Recently in United Arab Emirates Category

"Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah" (Qur'an 24:13).

"Abandoned," Yahoo News Sunday Night, May 12 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

With Dubai emerging as a major stopover point for long haul journeys, five hundred flights a month will deliver over one million of us to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the next year.

Dubai is being promoted as a luxury high-class paradise in the desert, but the reality is brutally different, as Australian Alicia Gali discovered. Gali took a job in the UAE with one of the world’s biggest hotel chains, Starwood. What happened next makes this story a must-watch for every Australian planning on travelling through the region.

Gali was using her laptop in the hotel’s staff bar when her drink was spiked. She awoke to a nightmare beyond belief: she had been savagely raped by three of her colleagues. Alone and frightened, she took herself to hospital. What Alicia didn’t know is that under the UAE’s strict sharia laws, if the perpetrator does not confess, a rape cannot be convicted without four adult Muslim male witnesses. She was charged with having illicit sex outside marriage, and thrown in a filthy jail cell for eight months....

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The Muslim Brotherhood reaches beyond Egypt. "UAE Charges 94 in Alleged Islamist Coup Plot," from the Associated Press, January 27 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The United Arab Emirates says 94 people face charges for allegedly trying to overthrow the state as part of widening crackdowns on Islamist groups with suspected links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sunday's statement by the official news agency WAM did not name the Emirati suspects, but authorities have been waging systematic arrests against perceived dissidents for months.

The crackdowns have brought complaints from rights groups and raised tensions with Egypt, which is led by Muslim Brotherhood member President Mohammed Morsi.

The statement quotes UAE Attorney General Salem Saeed Kubaish as alleging that the suspects built a secret network to plot the coup and raised money through real estate and other deals. It also claims the suspects had links to the Muslim Brotherhood and others for expertise and financial support.

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"The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing." -- Reza Aslan

"Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood cell detained in UAE: report," from Reuters, January 2 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

The United Arab Emirates has arrested an “Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood cell” that trained local Islamists in how to overthrow Arab governments, a Sharjah-based newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the investigation.

The oil-rich Gulf state - of which Sharjah is one part - has previously voiced strong distrust of the Islamist political movement which after long years of being banned took power in free elections in Egypt last year.

The cell, of “more than 10 people”, had a defined organizational structure and was recruiting Egyptians in the UAE to join, al-Khaleej newspaper reported.

It said the cell had formed companies to send money illegally to Egypt.

Officials were not available to comment on the report on Tuesday due to a national holiday. A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was also not available for comment.

“The source confirmed the presence of close relations between the the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood organization and leaders of the secret organization in the Emirates,” the newspaper reported, referring to detainees in another case.

In September Al-Khaleej, a privately-owned newspaper, reported that Islamists detained in the UAE had confessed to setting up an armed force that aimed to seize power and establish an Islamic state.

The brotherhood “gave a number of courses and lectures to members of the secret organization on elections and ways to change systems of government in Arab countries”, the newspaper reported....

“The Muslim Brotherhood does not believe in the nation state. It does not believe in the sovereignty of the state,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan said in October.

Indeed not. It believes in the umma, which it think should be unified politically.

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All that's missing is an assessment of blame. That promises to be entertaining. An update on this story. "Anti-Islam toy guns seized in Dibba," from Emirates 24-7, November 2:

Authorities in Dibba seized nearly 100 Chinese-made toy guns which offend Islam by mocking the wife of the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), the Arabic language daily 'Al Bayan' reported on Wednesday.
The guns, sold in shops, were found to be issuing sounds that sneer and insult Aisha, a few days after an Emirati female activist said she found one such gun in a shop in Bani Yas just outside Abu Dhabi city.“We have seized around 100 of those guns and we are now conducting an investigation on how they were brought into the UAE,” the paper said, quoting Khaled Danhani, head of the commercial licences at Dibba Municipality.
In Saudi Arabia, police said last week they had seized nearly 1,500 Chinese-made toy guns at a local market found to be issuing sounds that abuse Aisha, one of the most venerated women in Islam.Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice seized the toys during a raid on a shopping centre in the western town of Jeddah.
“The guns were found to be issuing sounds which are considered mocking and offending against the Prophet’s wife,” newspapers said, quoting Commission spokesman in Jeddah, Turki Al Zahrani.
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Don't they know that there is no jihad? Don't they know that "Islamophobes" made it all up? Eli Clifton and Wajahat Ali, you have work to do in Dubai! Just be careful not to tell them about Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; or Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; or Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; or Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; or Nidal Hasan, the successful Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; or Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; or Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; or Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; or Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; or Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; or so many other jihad murderers and would-be murderers in America.

"Almost 70% believe Islamist extremism remains a threat," by Carol Huang in The National, September 8:

ABU DHABI // Ten years after the September 11 attacks and the US "war on terror" launched in response, 68 per cent of UAE residents say Al Qaeda and Islamist extremism (65 per cent) remain a threat, a survey has revealed.

But never fear, the victimhood narrative has actually reached the UAE:

Besides not improving security, 58 per cent feel the American effort has not upheld human rights - particularly Arab expatriates (68 per cent).

Just 47 per cent felt the US's role in the world had improved under President Barack Obama.

That high?

Muslim governments (36 per cent) and religious and social leaders (32 per cent) also got low marks for their efforts to combat Islamist extremism. The UAE ranked higher, with 54 per cent saying it had done well.

The survey was compiled for Al Aan TV and The National by YouGov Siraj, who polled UAE residents over 11 days late last month and early this month.

This included 385 Asians, 280 Arab expatriates, 47 westerners and 37 Emiratis. Half lived in Dubai and a quarter in Abu Dhabi. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political scientist, was surprised by the security fears, given the anti-terror measures taken by the UAE since 9/11 and Al Qaeda's weakened state.

"Al Qaeda has become so dismantled," he said. "Al Qaeda has not pulled anything in the UAE."

He said that the UAE has taken extremism very seriously due to the fact two Emiratis were involved in 9/11. "Through its financial system, its media, security ... the whole system was energised to see that this is never, ever repeated," he added.

"That kind of figure is surprising and does not square with the UAE reality and the reality around us."...

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And where is that money coming from? From our gas pumps. And note here again the connection to Islamic charities. This should not surprise anyone: in Islam, funding jihad is a meritorious, charitable act.

"'Pakistani jihad networks funded by Saudi, UAE charities,'" from Reuters, May 22 (thanks to Tziona):

Islamic charities from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates financed a network in US ally Pakistan that recruited children as young as eight to wage holy war, a Pakistani newspaper reported on Sunday, citing Wikileaks.

A US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks said financial support estimated at $100 million a year was making its way from those Gulf Arab states to a jihadist recruitment network in Pakistan's Punjab province, Dawn newspaper reported.

The November 2008 dispatch by Bryan Hunt, the then principal officer at the US consulate in Lahore, was based on discussions with local government and non-governmental sources during trips to Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.

It said those sources claimed that financial aid from Saudi and United Arab Emirates was coming from "missionary" and "Islamic charitable" organizations ostensibly with the direct support of those countries' governments....

But militancy is deeply rooted in Pakistan. In order to eradicate it, analysts say, the government must improve economic conditions to prevent militants from recruiting young men disillusioned with the state.

The network in Punjab reportedly exploited worsening poverty to indoctrinate children and ultimately send them to training camps, said the cable.

The idea that poverty causes terrorism has been refuted again and again, but unfortunately the fact that the connection is made in a cable like this only means that the solution will be to pour more money into Pakistan. Ironically, that money will also be used to fund jihad, not to fight against it.

Saudi Arabia, home to the fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of Islam, is seen as funding some of Pakistan's hardline religious seminaries, or madrassas, which churn out young men eager for holy war, posing a threat to the stability of the region.

"At these madrassas, children are denied contact with the outside world and taught sectarian extremism, hatred for non-Muslims, and anti-Western/anti-Pakistan government philosophy," said the cable.

It described how "families with multiple children" and "severe financial difficulties" were being exploited and recruited, Dawn reported.

"The path following recruitment depends upon the age of the child involved. Younger children (between 8 and 12) seem to be favored," said the cable.

Teachers in seminaries would assess the inclination of children "to engage in violence and acceptance of jihadi culture".

"The initial success of establishing madrassas and mosques in these areas led to subsequent annual "donations" to these same clerics, originating in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," the cable stated.

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Nothing sells a country's tourism industry like hauling in a foreign national on trumped-up blasphemy charges. We see this most often in Pakistan, but here again in Dubai is a case of the laws being used as a labor saving device -- to do away with an obstacle or someone one finds unpleasant, or to settle a score. And the lines are deliberately flexible with regard to when one has insulted Islam or Muhammad. Anything you say about Islam and violence or terrorism can and will be used against you in a court of Sharia: So much the better to keep people in line through fear. That should be a cautionary tale for the West.

"Briton insulted Islam, Prophet in Dubai shop, court told," by Salam Amir for The National, May 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

DUBAI // A 40-year-old tourist appeared in court this morning accused of insulting Islam during a conversation about the Taliban, calling the Prophet Mohammed a terrorist.

It was an argument in a mall. That never happens.

AG, a Briton, appeared in the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours wearing shorts. He was sent away to change into more suitable clothing before he returned to the court to deny charges of insulting Islam and a Pakistani shop employee.
“I told him he was crazy, but I didn't say any of the other things he claims,” AG, who is staying at a hotel in Abu Hail area, told the court.
“I spoke with him about the problems between the Pakistani government and Taliban, and when I understood from his responses that he was a supporter of the Taliban, I told him he was crazy because they were terrorists and they kill people and carry out bombings,” AG told Bur Dubai police. “I didn't say anything bad about Muslims and the Prophet."
According to records, AG visited the E-Max shop in Mall of the Emirates on the night of March 3, 2011. He met HH, 21, the salesman, greeted him and asked him where he was from.
When HH told him he was from Pakistan, AG responded that Muslims in Pakistan were not normal because they are killing each other and outsiders, records say. HH also told investigators that he told AG he was a Muslim and that the greeting he said to him was "namaste" – which is Hindi.

Would he rather he told them they were normal?

“I asked him how I can help him, to end the conversation,” HH said, adding that AG continued anyway and told him Pakistan would soon come to bad end.
HH testified he replied to AG that Muslims were peaceful brothers and helped each other. But AG retorted that he was crazy and that the Prophet Mohammed was not a peaceful man but a terrorist, records show.
“I walked towards him to hit him, but a customer who was present in the shop held me back,” HH told investigators.
HH informed mall guards but AG had already left, records show. An Egyptian customer in the shop witnessed the incident, as did HH’s Sri Lankan colleague.
On March 11, HH said he saw AG in the mall again and called security as well as police. AG was taken into custody. He denied to police that he had insulted the Prophet Mohammed. HH told The National that AG often spent time in the mall on weekends.
AG awaits a verdict on June 9.
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This kind of thing arises from the Qur'an's requirement that four witnesses are required to establish a sexual crime, i.e., adultery, rape, etc. This is the Qur'an's chapter 24, where it unfolds this way: in verses 11-20 Allah furiously castigates a group that has “brought forward a lie” (v. 11) against a chaste woman, without producing four witnesses (v. 13). The deity scolds the believers as well, for crediting this obvious slander (vv. 12, 16). This is a most serious matter (v. 15), but the Qur’an doesn’t tell us what it’s all about. This hadith fills in the details. Allah had recently ordered the veiling of women (a command that is transmitted in v. 31), so Aisha, when she accompanied Muhammad to a battle, was carried in a curtained howdah on the back of a camel. The caravan stopped and Aisha got out to answer “the call of nature.” While returning she lost her necklace, and stopped to search for it. Meanwhile, her attendants, forbidden to look at her or speak to her, loaded the howdah back onto the camel without realizing that she wasn’t in it. “At that time,” Aisha explains, “I was still a young lady,” and what’s more, “women were light in weight for they did not get fat.”

And so the caravan left without her, and Muhammad’s favorite wife was stranded. Presently a Muslim warrior who was traveling behind the army came along, and was considerably startled to find Aisha alone. “I veiled my face with my head cover at once,” Aisha insisted, “and by Allah, we did not speak a single word, and I did not hear him saying any word besides his Istirja’” – a prayer spoken in times of distress. The warrior carried Aisha on his camel to the Muslims’ camp – and almost immediately the rumors started. Even Muhammad was affected by them. Aisha explains: “After we returned to Medina, I became ill for a month. The people were propagating the forged statements of the slanderers while I was unaware of anything of all that, but I felt that in my present ailment, I was not receiving the usual kindness from Allah’s Messenger which I used to receive when I got sick.”

Aisha was deeply distressed: “I kept on weeping that night till dawn, I could neither stop weeping nor sleep, then in the morning again, I kept on weeping.” Ali bin Abi Talib, who later became the great saint and hero of the Shi’ite Muslims, ungallantly reminds Muhammad that there are “plenty of women” available to the Prophet (Aisha never forgot or forgave this, and after Muhammad’s death, warred against Ali herself.) But Ali also advises Muhammad to ask Barira, Aisha’s slave girl, if she has seen anything, and Barira maintained that Aisha had done nothing wrong. Muhammad left the matter in Allah’s hands, telling Aisha: “I have been informed such-and-such about you; if you are innocent, then soon Allah will reveal your innocence, and if you have committed a sin, then repent to Allah and ask Him for forgiveness, for when a person confesses his sins and asks Allah for forgiveness, Allah accepts his repentance.”

Muhammad then received a revelation from Allah, as Aisha watched: “So there overtook him the same hard condition which used to overtake him (when he was Divinely Inspired) so that the drops of his sweat were running down, like pearls, though it was a (cold) winter day, and that was because of the heaviness of the Statement which was revealed to him. When that state of Allah’s Apostle was over, and he was smiling when he was relieved, the first word he said was, ‘Aisha, Allah has declared your innocence.’” Allah had revealed vv. 11-20.

Aisha, however, was still angry: “My mother said to me, ‘Get up and go to him.’ I said, ‘By Allah, I will not go to him and I will not thank anybody but Allah.’” Yet she was amazed by the revelation: “By Allah, I never thought that Allah would reveal in my favor a revelation which would be recited, for I considered myself too unimportant to be talked about by Allah in the Divine Revelation that was to be recited.”

But she was. And the false accusations against her brought about the requirement that four male Muslim witnesses must be produced in order to establish a crime of adultery or related indiscretions. Islamic law still requires the testimony of four male witnesses to establish sexual crimes (v. 13).

Consequently, it is even today virtually impossible to prove rape in lands that follow the dictates of the Sharia. Even worse, if a woman accuses a man of rape, she may end up incriminating herself. If the required male witnesses can’t be found, the victim’s charge of rape becomes an admission of adultery. That accounts for the grim fact that as many as seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape. When the Musharraf government instituted measures removing the crime of rape from the sphere of Islamic law and establishing that it be judged by modern canons of forensic evidence, a group of Islamic clerics were furious. They demanded that the new law be withdrawn: it would turn Pakistan into a “free-sex zone.” Clerics thundered that the new law was “against the teachings of Islam,” and had been passed only to appease the West.

So this is yet another element of the Sharia that only greasy Islamophobes oppose in America.

"Woman Jailed for Being Raped in Muslim Country Sues," from FoxNews, March 29:

An Australian woman is suing a five-star UAE hotel after she was drugged and raped by co-workers - but ended up in jail for eight months for having sex outside marriage.

Alicia Gali, 29, had her drink spiked and was raped by four co-workers at the luxury Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort in the United Arab Emirates in June 2008.

She is seeking compensation from her former employer for breaching its workplace duty of care after she reported the assault to authorities, only to be jailed for eight months on an adultery charge.

Ms Gali spent eight months in prison as it is illegal as having sex outside marriage in the UAE is illegal....

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"Muslim foreigners who commit adultery are lashed and deported, while non-Muslims are jailed and deported." Sharia Alert from the modern, moderate U.A.E.: "'Unlawful sex': lovers sentenced to 100 lashes," from AFP, November 16 (thanks to Block Ness):

A Filipina maid and her Bangladeshi lover will each receive 100 lashes and be deported for having sex out of wedlock in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, a newspaper said on Monday.

The Sharjah Sharia Court ordered the woman to be lashed and deported for "unlawful sex", the Gulf News reported.

The man would be lashed 100 times for adultery and jailed for a year for entering the house belonging to the maid's sponsor without permission.

He will then be deported....

The report said Muslim foreigners who commit adultery are lashed and deported, while non-Muslims are jailed and deported.

Both the Filipina and the Bangladeshi are Muslims, it said....

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This justification of wife-beating is not just part of "Shariah law"; it is found in the Qur'an itself: "Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them." -- Qur'an 4:34

Sharia Alert from the modern, moderate UAE: "Islamic court: OK to beat wife if no marks left: Man in United Arab Emirates was initially fined $136 for hitting spouse, daughter," from MSNBC, October 18 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

A man can beat his wife and kids as long as he leaves no physical marks, the United Arab Emirates' highest court has found.

The judgment came after a man slapped his wife and kicked and slapped his daughter, according to Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper.

In the case debated by the Federal Supreme court, the daughter was bruised on the hand and knee, while the wife's lip and teeth were injured.

According to the court, the injuries showed that the man had over-stepped his rights under Shariah, or Islamic law, the newspaper reported. He had originally been fined 500 United Arab Emirates dirhams ($136), but appealed the case twice....

According to Shariah law, a man can beat his wife and children as long as he has first tries unsuccessfully to discipline them by admonishing and then abstaining from sexual relations with his wife....

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One wonders if the UAE and other Muslim countries that may follow the UAE's lead in this will really be able to keep non-Sharia influences from creeping in. Of course, with the West so supine in the face of Sharia's advance, that question may be moot within a few decades anyway. Sharia Alert from the forward-thinking United Arab Emirates: "UAE Blocking Blackberry Services, Other Islamic Countries to Follow?," by Geneva Robinson at Execte News, August 1:

Although days prior, the UAE had given a warning that it viewed the Blackberry to potentially pose a vast threat to not only national security, but 'social values', it has announced it will begin blocking Blackberry Services. Beginning on October 11th, the UAE will begin frustrating users by blocking their email, messaging, and web-brower. The UAE regulators are saying that the Blackberry's abilities allow users to access items outside of their laws, which were enacted after the introduction of the Blackberry into the country. [...]

Although security concerns are quite understandable, the 'social' concerns are more unusual, to most countries. The countries which are expressing similar concerns, and considering similar bans, are all largely Islamic, and include India, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. It remains to be seen if these concerns have a solid solution for the countries it is threatening to leave without Blackberry service.

India, of course, doesn't not have a Muslim majority and is not an Islamic country, but it does contain the second largest Muslim population of any country in the world.

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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....

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But wait! I thought all the learned analysts had assured us that there is no death penalty for apostasy in Islam! Isn't that right, Dr. Bassiouni? Mr. Kruse? Ms. Heagney?

Sharia Alert from the modern, moderate UAE: "Death Penalty: UAE; Man Who Murdered Lover's Husband Sentenced," from ANSAmed, May 3 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - DUBAI, MAY 3 - The court of first instance of the Sharjah emirate (one of the United Arab Emirates) has sentenced a man to death for killing the his lover's husband, reports the local press. The accused, a 27-year-old Indian, beat to death and then used acid to disfigure his lover's husband, and then left the body in the desert. The 26-year-old woman, also of Indian origin, has been given a life sentence in prison for acting as an accomplice. The number of death sentences issued since the beginning of the year in the United Arab Emirates in now 10. Crimes punishable by death in the UAE include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking. However, the sentences are rarely carried out. (ANSAmed).

All it would take would be an Islamic rigorist in power to change that.

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Allah_Does_Facebook.jpg

Oh, the opportunities for mischief: "الله became a fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer." "الله became a fan of tube tops." "الله and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are now friends." "الله is attending Monster Truck Mayhem." But alas, Khomeini's pronouncement rings true again: there is no humor in Islam. There is, on the other hand, a whole lot of suppression of free speech, and here we go again.

An update on this story. "Facebook row as Middle East officials ban user 'who insulted Islam'," by Andrew Hough for the Telegraph, March 19:

A row has erupted in the Middle East after officials banned a Facebook user in Abu Dhabi for breaking the law after they "insulted" Islam by claiming to be Allah.
All internet providers in the United Arab Emirates have been ordered to block the unnamed user behind the site, after he alleged his claims were supported by verses of the Koran.
His actions sparked a wave a protest, with many calling on users to boycott the social networking site unless the site was removed.
After dozens of complaints about the Arabic-language site, titled "God and Prophets", the country's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced this week it would ban the user from holding an internet account.
But that decision was met with more protest from what some viewed as censorship of the internet.
The user claimed they were an atheist and believed in no God but him/herself, reports in the Middle East claimed.
They said that Muslim prophets would be able to connect with users through the site, which contained Koranic verses and also appeared to mock Islam, as well as answering their questions.
The site soon had more than 600,000 followers, with many critical of the site.
Mohammad Al Ganem, the authority's General Manager, defended the authority's decision to ban the site, saying it "insulted" Islam.
"TRA received numerous calls and complaints from internet users expressing their anger against unidentified people who created a site on Facebook that is offending to God, prophets, messengers, the Holy Koran and even to all God's books," he told Gulf News.
"The creator of this site which he named 'God and Prophets' Site', attributes divinity to himself and spreads distorted writing pretending they are verses from the Koran.
"He also declared writing a new book falsifying himself as a god."
He added: "He spreads talk that is insulting to the prophets and to their holy stature.
"This is considered to be a felony according to the federal law."
He warned web users to be cautious about what they created or viewed.
"[The] internet is too vast to be controlled daily. There are unethical racists everywhere who do not recognise or honour religions or values," he said.

Hold it right there: Which race is Allah?

"They intentionally spread what destroys the country's symbols and values, and we should not spare any effort to combat them fiercely."

To which he might have added: "الله and 8 other people like this."

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Expect CAIR's Honest Ibe Hooper to be on the first plane to Dubai, ready to scold Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim for equating Muslims with Nazis. Isn't that right, Ibe?

"United Arab Emirates to Follow Third Reich Policies against Jews," from Pravda, March 4 (thanks to Pamela):

The authorities of the United Arab Emirates made an unusual decision. Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim said on March 1 that anyone who looks or sounds like a citizen of Israel will be blocked from entering the country, even if a suspected individual produces a passport of a different state.

"It is easy for us to identify [Israelis], through their face or when they speak any other language. We used to respect them when they would come holding European passports; we regarded them as Europeans and never treated them badly. But from now on, anyone we suspect to have a dual citizenship, they will be treated with great suspicion," the police chief said.

The decision is directly linked with the assassination of a high-ranking official of Palestine's Hamas movement in one of Dubai hotels on February 20. UAE officials believe that Mahmud al-Mabhuh, one of the founders of the military wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, was killed by Israel's Mossad. The secret agents most likely used passports of other countries to commit the crime.

It is not quite clear, though, how Arab officials are going to identify Israelis. They would obviously have no difficulty in identifying Orthodox bearded hasids for their side-locks, hats and glasses. It looks like a joke though: "Wearing a hat and a pair of glasses makes you a Jew."

Such people would never think of traveling to Emirates. Will Emirates liken itself to the Third Reich and use rulers and protractors to measure the shape of the nose, earlaps and the skull structure? If it does, the UAE will lose all of its friends in the West....

Oh, probably not.

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Erstwhile British jihadist Omar Bakri will have to settle for flying the black flag of Islam over Lebanon or the UAE, at least for now. "Transplanted Jihadi," from Newsweek, with thanks to Scaramouche:

Aug. 17, 2005 - Radical imam Omar Bakri Mohammed, whose pro-Jihad agitation led British authorities last week to ban him from their shores, now is likely to set up a new base in either Lebanon or the United Arab Emirates, according to a close associate.

British officials disclosed last week that Bakri, founder of a controversial and now dissolved militant group known as Al Muhajiroun (The Immigrants) had been sent a letter informing him he would not be allowed to re-enter the U.K., his longtime country of residence. The Syrian-born preacher had left Britain for what initially was described as a vacation to Lebanon shortly after a wave of deadly suicide bombings of London's transport system on July 7 and a second round of attempted attacks on July 21. In the wake of the attacks, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government promised to curb the activities of preachers like Bakri, either by ejecting them from Britain or taking them off the streets through new antiterror legislation or regulations.

Bakri associate Abu Yahya, a Briton who described himself as a former Al Muhajiroun spokesman, told NEWSWEEK that when Bakri left for Lebanon, he "never planned to come back to the U.K. in the first place." Bakri's "ultimate aim" was to go to Pakistan, said Abu Yahya, who said that he and other British followers of Bakri were "in contact" with the imam. Now, however, Bakri is "most probably" going to stay in Lebanon, though it is possible he could also try to settle in the Persian Gulf emirates of Sharjah or Abu Dhabi, according to Abu Yahya, who is currently in Britain. "He's a world-renowned figure. He has an international following ... He's going to continue his duties wherever he is." Bakri was picked up by Lebanese authorities last week for questioning but was later released.

Only days before his departure from London, Bakri, whose proclivity for outrageous statements made him a favorite target for Britain's raucous tabloids, declared that he would not inform the police if he knew that another cell of Muslim terrorists was planning a new attack on London. "I have said publicly, on the record, if I knew somebody was going to attack here, I will hold him, I will call the Muslims to hold him," Bakri told Britain's Channel 4 News, adding, "I would never tell the police. I am not working for the police. I would never, ever, tell the police about any Muslim. It is God-forbidden."

That prohibition is based on Qur'an 4:92.

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Suicide bombers are inhibiting the spread of Islam by "turning people against us," so according to Mr.Al-Mazruhi, they must be infidels. Once again, this denunciation does not stem from the essential immorality of the bombings. From the Arab News, with thanks to Skeet Street.

ABU DHABI — A prominent UAE scholar denounced yesterday as infidels Muslims who carry out attacks against innocent civilians around the world, including the perpetrators of the London blasts.

Do these people not see the results of their actions? They have turned people against us ... and made them link the name of Islam with terrorism,” Sheikh Hamdan Musallam Al-Mazruhi said in his Friday sermon.

“Therefore we should say it out loud that whoever kills innocent people ... is not a Muslim and Islam is innocent of him ... We are astonished at those people who justify these acts and see them as jihad in the name of God and declare themselves an authority for Muslims,” he said. “Those who do that are infidels,” he said.

The scholar said “Islam is a religion of mercy and peace.” “How does it help Islam, when the blood of civilians is shed around the world, like in Iraq, Afghanistan, New York, Madrid, Bali, Casablanca, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and lately in London at the hands of those killers and criminals ... who are falsely linked to Islam,” he said.

“How does it help Islam when a Muslim man representing his country’s embassy is executed like what happened to Egypt’s ambassador in Iraq,” he said. “How does it help Islam, when journalists, workers, truck drivers and medics are kidnapped and then shown in the media while being slaughtered like sheep,” he said.

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Sharia alert from the Arab News, with thanks to Designnut:

SHARJAH, 4 June 2005 — An unmarried Indian couple have been sentenced to one year in prison for hugging and kissing in a taxi in the Emirate of Fujairah in the north of the UAE. A report in the local press identified the man as Anis Balnabar and the woman as Bani Bent.

It is the first such case reported in the UAE in recent years. According to the report, Bani Bent, who works at a national’s house in Fujairah, came out of the building and flagged a taxi. A short distance ahead, she picked up the man and both got into the back seat of the vehicle.

The taxi driver was told to drive to a park. As he was driving, the driver spied through the rear mirror that the couple were hugging and kissing each other. He turned the car and drove straight to the nearest police station....

Police questioned the two. The couple admitted that they were lovers and hugging and kissing each other in the car.

Police took them into custody and referred the case to prosecutors who charged the man with “indecent assault by consent,” and the woman with facilitating the offense. A court in Fujairah sentenced both to one year each in prison.

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From Reuters via CNN with thanks to Two Stellas.

WASHINGTON -- The United States criticized four Gulf Arab allies as some of the world's worst offenders in permitting human trafficking Friday in a rebuke Washington hopes will promote improved human rights in the Middle East.

The State Department downgraded Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the lowest level of compliance in the report, which evaluates countries' efforts in fighting the trafficking of thousands of people forced into servitude or the sex trade every year.

Victims in the region were mainly domestic servants and laborers but also included boy camel jockeys, according to the report.

It cited the case of a 17-year-old orphan, Lusa, kidnapped from Uzbekistan and was sold into a slavery ring in UAE. She was eventually "no longer usable" as a prostitute and the emirates' immigration service said she should serve a two-year prison sentence for entering the country illegally.

Officials from the Gulf countries were not immediately available to comment on the one-step downgrade, which ranks them with such countries as Burma, North Korea and Sudan.

"This report shows that in this administration we will not pull our punches even with our friends. We appreciate their cooperation in other areas but they just don't have a good track record fighting this," a State Department official said on condition of anonymity...

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Why? Because the book was called "Friends Forever," and thus seemed to suggest that Muslims should become friends to Jews. From the Khaleej Times, with thanks to Teri:

DUBAI -- Education authorities here have promised to review a book taught in an international private school that features a photograph of two Jewish children sporting plaited hair and yarmulke.

Dr Obaid Butti Al Mohiri, the Director of Curriculums Centre at the Ministry of Education, said he would order the withdrawal of the book for primary Class I of the Dubai International School if the complaints raised were found genuine.

Several teachers of the school telephoned Khaleej Times, complaining against the picture, captioned 'We play together; we stick together', featured in the book Friends Forever. The teachers said that of all the pictures in the book, the students reacted sharply to only this picture.

"O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk." -- Qur'an 5:51

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