[Reader-list] Rape Victim ordered 200 lashes and prison by Saudi judges

[Partha Dasgupta]

Hi Pawan,

I think we strayed a bit from what Shuddha mentioned, that is that he's as
against the overtness of the Saudi regime as he is against the Modi one.
What I have been referring to is the opposition of state-sponsored /
encouraged violence that has occured in Gujarat, Nandigram and now the POSCO
incidents. The moment any government needs to take action through non-legal
punitive action, it steps out of the system of checks and balances that the
constitution places upon us which is criminal - all the more so since it's
being done by the very people who are chosen by us to uphold the
constitution.

On the issue of Babri Masjid / the Ram temple would like to figure out the
logic of 'going back to the basics'. If today we start pulling down every
building place that was once something else and replacing it with whatever
it was, we'd have to knock down the Konarak Temple and even the North Block
and virtually every building. Extremely ridiculous, wouldn't you agree?

In any case, I never subscribed to the thought that God resides in a
building. Turning a structure from a mosque to a temple can not take or add
God to that structure.

I will not talk of 'secular' parties as all parties by the very nature of
their existence are bound to their vote banks. On the other hand, I
certainly stay far from the BJP that is tied by it's core to the RSS and
Hindu ideology - which I believe is incorrect for a party with national
dreams. And I saw the rath yatra in Delhi with the jingoistic slogans, and I
saw the BJP leaders in their double-speak when the court took up the Babri
Masjid case. Typical politicians with forked tongues that mean nothing
except public appeasement and dodging responsibility. However, the BJP
fanaticism makes me distrust them.

As for Kashmir, there is no one view, and each concerned party has different
wants. Sure, I hear the shouts and I hear of the deaths and the pain. I hear
the anger of people, each with their own bias and perspective. Do I know the
'ground reality'?

No. Even if I went there I wouldn't as each 'group' in that conflict has
become fragmented with different demands (that have changed over time,
different 'truths' and different hates.

Am not an expert on sociology, and certainly not on Kashmir, but I do like
the idea of the killing stopping, a space to breathe and talk, and to
resolve the issues one at a time through dialogue and not guns. Killing
Yasin Malik, Bitta Karate is just another step onwards in the path of death.

Sure, it's easy for me to talk as I've not been dispossesed by that
conflict.

What I'm trying to ask is what do you really want? A peaceful resolution or
retribution?

Rgds, Partha
....................


On 12/1/07, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Shuddha Wrote : " One does not have to link the decadence of current Saudi
> Arabia to the
> venality of Moditva/Hindutva. They are two different kinds of abominations
> that need to be fought, and fought till they are destroyed. I would be
> just
> as happy to see Salafist Islamo-fascism perish in Saudi Arabia, as I would
> be to see the short, sharp end of Moditva and Hindutva in Gujarat and in
> India.
>
> Dear Shuddha ,
>
> While as you have an obsession with Modi and looking at how few of you try
> to link everything and anything communal happening with Modi , I wonder
> where does your conscience lead to ?
>
> Each time you quote " Indian States Military Occupation In Kashmir " ,
> without knowing the ground reality talk of your ignorance of the ground
> reality . You would be ready to accept figures given by a terrorist or a
> separatist organisation and at the same time averse to the real figures.
>
> Each time you tend to ignore the genocide of hindus which happened over a
> period of time , but you feel merry to spread discontent among minorties
> by
> harping on a one time incident of Gujarat.
>
> Each time you talk about structure of Ram Temple being destroyed [ which
> some of you called Babri ] , and at the same time non of you have ever
> discussed hundreds of temples being broken down to peices in Kashmir .
>
> Each time you talk about liberty of expression and at the same time you
> want
> all these liberties to be taken with Hindu relegion.
>
> Each time you talk of secular parties which you love even though thay may
> be
> aligned with a ML type of organisation and at the same time you need an
> anti
> allergic tablet if BJP is called secularist as well.
>
> Each time you speak of evil in Babu bajrangi but you have closed your
> thoughts for Yasin Maliks , Bitta karate and Hamdanis.
>
> Cmon ...get over Modi fixation . get over your thought that Indian state
> has
> "occupied" Kashmir. Get over that Military is anti people in Kashmir .
>
> Get real.....life is much more real than typing few words on the keyboard.
>
> Pawan Durani
>
>
>
>
> On 11/30/07, shuddha at sarai.net <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Pawan,
> >
> > Hell comes in different flavours, as I tried to explain in an earlier
> > post,
> > and as is evident from your posting of the brutal treatment meted out to
> a
> >
> > young woman who has been the victim of gang rape in Saudi Arabia.
> >
> > Being against one kind of hell does not mean that we have to be the
> > partisans of other kinds of hell, elsewhere. The kind of intellectual
> that
> >
> > I find interesting it the one who has no problem at all in terms of
> > evolving an engaged critique of oppression, no matter what form it
> takes,
> > no matter where it occurs. That is why, despite our respect for people
> > like
> > Noam Chomsky, some of us took it upon ourselves to sharply criticize his
> > prevaricating apology for the 'Left Front' government's violence against
> > its own subjects in West Bengal
> >
> > And so, contrary to your expectations, some of those of us who have been
> > active on this list in arguing against the Indian state's military
> > occupation of the Kashmir valley have had no problems at all in being
> > determined in our opposition to oppression when it occurs in Left Front
> > ruled West Bengal, in the current conditions of military dictatorship in
> > Burma and Pakistan, or for that matter when it occurs under the aegis of
> > the Ibn Saud dynasty in Saudi Arabia. Tomorrow, if North Korea were to
> be
> > discussed on this list, I would be certain that there will be clear
> > arguments on this list against the imbecilic regime that rules North
> Korea
> > at the moment. The list can be justifiedly expanded to include Iran, the
> > United States, Russia and many other countries and states.
> >
> > Saudi Arabia is one of the most horrible places on the planet. It is
> ruled
> > by a corrupt, decadent ruling elite and kept in place by money, weapons
> > and
> > influence wielded by British and American corporate intersts and foreign
> > policy. If the international community was justified in operating a set
> of
> > sanctions against the hated South African apartheid regime, it should
> have
> >
> > no business in cosying up to the sexist, slave-owning, xenophobic,
> > anti-semitic Saudi regime which is the favourite retirement support
> agency
> > of third rate dictators like Idi Amin and corrupt rulers like Nawaz
> > Sharif.
> >
> > The Saudi Monarchy, which rose to eminence as the stooge of British
> > foreign
> > policy in the middle east in the early twentieth century presides over
> an
> > imbecilic and paranoid gloss of Islam, and the particularly Salafist
> brand
> >
> > of Islam that is held out as an ideal by the Saudi monarchy and its
> rented
> > clerics is rightly rejected by the majority of Muslims in the world. Its
> > significance lies only in that it is backed by petro-dollars and
> American
> > fighter jets.
> >
> > One does not have to link the decadence of current Saudi Arabia to the
> > venality of Moditva/Hindutva. They are two different kinds of
> abominations
> > that need to be fought, and fought till they are destroyed. I would be
> > just
> > as happy to see Salafist Islamo-fascism perish in Saudi Arabia, as I
> would
> > be to see the short, sharp end of Moditva and Hindutva in Gujarat and in
> > India.
> >
> > regards.
> >
> > Shuddha
> >
> >
> >
> > On 2:13 pm 11/30/07 "Pawan Durani" < pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Would Someone Puhleez link this to Modi , RSS & Hindutva
> > > ..........some intellectual surely would ..............
> > >
> > > http://www.themuslimwoman.org/
> > > http://www.themuslimwoman.org/entry/rape-victim-ordered-200-lashes-and
> > > -prison-by-saudi-judges/
> > > What can be called a travesty of judiciary, the Saudi Arabia's Higher
> > > Judicial Council has actually sentenced a rape victim to receive 200
> > > lashes and prison while the perpetrators of humanity's most heinous
> > > crime were allowed to walk free.
> > >
> > > The 19-year-old Shiite woman who was raped by six armed men was
> > > originally sentenced to receive 90 lashes for traveling in the car of
> > > an 'unrelated male' at the time of the rape. However after the woman
> > > had the temerity of not unquestioningly submitting herself to be
> > > tortured as punishment of being raped, the judges on Saudi Arabia's
> > > Higher Judicial Council more than doubled her punishment for
> > > attempting to influence the judiciary through the media.
> > >
> > > Her lawyer, human right activist Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, has been
> > > banned from carrying her case further. His license has been revoked
> > > and he has been called to appear before a disciplinary committee for
> > > challenging the judgment, which only punished the victim of the crime
> > > and not its perpetrators. The Sunni rapists were given a paltry
> > > sentence of one to five years of imprisonment.
> > >
> > > This is the horrendous state of a country that keeps its women
> > > forcefully behind veils only to extenuate and encourage heinous
> > > crimes against them in the name of maintaining social discipline.
> > > _________________________________________
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-- 
Partha Dasgupta
+919811047132