I hope this article by (Reuter) in the Sydney Morning Herald finds its way into Malaysiakini. Please read the atrocious sense of justice, or if the word 'justice' should even be used:
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Saudi Arabia has defended a court's decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip, after the United States described the verdict as "astonishing".
The 19-year-old Shi'ite woman from the town of Qatif in the Eastern Province and an unrelated male companion were abducted and raped by seven men in 2006.
Ruling according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, a court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes and the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years.
It blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated man.
Last week the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.
The ruling provoked rare criticism from the United States, which is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to attend a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland next week.
A State Department spokesman told reporters yesterday that "most (people) would find this relatively astonishing that something like this happens".
The court also took the unusual step of initiating disciplinary procedures against her lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, forcibly removing him from the case for having talked about it to the media.
"The Ministry of Justice welcomes constructive criticism ... The system allows appeals without resort to the media," said today's statement issued on the official news agency SPA.
It berated media for not specifying that three judges, not one, issued the recent ruling and reiterated that the "charges were proven" against the woman.
It also repeated the judges' attack against Lahem last week, saying he had "spoken insolently about the judicial system and challenged laws and regulations".
Lahem was not available for comment.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on King Abdullah, who last month announced plans to overhaul the system, to drop all charges against the woman.
A series of erratic verdicts have focused attention on the Saudi legal system, which is dominated by clerics who adhere to the kingdom's austere Sunni form of Islamic law. Personal status law remains uncodified and the system does not recognise the concept of precedent.
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Wahhabi syariah law at its best!
These idiotic Arabs gave Islam a bad bad name.
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of Islamic barbarians !
Report of injustices perpetrated in countries where Islam is the official religion tend to mechanically attribute it to Islamic teaching; for example, review the last paragraph:
ReplyDelete" ......... which is dominated by clerics who adhere to the kingdom's austere Sunni form of Islamic law. ..............................."
The imposed sentence is more apt to be described as a product of Arab Tribal Culture. The teaching from our prophet would result in all the rapist to receive 100 stroke of caning, if they are unmarried or stoned to death if they are married. The women should be treated as any rape victim. Though it is wrong for the lady to be in close proximity with her man friend, nothing in the Islamic Hudud law would sanction the imposed sentence on the unfortunate lady.
If I am the tabloid's editor, this would probably be my edited sentence:
"A series of erratic verdicts have focused attention on the Saudi legal system, which is dominated by clerics who claim to adhere to the Sunni form of Islamic law, but in reality, is greatly influence by their tribal Arab value.....".
As a muslim, I can't help being offended by this reckless writing (writing without critical analysis, and tendency to jump to conclusion, which almost invariably would culminate in fact distortion. Some are intentional (The Islam hater, the kind of people who jump to any opportunity to demonise Islam) or unintentionally (out of ignorance about what is Islam, state of the law in Arab country, tribal vs islam value etc)
Muslim hater? You mean the Judges in the case are all kafirs who are simply out to destroy Islams name? Rather than criticize the reporter, try to criticize those stupid judges who sentenced the poor girl, all in the name of Islam. What kind country is Saudi anyway, an Islamic country???
ReplyDeletehey i also blog on this! great minds think alike eh. :)
ReplyDeletehi...One one time POPE!!
ReplyDeleteThe king is dead...long live the King.....hahahahaha But the old King is not dead ...very much alive..and I survived 500 bullets protecting my Queen. PABS..."Preventive Animals Being Slaughtered" is the living proof.
Many thanks your concern...but please do not treat me childish....I am far from that...a joker ...yes....but it is your choice to project what I am...after all..faceless and nameless world is strange and freedom of speech is truly free to those who want to interpret it as they like....especially blog owners....holds the trump cards always.
No matter what...say hello to Susan from me. Get out of her life..she said...but wishing her well is not getting into her life...I hope so.
After all...we do wish and pray for others...don't we?
ADIOS!!!
The way I sees this, u need to really understand what Wahabbi means. Was it a movement? A law? And where did it came from & how it occur to adhere with Bani Sa'ud (the Saudi's Heritage).
ReplyDeleteAs for what I've studied about its history, Wahabbi never tolerated with wrongdoing & the ones who committed sin. Not that i'm saying that it doesn't had it's democracy what so ever, but I ought to think that the law was not carried out on our concurrence & that's what it made up for!
For us to obey, undisputedly.
And for this issue, the Arab knows its best! BUT, it was their job to explain why does the punishment needed to be executed to that girl too, since they're executing her in the name of FAIRNESS & JUSTICE.
Not remaining in ignorance & said it was done on behalf of God.
Was it too hard to explain things?
are we heading into that direction? god forbids!
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeletedon't blame it on islam? it's really quite simple.
JUST TELL US THAT SAUDI ARABIA IS NOT APPLYING ISLAMIC LAW, AND NOT PRACTISING ISLAM.
in other words, just call the saudis KAFIRS/ MURTADS.
it's every muslim's responsibility to REJECT THE HERETICS and KILL THE APOSTATES OR MUSLIMS WHO HAVE ABANDONED THE TRUE ISLAM, correct?
so, just do it then.
all together now - THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA IS A KAFIR/ MURTAD NATION.
or else, in the absence of your drawing a clear boundary away from them, WE'LL HAVE TO CONSIDER YOU AS ONE OF THEM, I.E. BOTH ARE MUSLIMS.
there's no other way.
Ouch...for the record, I am not a Muslim, but I'd like to add my 2 cents to this.
ReplyDeleteYes, there are harsh punishments under Islamic law, punishments that would make a grown man flinch. But these punishments are not lightly given out.
What many people forget is that there is a difference between Arab culture and Islamic faith. These differences are often glossed over by adherents and detractors of Islam.
FK said: "It's every Muslim's responsibility to reject the heretics and kill the apostates or muslims who have abandoned the true Islam, correct?"
Incorrect. That is the prevailing view of Islamophobia, a bigotry similar to that of the Nazi's against the Jews.
FK said: "If any Muslim refuses to draw a clear boundary away from them/ the wahhabis, we'll have to consider the 'silent, moderate majority' Muslims as one of them, i.e. both are Muslims, both are practising Islam."
I’m afraid I am unsure as to where you are going with this, but genralizations of any faith or nation is commonly not true.
If I were to generalize, then I could say Indians are also hate mongering bigots, as in India, 900 Muslims were massacred because of their faith. In this riot, pregnent women were split open and their unborn children spitted by swords.
Muslims have done it, Hindus have done it, and Christians have done it. Countless nations with differing faiths have done terrible things over time.
What some of us fail to realize is that these conflicts and atrocities are commited by people, and are more often than not based on personal, historical, political or economic biases than theological ones.
On a personal note, Malaysia is not an Islamic state. It is a state that enshrines Islam as it's premier faith.
The perpetuation of an Islamic state is not within Islamic tenents. It is a political ploy for milage by politicians.
Jeff Ooi from Screenshots featured an article called "Indonesia: 'Islamic State Not Part of Quran'" about this, and his source is from the Jakarta Post.
Check out the following link for more details: http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20071105.@01
dear Vijay,
ReplyDeleteif u r not muslim, i would rather u don't answer my questions. but since most muslims r going to just keep quiet n pretend that they didn't know about this, i would have to engage u instead.
first, your disagreeing with my views about what islam teaches - i'm not going to debate with u on that. the fact that u don't even know about these basic teachings of islam is telling.
those muslims who read this KNOW FULLY WELL what i'm talking about.
but if u r interested, go check this out:
Al-Amr Bil-Ma'roof Wa An-Nahy 'An Al-Munkar
ENJOINING RIGHT AND FORBIDDING WRONG
BY: IBN TAIMIYA
http://www.java-man.com/Pages/Books/alhisba.html
http://members.cox.net/arshad/orderright.html
"Muslims have done it, Hindus have done it, and Christians have done it. Countless nations with differing faiths have done terrible things over time."
this is very typical of muslims' response n those of their apologists. "A has killed, B has raped, C has robbed, so why prosecute ME for gang rape??" if the world's criminal justice system is run on that basis, Vijay u wouldn't have been born.
DON'T DIVERT ATTENTION. we r talking about MUSLIMS NOW, NOT others. whatever others did DO NOT ABSOLVE MUSLIMS of their responsibilities.
hindus HAVE BEEN criticised, christians HAVE BEEN criticised, catholics HAVE BEEN criticised.
now, it's muslims' turn, don't u think?
i agree it's all done by humans, in the name of religion. but if u still want to uphold that religion, ESPECIALLY IF U WANT TO FORCIBLY IMPOSE YOUR RELIGIONS ON OTHERS (like sending them to rehab camp), then morally u should NOT b allowed the right to keep silent when condemnation is called for.
when u want to lock people up, u say it's according to 'Islam'. when people ask u to clarify what is or is not 'Islam', u keep quiet??
either this IS ISLAM, or it IS NOT. there's no 2 ways about it.
Dear, dear me...FK, I'm sorry that you hold your views so dearly, but you are entitled to it.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear it, though, make no mistake about that, though it does make me quite uncomfortable.
FYI, I do know quite a bit about Islam, actually :) Sorry if I sound conceited, but I have spent the last 7 years learning it. And while it may be shocking to some, yes, I will become a Muslim as well one day.
I agree that everyone deserves some degree of criticism. Many Muslims out there do deserve a great deal of criticism. But please do not fall into the trap of perpetuating anger for anger's sake as did the Nazis in Germany did.
I have checked the links you have kindly provided, and if do not mind, please allow me to clear something up. The English translations of the Quran are populated by many errors.
In fact, there is contention that the Quran is not indeed written in Arabic, but rather Aramaic. Though the two are quite similar, there are textual differences, so if you were to lift something off the web and use it as an example of Muslim hiprocracy, it would be akin to translating something from English to Malay.
To answer you final questions, yes, there are a great number of Muslims who do not practice their religion as state in the Quran. Many are just concerned with doing their prayers 5 times.
But there are an equal number of Muslims out there who are voicing out their opinions against those who perpetuate their misguided faiths, and you'd be surprised that they would agree (to a certain degree) with you.
I personally know of at least 3 Muslims who do, and if you count me in, you have 4 Muslims out here who are trying do deny bigotry in our religion.
I know it isn't much, but it is a start :)
I will try to come to this comment bar again soon, FK. But if I do not, please know that I wish you well in all you do, FK. I do hope that we will meet again soon.
Vijay,
ReplyDeletei congratulate u for having the courage to b a good muslim, & i'm sure God would b very pleased.
but when u find that u r ready to call yourself a muslim, do me a favour to CLARIFY to the rest of the world who IS or IS NOT a true muslim.
otherwise, DON'T BLAME THE REST OF THE WORLD FOR REGARDING ISLAM & ALL MUSLIMS AS THE SAME.
1, they call themselves ‘muslims’, a COLLECTIVE - NOT INDIVIDUAL - social grouping.
2, u call yourselves ‘muslims’, a COLLECTIVE - NOT INDIVIDUAL - social grouping.
3, when pressed, u DON’T deny that they r muslims.
4, so, we can only assume u lot IDENTIFY & AGREE WITH EACH OTHER.
5A, when they do something SATANIC & BARBARIC in the name of ‘islam’, u said what they did is ‘not nice’ (softly softly of course),
5B, but when PRESSED, u again DON’T deny that they r muslims or believe in ‘islam’.
so, next time, DON’T TELL US THAT YOU OR ‘ISLAM’ ARE NOT COLLECTIVELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR SATANIC WORDS & ACTIONS.
DON'T COMPLAIN that they have 'hijacked islam' BECAUSE YOU YOURSELVES HAVE LET THE HIJACKING HAPPEN, WITHOUT DOING SUFFICIENT TO STOP IF.
it's that simple for the non-muslims.
about the translations - i'm sorry, Vijay, u sound like a nice guy, BUT DID U REALLY READ MY LINKS???
i DID NOT link to any 'translations' of the Qur'an!!
if u want to become a muslim, just make sure u read, & READ CAREFULLY, about the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab & Sayyid Qutb, AT LEAST.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Taymiyah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Abd-al-Wahhab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutub
otherwise, don't cry when u find out that the 'true obligations' of muslims (according to them, WHO R REGARDED AS THE MAINSTREAM ISLAMIC TEACHINGS) involve KILLING THE INFIDELS, OPPRESSING WOMEN, etc etc.
God bless u, Vijay. may He guide u to the right path.
Osama Bin laden is a better authority on islam than Vijay can ever be.
ReplyDelete