To be fair, the BBC article doesn't say they are actually Muslims. They might just as well be Mormons, Methodists or Amish as far as we can tell from it.

Posted by: Celsius at July 1, 2006 8:54 AM

Celcius,
I am somewhat familiar with the language. I am willing to wager they are muslims.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at July 1, 2006 9:07 AM

arjun.sevak, I'm sure you guessed, but I was being ironic. The BBC would not like us to associate slavery with Islam and so would not mention the ideology that justifies their actions.

Posted by: Celsius at July 1, 2006 9:12 AM

Surely someone can compile a list of all such incidents. How many women escaped from their Saudi or Kuwaiti or Emiratian masters, from posh apartments in Park Lane or Cadogan Gardens, and a small item would appear in the London papers, and then another one (a follow-up) a few days later, and then -- silence.

Slavery does not die in Islam. Why should it? It was good enough for Muhammad. There never was a Muslim Wilberforce. Slavery was suppressed by the British in the Persian Gulf, by the French in North Africa. Now that the British and the French are gone, it has returned. To Mali, to the Sudan, to the places in Saudi Arabia where, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali says, slavery never really ended. And its attitudes live on, exposed from time to time, as in the case above.

Posted by: Hugh at July 1, 2006 9:15 AM

The BBC article is too kind to this pair of creeps. At the OC Register ...

"... threatening her with bodily harm, by slapping her, by threatening to prosecute her sister in Egypt, by threatening her that she would be arrested by the police if she left home alone, and by forcing her to live in conditions designed to socially isolate her and eliminate her resistance to such servitude."

That wasn't a "mistake" they made. They knew full well what they were up to and that it was against the law. Nothing to do with them being new.

It's sick that you can treat a 10-year old little girl like this.

A better punishment would be deportation back to Egypt. The entire family, even if their kids were born here. That'd be a better deterrent. Back to your hellhole if you insist on importing customs that make your hellhole a hellhole.

Posted by: feralee at July 1, 2006 9:49 AM

It seems that everything this "culture" touches, it debauches.

What sort of mentality makes up this behaviour of abuse which then excuses itself in the name of allah?

Young girls and women are stoned to death for being raped out of wedlock; but then Indonesia hopes to promote copulatory tourism by offering quickie marriages and divorce:

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/45724.html

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesia's vice president said he saw nothing wrong with Arab men paying local women to marry and then divorcing them days or hours later, and suggested the practice _ dismissed by critics as legalized prostitution _ could boost tourism.
Jusuf Kalla made the off-the-cuff remarks at a travel industry seminar on how to attract more Arab visitors to Indonesia.

Posted by: Cynic at July 1, 2006 9:50 AM

The Quran stipulates that female slaves might lawfully be enjoyed by their masters." Mohammad himself owned many slaves, some he captured in wars of conquest and some he purchased. The names of forty slaves owned by Mohammad are recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Sharia Law contains elaborate regulations for slavery. A slave has no right to be heard in court (testimony is forbidden by slaves), slaves have no right to property, could marry only with the permission of the owner, and were considered to be chattel, that is the movable property, of the slave owner. Muslim slave owners are specifically entitled by Sharia law to sexually exploit their slaves, including hiring them out as prostitutes.

One reason why little has been written about the Muslim involvement in slavery is that traditional Islamic culture still condones slavery.

The Sharia,Islamic law which is based upon the teachings and examples of Mohammad, contains explicit regulations for slavery. One of the primary principles of Islam is following the example of Mohammad. Whatever Mohammad did, we must do, what he forbade, we must forbid, what he did not forbid, we may not forbid. As Mohammad himself traded in slaves and owned slaves, accumulating multiple wives, even marrying a six year old, and having concubines - slavery and the sexual exploitation of women is deeply ingrained in Islamic tradition.

Posted by: Mackie at July 1, 2006 10:10 AM

Where is the muslim Welcome Wagon when they get to this country? There should be packets given out when they arrive listing do's and don'ts and slavery being one of them!!

Apparently in their "asylum" to our country, they forgot to leave their baggage in Egypt.

Posted by: freewoman at July 1, 2006 10:19 AM

We did a mistake here in the United States of America because we didn't respect the law," she said through her translator. "At that time we were new here."...

Like all sorry for themselves criminals the mistake was being caught. Their "mistake" should be rewarded with the confliscation of all their property in lieu of compensation for the victim and one way tickets to Cairo.

Posted by: Turbinehead at July 1, 2006 10:29 AM

There should be packets given out when they arrive listing do's and don'ts and slavery being one of them!!

Not a bad idea, freewoman. Except we'd probably have the typical sort denouncing that as demeaning and patronising. Racist, even.

We've been getting hundreds of African refugees where I live. From such lovely places as Somalia and Sudan. And obviously nobody's told them that girls here who don't wear metres of cloth aren't loose and "asking for it". And that we tend to have an irreverent sense of humour where we tend to take the piss out of people and don't mean anything seriously, so please don't bash us senseless for that. And that neither do we appreciate men invading our backyards and freely helping themselves to our khat trees then threatening us when we protest.

I suppose it's "insensitive" to have a problem with their behaviour. I suppose we're the ones who should be changing and adapting.

Posted by: feralee at July 1, 2006 10:42 AM

"A better punishment would be deportation back to Egypt. The entire family, even if their kids were born here. That'd be a better deterrent."

I practice immigration law. If this pair are green card holders, they will certainly be "removed" (deported) back to Egypt after they do their jail time, regardless whether they have any US Citizen kids. They won't even be let out of jail while removal proceedings are brought agaist them. If they're nautralized citizens, and I was with DHS, I would also look to see if denaturalization proceedings could be instituted against them for a crime this gross, and fundamentally anti-American.

Posted by: Redhand at July 1, 2006 10:46 AM

Am I the only one wondering why we are hearing this first from the British media?

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at July 1, 2006 10:55 AM

Redhand, I think all Western countries need to seriously look at stripping citizenship. I don't know about the US citizenship pledge, but ours goes like this ...

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its People,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.

We've had certain people here, who blatantly state they respect only Muslim law and who have no qualms about expressing their contempt for us and our country and everything about it. It's clear they lied when they took their oath of citizenship. To me, that's grounds for denaturalisation. Otherwise, why bother with a pledge? Why not just hand citizenship out automatically to anybody who's met the residency requirements? In the mail.

Posted by: feralee at July 1, 2006 10:58 AM

If I were to go to a third world country, I'm sure there would be people everywhere telling me, ok, wear the burka, walk five paces behind your husband, don't wear cloppity shoes, don't let an ankle show, divert your eyes when meeting other men, don't talk when other men are around, no, you can't skinny dip ANYWHERE, etc. etc. etc.

Do these people understand our free country to be literal? To literally do as you wish? Have slaves, perform FGM on your girls, steal, plot, slit animal throats in your front yard, overthrow our government and whatever else they did in their homelands?

Someone over there needs to be advising them better. They need to leave their baggage in their home country. Even if it means islam.

C'mon you aliens of different cultures, you have a chance at a better life. Why do you want to bring your old crap here?

Posted by: freewoman at July 1, 2006 11:25 AM

Shouldn't the Egyptian Embassy and government now make a public apology for Egyptian citizens keeping slaves?

Posted by: IceDragon at July 1, 2006 12:10 PM

I remember reading somewhere ( I wish I could remember where) about a meeting of Bangladeshi Muslims where one one man expressed the wish that they would legalise polygamy in the UK so that they could all stop having to talk about their "sister-in-laws."
This seems to be the problem with Shariah law: that Muslims regard it as more valid than any temporal, man-made laws which might obtain in the country in which they happen to live. Of course if theyare likely to get caught and punished they will obey the country's law but if they can circumvent it, they will. Should they get found out in blatant contravention of a country's law they can always plead ignorance or complain about intolerance of their culture or religion - it might at least get them some mitigation.

Posted by: wallyUK at July 1, 2006 12:32 PM

It's sick that you can treat a 10-year old little girl like this.

Bigmo declared if it bleeds is fair game ... whatever age!

Posted by: Jack at July 1, 2006 1:09 PM

Sexual abuse too? Probably - after all she is an old maid of ten.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at July 1, 2006 1:29 PM

A Muslim love limerick to Dar-ul-Harb:

What is wrong with a few little chores?
Or the slapping around of such whores?
Kaffirs call it diseased
But we know Allah's pleased!
So defy Him and soon you'll have wars!

Posted by: jsla at July 1, 2006 1:31 PM

The Los Angeles Times covered this story...

Pair Admits Enslaving Girl

The article included some surprisingly un-PC cultural information...

The case shed light on a common though illegal practice in Egypt in which children from poor families are sent to work for the well-to-do. The servants, known as hadamah, usually range in age from 9 to 18 and often are forced to sleep in kitchens.

Posted by: Dana at July 1, 2006 1:32 PM

How many such slaves today? How many children living in squalor? How many slavers with the Koran instead of a conscience? How many people too blind or coward to speak out? How long will it last? How many more victims will it take? Until we ban that utter disgrace?

Posted by: ajm at July 1, 2006 1:56 PM

Well, society is better by another person first-hand experienced in the actual doings of islam.

Good news.

Posted by: Geoff at July 1, 2006 2:00 PM

The LA Times article also included some more on how the legal system is handling the enslavers:

[quote]
Both are charged with keeping a child in involuntary servitude and harboring an alien. As part of the plea deal, they must pay the girl about $100,000 in restitution and back wages. Both will be sentenced Oct. 23.

Keenan argued that Ibrahim should be considered a flight risk and kept in custody. The prosecutor pointed out that the Egyptian citizen had an Interpol warrant for his arrest stemming from alleged fraud in Egypt in 2002. The judge set a bail hearing for Tuesday. Ibrahim remains free on $100,000 bond, Motelib on $25,000 bond.
[/quote]

Posted by: edwardd at July 1, 2006 2:11 PM

Off topic, but...

"Muhammad appears on the family tree of every person in the Western world"

Ummah News Links

Posted by: ummahnewslinks at July 1, 2006 2:22 PM

You know that old adage: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse for non-compliance with the law." It was the Egyptian couple's responsibility to know our laws before coming here (I mean if someone doesn't know slavery's illegal in America, there's something terribly WRONG....).

Well, Uncle Sam MAY EVENTUALLY catch on: if it's evil, Islam is involved in it, as this article illustrates once again! How many times do we need to see criminal activies in Islam carried on as though they are normal, before the underlying problem (that Islam is inherently evil) becomes clear to our government? Sooner or later it's just got to sink in.

Let us throw the book at those scoundrels and throw away the key!!!

Posted by: pythagoras at July 1, 2006 3:15 PM

Is there any news of the fate of the poor little girl/victim? After all of the suffering in her poor, short life, she should be given a chance to be adopted by a loving American family and provided a chance to recover and make a good future for herself. I will repeat an observation that I have made before....Muslim women are not all victims, but often as cruel or more so than their male counterparts.

Posted by: maryrose at July 1, 2006 5:39 PM

Here's the LA Times article:

Pair Admit Enslaving Girl, 12
An Irvine man and his former wife could each get three years for a practice not unusual in Egypt.
By Sara Lin, Times Staff Writer
June 30, 2006

An Irvine man and his former wife pleaded guilty Thursday to forcing a 12-year-old illegal immigrant from Egypt to work as their domestic slave.

Under terms of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Abdel Nasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim, 45, and his former wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd Motelib, 43, each face up to three years in prison.

The girl, whose name was not released, was brought to the United States in 2000. Every morning she helped the couple's youngest children get ready for school, washed clothes, cleaned the house and prepared food. Following up on an anonymous tip, police in 2002 found the girl living in squalor in a 12-by-8-foot converted area of the family's garage.

Ibrahim and Motelib, who were married at the time and have five children, had both slapped the girl at least once and told her that if police saw her outside their home alone, they would arrest her, prosecutors said.

The girl, now 16, is living with a foster family in Southern California and attending a public high school where "she is doing great," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert J. Keenan. She has received a green card granting her permanent residency.

The case shed light on a common though illegal practice in Egypt in which children from poor families are sent to work for the well-to-do. The servants, known as Khadamah, usually range in age from 9 to 18 and often are forced to sleep in kitchens.

Two of the girl's older sisters had worked in Ibrahim's home in Egypt before he moved to Irvine in 2000. Ibrahim caught one of the sisters stealing, prosecutors said. He threatened to have her charged with theft unless the girl's impoverished parents sent their 10-year-old daughter to work as his family maid in the United States. The girl's parents signed a document offering her for a "10-year sponsorship" with the family in exchange for about $30 a month, Keenan said.

"It works out well for everyone except the girl. Her parents are happy, the defendants are happy, and she has 10 years of her life flushed away," Keenan said.

The girl came to the U.S. on a visitor's visa that expired six months after she came to Irvine.

At Thursday's hearing in Santa Ana, Ibrahim wore a gray suit and a somber expression. Motelib wore a white head scarf, a pink blouse, white high heels and a black skirt that touched the ground.

The 2½-hour hearing before U.S. District Judge James V. Selna was touched with drama when it appeared that the plea agreements were about to unravel.

When prosecutors read the allegations against Motelib, she became upset.

"I never hit her. I never insulted her or called her names," she said through an Arabic translator.

When the judge asked if she disagreed with any other allegations, Motelib bowed her head and stood in silence for about a minute. The judge gave her five minutes to confer with her lawyer, Vincent LaBarbera Jr. Motelib left the courtroom with tears in her eyes, and one of her teenage daughters wept quietly.

Motelib composed herself and returned, but when she had difficulty telling the court what crimes she was admitting, the judge called another recess.

She returned 10 minutes later, and the judge again asked her to tell him what she had done wrong.

"We did a mistake here in the United States of America because we didn't respect the law," she said through her translator. "At that time we were new here."

She conceded slapping the girl and telling her she would be sent back to Egypt if she didn't do as she was told. But Motelib insisted she didn't slap the girl in the face.

Both are charged with keeping a child in involuntary servitude and harboring an alien. As part of the plea deal, they must pay the girl about $100,000 in restitution and back wages. Both will be sentenced Oct. 23.

Keenan argued that Ibrahim should be considered a flight risk and kept in custody. The prosecutor pointed out that the Egyptian citizen had an Interpol warrant for his arrest stemming from alleged fraud in Egypt in 2002. The judge set a bail hearing for Tuesday. Ibrahim remains free on $100,000 bond, Motelib on $25,000 bond.

Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern law at UCLA's School of Law, said the vast majority of Middle Eastern immigrants know that it is not acceptable to have children as live-in maids in the West.

"This has been the only case I've heard about where the family actually had the gall to bring their maid with them to the U.S.," he said. "It just seems so bizarre to me that every single member of this family would just be so clueless. They must have known other Egyptians, and also known that none of them is hiding a child live-in maid in the garage."

Although the practice of keeping children as live-in maids is still somewhat common in Egypt, Abou El Fadl said, it has come under increasing scrutiny and is slowly changing.

Well, folks, it ain't the Egyptian family that's clueless in this case!

Posted by: PRCS at July 1, 2006 6:21 PM

"We did a mistake here in the United States of America because we didn't respect the law,"
That means they KNEW the law prohibited what they were doing, they KNEW it was WRONG, they KNEW they were in violation of the law and they CHOSE to disregard the law and do what they wanted to do anyway. Flagrand disregard of the law by muslims because they believe they answer to a higher law, the sharia. I hope they don't run into any prisoners behind bars who have kids of their own, or else some jailhouse justice might be meted out when they hear what they're in for. There are laws against child abuse and slavery in this country, thank God they were applied here. I hope they enjoy their stay in our penal system, and I hope it's for a long, long, time.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at July 1, 2006 7:36 PM

Hugh wrote:

Slavery does not die in Islam. Why should it? It was good enough for Muhammad. There never was a Muslim Wilberforce.
.........

I just today finished reading a wonderful book about the beginning of the end of slavery in the West called "Bury the Chains" by Adam Hochschild. The beginnings of abolition started over 225 years ago in England and America, including such illustrious figures as 18th century MP Wilberforce. One of the fascinating aspects is the role of religion--many of the abolitionists used biblical and religious arguments against slavery. Quakers, Methodists, Baptists and Anglicans were in the forefront of the fight against slavery.

Of course, there were many religious Christians who were proslavery (and many more who, as always, just accepted the status quo of the times). But the interesting thing is that those who were proslavery did not use *religious* arguments in its favor--instead, they talked about economics or nationalism. Clearly, the abolitionists had the moral high ground--even their enemies sometimes acknowledged this.

How much more horrible to have a religion that condones--or even encourages--such an evil! There are, sadly, a number of places in the world where such things as child labor and debt slavery persist. Some governments are trying hard to stamp it out, and some corrupt ones wink at the practice. So far as I know, though, the only contries with *state-sanctioned* slavery, such as Sudan, are Muslim countries.

Posted by: gravenimage at July 1, 2006 9:27 PM

If this Egyptian man who kept the girl a slave was wanted for fraud in Egypt by Interpol, then why did immigration allow him to come to the US and live? Also, I'll bet they smacked that poor girl more than once too.

Posted by: corli at July 1, 2006 9:34 PM

The Oath for American Citizenship is:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

Sounds like that should cover anyone who claims that they are bound by Islam's code of "conduct" over what they pledge in the above statement.

Posted by: LonestarM at July 1, 2006 9:56 PM

From the LA Times article:

"Motelib left the courtroom with tears in her eyes, and one of her teenage daughters wept quietly."

The Egyptian children knew, too.

While they were living the good life in Dar al Harb, a young girl their own age was enslaved in the very home in which they and their parents lived.

I wonder what the Egyptian children thought of the slave girl, how they treated her, and what their school friends thought of the girl slave.

A lot of people knew about this.

I wonder if the weeping daughter has ever wept for the slave girl.

Posted by: PRCS at July 1, 2006 10:04 PM

Maybe this is the angle to take to get average U.S. citizens, and in particular black people, interested in the islam issue? Isn't slavery the most sensitive point of U.S. history and its continuation in muslim countries would really get people upset?

Posted by: Lili at July 1, 2006 10:04 PM

"We did a mistake here in the United States of America because we didn't respect the law,"

I guess if no "law" against slavery existed it otherwise would be okay??

What a "wonderful" culture, what a "wonderful religion".

Posted by: adobe at July 1, 2006 11:02 PM

"Muslim women are not all victims, but often as cruel or more so than their male counterparts."

Posted by: maryrose

Very true.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at July 1, 2006 11:53 PM

I am sure that the children in the family were as cruel to the girl as the parents. The mother of the family really disgusts me. I hope that the parents are deported, along with their children, who are tainted with their parents' attitudes on treating other human beings and contempt for American law and justice. Good riddance to all of them. Reason number 22 to deport the mother...the article says that she is divorced. What California doesn't need is another unemployed, single mother who is plugged into a half a dozen social programs, with American taxpayers footing the bills.

Posted by: maryrose at July 1, 2006 11:57 PM

OK; PRCS noted that the girl came here via a "ten year sponsorship" meaning that ICE (used to be INS) had records about it. How many other cases are there? Anybody willing to go looking??

Posted by: JeromeFromLayton at July 2, 2006 1:15 AM

Jerome,

Actually the young girl's parents signed "a document offering her for a "10-year sponsorship" with the family in exchange for about $30 a month, Keenan said."

INS/ICE would not have been aware of that private arrangement.

There are probably many instances, right here in America, of foreign nationals (from many places) commiting such criminal acts.

The trick here, IMO, is to make sure the convictions in this case (and the upcoming sentencings) are aggresively advertised in the immigrant/work visa community. And future arrivals should sign appropriate statments acknowledging that such behavior is illegal in the U.S.

No more 'I/We didn't know' excuses.

Posted by: PRCS at July 2, 2006 3:26 AM

PRCS-

The Egyptian Muslims in this case probably thought that ONLY Blacks had been freed in America. So, as long as their slave wasn't a "raisin head" (to use the term for black Africans coined by the pedophile "prophet" himself) they weren't breaking any U.S. code.

That should have been their lawyer's angle.

"Gosh- y'mean they freed everybody?!? ---Not just the Blacks?!? ---Jeepers, your honor, we never knew!"

Now that would have been a unique defense.

Posted by: profitsbeard at July 2, 2006 4:06 AM

Gravenimage
Good points. That sounds like a book worth reading.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at July 2, 2006 8:17 AM

"we were new here"

Who knew the evil Great Satan has laws against doing evil stuff? We want Sharia! Waaaaaaaahhhh!

Posted by: infidel4life at July 2, 2006 2:19 PM

These people Muslims especially know about our culture and how it operates. The know for the most part we will respond to ourselves in the negative. All most different cultures have say, "Is that you have a problem with so and so people!" And we will respond with our heads hanging low saying, "Yes you are right, we are the ones that should be assimilating your way of life, not the other way around!"

That being said now on with the ignorance fained by the Egyptian couple. You can not tell me that they did not know it was illegal to have an indentured servitude here in the U.S.. Indentured servitude went out of business back in 1861. You can still pay for a person's way, but the person/business sponsoring, if the person is to work off his/hers ticket to the U.S., the sponsoring person/business is still obligated to pay the prevailing wage for the type services (at least minimum wage)to be rendered. These people knew that and there was no ignorance of the law BS. Not only that I have no doubt that the father sexually molested the young child because this is the way of Islam. I have no doubt if the boys were old enough, that they were not tapping her sexually as well.

There is something about Muslim ignorance of our laws. Place Dearborn, Michigan. Man beheads daughter. It started with a dispute over the young lady being out longer then what she probably should have. The father after having bounced her off the walls, told her to go out to the front yard. Once she got there he had her kneel down with her head bowed toward the ground. With a scimitar he proceeded to decapitate her. When the Dearborn police got there, all he had to say for himself was, "But in my country, I can do this!!"

Muslims either have to assimilate to the American way of life or any other country that they reside in or go back and live in their own little corner of thier sandbox.

Posted by: one_hung_l0 at July 3, 2006 6:05 PM