Saudi Arabia: Islamic Cleric
Rapes, Tortures, Kills
Five-Year-Old Daughter,
Pays $50,000.00 Fine
 |
| Lama al Ghamdi 5-year-old victim of rape, torture and murder |
February 3, 2013
by Michael Stone
http://www.examiner.com/article/saudi-arabia-islamic-cleric-rapes-tortures-kills-daughter-pays-fine
In Saudi Arabia an Islamic cleric who admits to raping, torturing and killing his daughter received a fine but no jail time for his heinous crime. Saudi media reports that the father paid 200,000 riyals ($50,000 US) in “blood money” for his crime, but will not be required to serve any time in prison.
In response to the heinous crime, and lack of justice for five-year old victim Lama al-Ghamdi, the women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif and others issued a press release on Feb 2, and launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtags #AnaLama (Arabic for "I am Lama") and #IamLama, demanding legislation criminalizing violence against women and children.
Fayhan al-Ghamdi, the victims father and a popular Islamic preacher who has made numerous television appearances promoting Islam, confessed to the heinous crime. Ghamdi told Saudi officials he used cables and a cane on his five-year-old daughter, leaving her with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns. In addition, one of Lama’s fingernails had been torn off. Hospital staff reports the child’s rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed.
Reports indicate the father had doubted his five-year-old daughter's virginity.
Lama al-Ghamdi died last October. The amount her father was fined for the brutal rape, torture and murder, would have been doubled if Lama had been male. In Saudi Arabia, Islamic law is interpreted to be that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, nor can husbands be executed for murdering their wives.
Human rights activists point out that judicial leniency towards male abusers and murderers reflects the highly problematic nature of the male guardianship system in Saudi Arabia. Currently all women in Saudi Arabia are considered minors, and all are automatically assigned to the care and judgment of their most immediate male relative. This system of male guardianship gives the male relatives the power to sell girls legally into child marriages and to ban adult women from work, travel and obtaining medical operations.
[NOTE: This atrocity was reported by Al Jazeera and other news sources. It's authenticity is unquestionable.]
Islam, like the ideals of socialism, has absolutely no place in law justice or government. If this happens, there is no justice at all.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we have situations like this where those who commit heinous crimes escape justice in the US.
ReplyDeleteAn "Islamic cleric," huh? Makes Dimmesdale of the Scarlet Letter look like no problem at all, huh?
ReplyDeleteAll those 60-something hippies and their young progeny driving around with the cute "Tolerance" and "Coexist" bumper stickers should go over there and fight real injustice.
ReplyDeleteAnd these are the people that the Liberal crowd want to protect.
ReplyDeleteThis is the norm in Saudi Arabia and these other Arab Nations, and these are the sicko's that the Liberals and Progressive want to love!
And these people need mental help .
Conservatives have more sense in their in their little finger,than a libtard could even dream of having in that lump they have on top of their shoulders.
One wonders from all these hideous if there could be anything good about Islam?
ReplyDeleteDon't we have a duty to investigate the other side of issues -- particularly those that inspire vehement antagonism?
Change comes slowly, but it comes.
ReplyDeleteYou are far less likely to find this kind of insanity outside of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
Interesting that al-Jazeera reported it. They are trying to shame the Kingdom but if they report in America the fringe right freaks out.
Well, Trailbee, if we follow our Constitution -- something conservatives vigorously advocate -- we must give ALL people "equal protection under the law."
ReplyDeleteThat's why in the past we haven't ordered federal agents to assassinate or summarily deport all known members of the Mafia.
We wouldn't want ourselves to be guilty of the same kind of iniquitous inequity that tends to prevail -- or at least finds broad acceptance -- in Islamic countries, would we?
Ducky:
ReplyDeleteI don't think Al Jazeera is the enemy many think it is.
I lived in Qatar, and it is a very tolerant kingdom. You see Burka'd women walking next to girls in tight jeans. They also have Hindu temples and even a Catholic cathederal and bishop in Doha.
Al Jazeera is a liberal (in the good sense of the word) news outlet and a pain in the ass to entrenched powers in that part of the world.
What I'd like to know, Ducky, is why YOU are ALWAYS accusatory and dismissive to the point of intolerance of the conservative point of view, but seem eager to gloss over clear proof of ATROCITY after ATROCITY in places and among people who are the sworn enemies of everything YOU profess to believe in?
ReplyDeleteIt would help a lot to establish your own credibility as a an individual who deserves to be taken seriously, if you'd drop the silly name calling. Terms like "fringe-right," "gun loons," and "Saint Ronnie Raygun" really make you appear infantile.
I know you're not, but why encourage misunderstanding and promote ill will?
You're too old -- and too well-educated -- to continue acting the part of a snotty little guttersnipe.
FreeThinke said...
ReplyDeleteWell, Trailbee, if we follow our Constitution -- something conservatives vigorously advocate -- we must give ALL people "equal protection under the law."
That's why in the past we haven't ordered federal agents to assassinate or summarily deport all known members of the Mafia.
And Leaders of other Nations? How about them
That's really grisly, FT. Must you post such graphic descriptions? I think it encourages imitation, and would suppress most of this stuff if I could. We shouldn't give the psychopaths 'food for thought,' should we?
ReplyDelete-----------> Katharine Heartburn
FT,
ReplyDeleteI see that you're losing patience with the little guttersnipe.
It would be nice to see some equal judgment from Duck.
"All those 60-something hippies and their young progeny driving around with the cute "Tolerance" and "Coexist" bumper stickers should go over there and fight real injustice."
ReplyDeleteYeah. Right. The Saudis will allow hordes of protesters to come into their country and change their culture.
The way to fight this is with global shaming. The way Indian women are fighting the acceptance of rape in their country through shaming the culture that accepts it.
Women and girls are devalued in many cultures. Just this weekend, the NYTimes Magazine had an interview with the former chancellor of DC schools, Michelle Rhee. She was asked why SHE was punished as a girl when her brothers got bad grades. It is, she explained, part of her Korean culture--to make the girls responsible for bad behavior by their brothers. Males get an enormous pass in Korean culture, unlike females.
Until we stop the culture of devaluing females, this sort of disgusting carnage against them will continue.
Somehow "honor killings" are seldom reported, by our so-called fair-minded western media. We know they do take place especially when it involves something notorious like killing several in a family to "protect the family's honor".
ReplyDeleteNow I'm hearing that a new campaign to "help" us uninformed western hicks better understand "jihad", which apparently should not be seen as the intolerance of the indoctrinated toward the existence of contrary thinking to the joys and benefits of the "religion of peace".
Putting more lipstick on a pig, that only people like Ducky would embrace.
With all due respect, Ms. Shaw, I believe our friend Kurt, was being sarcastic. I doubt if he wanted anyone to take his advice literally.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by. I don't disagree with your condemnation of the historic treatment of women in most cultures all over the world.
Back in pre-historic times when we really were little more than savage beasts, I suppose -- since males are equipped to be "thrusters" and females "graspers" -- male domination occurred naturally. It wasn't planned. There wasn't anything remotely resembling a "conspiracy" among males to "oppress" and "abuse" females. However, since nubile females were usually pregnant or tending older progeny, it must have seemed absurd even to imagine that females had a legitimate role to play on hunting expeditions or the battlefield.
Now that we at least have a desire to appear to value intelligence and creativity as much or more than brute strength, it's only natural one again that the traditional roles played by the sexes would undergo modification -- and that males would feel threatened by these abrupt changes in societal evolution.
Unfortunately it takes hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of years for these things to sort themselves out. As Ducky wisely said above, change occurs slowly.
"Rabble Rousing" and "Consciousness Raising" may result in short term victories for the dissidents, but may prove counter-productive in the long run, because the upheaval and animosity generated by aggression of any kind is too high a price to pay for what-seems-like "progress," but is in fact largely unwanted, unsolicited "change."
What usually happens with "revolutions" is little more than an exchange of one set of abuses for another equally bad or worse.
@FT --- What I'd like to know, Ducky, is why YOU are ALWAYS accusatory and dismissive to the point of intolerance of the conservative point of view
ReplyDelete----
Because the so called "conservative opinion" is often simplistic.
Taking this event in the most conservative religious nation in the world and attempting by implication to extend it to all Muslim nations is dishonest.
Simple.
It's like the true believers who think Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" is an economics treatise rather than a polemic and don't realize that his main work in economics laid the foundation for the discredited monetarism of Friedman.
I reject nearly all of the current "conservative point of view" because of it's shallowness.
I reject it because of it is so cozy with the idea of religious and national exceptionalism.
I reject it because much of what passes for conservative "thought" hasn't discarded the Old Testament.
I reject it because it is too often constituted by the likes of Waylon who thinks he has a direct line to reliable sources on the practice of honor killing in America. Abject ignorance given free rein.
I reject it because the adherents fetishize the Constitution without adequate background in American history.
I object to the lack of rigor in conservative thought. For instance, Kurt claims to be an admirer of Picasso's "Demoiselles", a work whose dual themes are misogyny and multi-culturalism. Which is he attracted to? Just pointing out the lack of rigor on the right.
I could go on but the concern from my end is that I believe right and left has little choice but to talk past each other lie some kind of Samuel Beckett production.
Well, thank you for the politely phrased proof that you -- and most of the other leftists in my acquaintance -- that you do, indeed, live in a parallel universe.
ReplyDeleteI will certainly credit you for being well schooled in the polemical worldview of your kind and the tactics and wealth of rhetorical ammunition stockpiled to defeat everything I and my kind hold dear. You've obviously been a very apt pupil. Your mentors and masters must be very proud of you.
However, mere denigration, even when politely phrased, does not begin to have what it takes to defeat Truth.
Not that I believe I hold any corner of the Truth market, but I do understand the falsity of attributing beliefs and motives to others they may not have just because they make reference to certain works. It's an irritating bait-and-switch technique calculated always to put your opponent in the defensive, when there may be nothing he needs to defend.
It's a technique oddly reminiscent of the idiocy of paint ball battles, or putting a tar baby in the path. Unfortunately what you do is not a game. It's far more dangerous, because it has -- and continues to have -- real life consequences that often prove tragic.
I make no claim to having a direct line to information on "honor killings in America", since in your own rigidly closed mind, Ducky, they don't exist. You could well be right but if there was one "honor killing" in America or even on your own door step, I'm sure you'd deny the reality of it anyway, pretending it was some "simplistic" over-reaction by some "fringe right" conservative.
ReplyDeleteThere is one that I'm do know that did happen, since it was actually proven in court, but it did happen near Kingston, Ontario. That may not count in your willfully anal-retentive ignorance, but it should be noted by all sane right thinking individuals of the right or left political persuasion, unless you are fine with that sort of extreme violation of an individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders
ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that takes a positive stance on any major issue could be defined as a "POLEMIC."
ReplyDeleteI don't believe there is such a thing as "objectivity." There are as many different points of view as there are individuals.
These academic "treatises," which no ordinary person in his right mind could ever read are part of a closed circuit of self-congratulating individuals committed to a collectivist worldview and the consequent agenda that naturally follows.
These highly specialized "intellectuals" listen only to themselves and to each other. They have created their own version of reality that arrogantly excludes everyone not within the narrow confines of their purview.
It's a phenomenon patently obvious to us "outsiders," and we have grown sick and tired of being ignored, derided, lampooned and dismissed as though our hopes, dreams, thoughts, feelings and ideas couldn't possibly matter, because we don't see things as the self-anointed elite see them.
The tone of the haughty, condescending Superior Being grates, I must admit.
No, Freethinker, the contemporary right exhibits the qualities of the true believer an little indication of inquisitiveness.
ReplyDeleteYour admonition of my supposed Marxism as an example. Yes, I have read much of Kapital and believe Marx was an effective critic of capitalism, worth understanding as we move closer to a laissez-faire environment.
Open inquiry just isn't part of your scope.
"the contemporary right exhibits the qualities of the true believer an little indication of inquisitiveness."
ReplyDeleteThose could be MY words EXACTLY when referring to the LEFT, especially the masses that voted for Obimbo, because of 2 things, 1 being his color, and 2 being their cult-like blind faith in every lie he spewed forth since making his appearance on the national political scene.
Most of us on the right would also certainly use those words to describe the lame stream media and their lemming-like adoration of the great one. In fact, thank you for so adeptly describing the problem.
@ Shaw: "Yeah. Right. The Saudis will allow hordes of protesters to come into their country and change their culture."
ReplyDeleteIt worked here...
@ Freethinke: With all due respect, Ms. Shaw, I believe our friend Kurt, was being sarcastic.
Who says? I really would like to see the whole horde of sanctimonious, politically-correct, finger-wagging scolds to take their shtick on the road.
Maybe they'd learn something.
NAH! You're just showboating.
ReplyDeleteAh kin tail.