how Islamic jihadists use "Islam with its principles and values" to explain and justify their terrorist acts. They continue to push the Big Lie that Islam is associated with terrorism because of Western analysts. "PUIC delegates condemn the West's Islamophobia," by Kareem Shaheen for The National, January 19:

ABU DHABI // Delegates at a major Islamic summit here condemned sectarian violence in Muslim countries and the Islamophobia that it says is plaguing the West.

They also called for the immediate lifting of economic sanctions on Islamic countries, including Iran, and accused the Israeli Mossad of orchestrating the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

"It is essential to work on halting the tide of Islamophobia," Abdulaziz al Ghurair, the speaker of the UAE Federal National Council and head of the executive committee of the Parliamentary Union of OIC member countries (PUIC), said yesterday.

"Islam with its principles and values has become a target that is mixed with terrorism in a lot of Western circles," he said....

Mr al Ghurair said that Western attempts to interfere in the Muslim world under the guise of protecting the region's Christians were "a natural extension of Islamophobia", a result of a "lack of Western trust and knowledge of the tolerant reality of Islam".

His comments came amid a concerted campaign in the Muslim world to respond forcefully to bombings that targeted Coptic Christians on New Year's Eve in Alexandria. A suicide bomber killed 21 worshippers and injured scores of others in the Egyptian coastal city.

The union "strongly condemns the growing tide of hatred towards religions", including the "bombing of mosques [and] churches", stressing that places of worship must be protected and dubbing as "criminal" the bombing of the Egyptian church, according to the resolutions.

It rejected what it called politically motivated attempts to equate Islam with terrorism, while condemning sectarian violence in the Muslim world.

One of the resolutions denounced the labelling of Islamic countries as state sponsors of terrorism for supporting the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, statements that seem aimed at deflecting criticism towards Iranian support for Hizbollah, the Lebanese militia.

The session also featured what appeared to be a veiled criticism of France's ban on burqas.

"The manifestations of Islamophobia in Europe are taking on an institutional, and sometimes legislative, quality which warns of widespread violations of the rights of Muslims," Mr al Ghurair said....

For example, the council called on the international community to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons. Though most Muslim countries agree that Israel's nuclear arsenal should be dealt with, many Gulf countries express concern about Iran's nuclear programme and have called on the Islamic Republic to open its nuclear facilities to the UN's nuclear watchdog.

One of the PUIC's resolutions stated that the union "strongly rejects the principle of imposing any kind of sanctions, whether unilateral or multilateral, on any Islamic state", in addition to demanding "their immediate lifting"....

Islamic law requires four male Muslim witnesses who actually saw the act to establish rape or adultery. Absent those witnesses, a woman who makes such an accusation is incriminating herself -- even in modern, moderate Abu Dhabi. "Woman who reported rape jailed for one year," by Hassan Hassan, Marten Youssef and Rym Ghazal in The National, June 14 (thanks to Will):

ABU DHABI // A teenager who alleged she had been gang-raped by five men but later recanted her claim has been sentenced to a year in prison for consensual sex.

The five she had initially accused were acquitted of rape by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court today, but were found guilty of less serious charges.

The Emirati teenager LH, 18, was found to have consented to intercourse with YM, a 19-year-old military police officer who was also sentenced to a year in jail after the rape charge against him was changed to one of consensual sex by the judge.

Two further defendants, both referred to as HA, were sentenced to three months in prison for being alone in the company of a woman.

The fifth and sixth defendants were fined Dh5,000 (US$1,400) for violations of public decency.

The latter verdicts represented rare court rulings in which sharia'a law was directly imposed. Police rarely arrest people based on such charges alone; more often they are secondary charges typically connected to sex offences.

LH has been in custody since filing the complaint. She was never appointed a lawyer during the trial, and none of her family members ever appeared in court during the proceedings.

According to the forensics report submitted to the court LH reported the incident on April 23.

Genetic material recovered from the scene led the judge to convict YM of consensual sex, while acquitting HA.

The forensics report found that LH was not a virgin and that there was no genital bruising. It found 12 bruises ranging from 1cm to 7cm long on her upper lip, hands, thighs, knee and behind her left ear.

"Some of the bruises are new, two to three days old, and some of them are old, seven to 15 days old," the report said. The report attributed the bruises to body pressure or being hit with a solid material. During the trial, prosecutors claimed that LH had gone for a drive on May 2 with her male Emirati friend, HA, in Baniyas, where they had intercourse. Prosecutors said the fact she agreed to go with him alone in the car partly showed her consent to sex.

They said that, HA, 19, then called five of his friends - four Emiratis and one Iraqi - and invited them to join him in raping her in the backseat of his Nissan Altima. Charges against one defendant were later dropped.

On May 25, LH retracted her accusation of rape.

Despite this, only the Public Prosecution had the authority to drop the rape charges - which they did not.

Within two days of the incidentLH had been tested by the forensics unit at the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department. Evidence of assault was cited by the public prosecution in charging the men with rape. LH told the court that bruises on her body came from a beating administered by her brother because he suspected she had relationships with men....