And yet another reason to stay out of the UAE.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/article/-/17094076/abandoned/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.
= new reply since forum marked as read
that this woman did anything reckless or that ignorance played into her victimization.
sick shit blaming the victim and excusing the perps and the culture.
Mohammad ruled it requires four witnesses to testify about a woman being UNFAITHFUL to her husband, but RAPE is another story altogether. There has NEVER been a requirement for four witnesses to rape in Islamic law.
In a similar incident a British woman was raped, but two of the rapists were JAILED for the crime (The third skipped town):
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/call-me-a-survivor-says-gang-raped-woman-in-dubai-1.1155077
Now UAE has a ban on drinking that is NOT enforced in the Hotels, but will be enforced if a rape victim goes to the Police and said she had been drinking, thus you get reports of victims being fined while the rapist walk:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/briton-says-she-was-raped-in-the-uae--but-gets-fined-for-drinking-8390574.html
The Police then look for the Rapists, but that is a separate crime from using alcohol in the UAE. If The rapist are caught, they are Jailed UNLESS the rapist have political connections then they walk. This reflects the Tribal nature of the UAE, a victim's family is suppose to force the issue not the courts. If no extended family is involved (as in the above case with the British woman being rapped and her Iranian rapists going to jail), the courts have a simple time with jailing such rapists. On the other hand, if the victim is raped by someone from one of the tribes of the UAE, the UAE courts will stay out of the dispute unless forced to do so by the actions of the Victim's family. If a native UAE woman was the victim, her family will force the issue, but using one's extended family has NOT been the practice in the West since the Catholic Church outlawed Marrying one's cousin in the Dark Ages (Marrying Cousins is one way an extended family strengthen itself against outside forces).
Sorry, this sounds like the victim was raped by someone with Political Connections with one of the extended families (Otherwise known as "Clans" or "Tribes"
of the UAE. The Rapist may being members of such a family and can count on that family's protection. The Victim may be trying to force her Government to do what her "Tribe" would have done had she been a member of a Arabic Tribe. Will her Government put the pressure on the UAE?
Just a comment that something is NOT as it is written in this report.