Ali al-Khawahir, 24, was been sentenced to Qisas, or retribution, for allegedly stabbing a childhood friend ten years ago.
The attack, which is said to have happened during a dispute, left the victim paralysed from the waist down.
Saudi Arabia uses Islamic Sharia law, which involves “eye-for-an-eye” punishment for crimes, but allows victims to pardon offenders in exchange for compensation. Al-Khawahir was sentenced to be surgically paralysed unless he can pay his victim one million riyals (£180,000).
A spokesperson for the FCO said “We are deeply concerned by reports that a Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to be paralysed in retribution for causing the paralysis of a friend when he was fourteen years old.
“We urge the Saudi authorities to ensure that this grotesque punishment is not carried out. Such practices are prohibited under international law and have no place in any society.”
Human rights group Amnesty International have also condemned the sentence, saying it would be akin to torture.
Al-Khawahir has spent the last ten years in jail awaiting his punishment. His mother claims that the victim initially demanded two million riyals, but that although this has since reduced to one million riyals, the family “don’t have even a tenth of this sum”.
It is said that an unnamed philanthropist is trying to raise funds to pay the money, but it is unclear how much time remains before the punishment is inflicted.
Amnesty International say a similar sentence of paralysis was given in Saudi Arabia in 2010, but that it is unknown whether or not this was carried out.
Saudi judges in the past have also been known to pass sentences including tooth extraction, eye-gouging, flogging and, in murder cases, death.
Ann Harrison, Amnesty’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “It is time the authorities in Saudi Arabia start respecting their international legal obligations and remove these terrible punishments from the law.”
I agree that this is not humane, but I wonder if the British diplomats doing the objecting bothered to make a mental note of the differing crime rates between the so-called humane states and Saudi Arabia.
When stealing a car carries a penalty of a missing hand, the result is that nations like the UK will have 18 times more stolen cars. Likewise, Saudi Arabia is number 2 in the least number of frauds. UK has 482 time more fraud than the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had only 1 murder in 2004. UK has 76 times more total crimes than Saudi Arabia.
What concerns me is that we focus so much on the welfare of the criminals that we disregard the welfare of the far more numerous victims. While I don't think disfigurement is ever humane, I think something can be said for a stricter set of punishments which actually serve as a deterrent.
The fact that it's the UK doing the complaining I find ridiculous. The UK has disarmed their population and so weakened their criminal justice system, that they have one of the most violent and criminal societies in the western world. They have rape and robbery crime rates that I find appalling.
Yet these motherfuckers are going around the world and lecturing everybody else about crime and punishment. wtf?
_________________ The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.
Here is one objection from the people of the UK that the UK government might want to consider:
Quote:
MUGGINGS shot up last year as the slump fuelled the biggest leap in street theft for a decade, new figures revealed yesterday.
Robberies, bag snatches, pick-pocketing and other “theft from the person” was up a staggering 10% with police logging almost 100,000 offences in 2011.
Stolen smart phones, iPods and other popular gadgets are also thought to be behind the largest year on year increase since 2002.
There were 15,552 knife-point hold-ups reported to officers last year, up 9% from 14,246 in the previous 12 months and there was a 2% rise in serious sex offences.
Overall, crimes reported to police were slightly down but muggings and robberies soared even faster according to the separate Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Victims suffered 1.9 million instances of “personal acquisitive crime”, a shocking 13% rise, the huge, nationwide survey found.
Burglaries went up by 1% while vehicle-related thefts increased by 2% in 2011, the research showed.
Thefts from homes and other buildings also went up by 5%, fuelled in part by the surge in the number of crimes involving gangs stealing metal from churches and other public buildings.
Recorded crime was down 3% to 4.04 million offences while the survey suggested it had stayed the same at around 9.4 million.
Police admitted that more had to be done to counter the rise in street crime, which Labour warned would get worse as police cuts bite.
Deputy Chief Constable Douglas Paxton, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, hailed a reduction in criminal damage and rising public confidence in the service.
But he said: “There has been increases in opportunistic thefts and robbery offences and police forces are continuing their efforts to work with partners and the public to prevent these offences.
“The service is determined to continue to build on the good work reflected in these publications and the results are a credit to those officers and staff who have faced the challenge of major efficiencies while continuing to tackle crime in our communities.”
Shadow policing minister David Hanson warned that David Cameron was taking huge risks with the fight against crime by slashing force funding.
Mr Hanson said: “At a time when robbery and personal theft is on the rise, the Tory-led Government is cutting over 16,000 police officers and removing crucial powers for the police in their use of DNA and making it harder for communities to install CCTV.
“Despite their promises to protect the front line, we know that thousands of officers have already been taken out of 999 response teams, neighbourhood teams and traffic units.
“The Government is out of touch with people’s concerns and taking risks with crime and people’s personal safety.”
I mean.. having a rape rate that is three times higher than the gun crazy America might be something worth looking into as well.
Even the UK government run media can't seem to hide the reality well:
Quote:
The number of knifepoint robberies rose by 10% in the year to September, but police figures show overall crime in England and Wales fell by 4%.
The recorded crime statistics cover the August riots but researchers say their impact was "small".
Separate figures from the British Crime Survey - measuring people's experiences of crime - suggest crime went up by 4%.
It also found an 11% rise in personal crime - the biggest in a decade, says Labour.
This increase in personal crime, which includes violence against the person, robbery, bag snatches and pickpocketing, was the largest since 2001-02 when the British Crime Survey became continuous, the Home Office confirmed.
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:57 am Posts: 209 Location: The modern Alice in Wonderland that is the PRC
I agree its ridiculous us sticking our nose in and pretending we can tell the saudis what to do, surely our govt taking the chance for diversion tactics from its own fuckups.
As for your obsession with our govt 'disarming us', you would be hard pressed to find 1% of the population here that would want our public to have guns. You can see how violent we are without them. Friday and Saturday nights at pub kicking out time are like mini war zones already and where 80% of our assault figures come from I am sure. We don't want to add guns to our existing issues, most people and most police don't even want the police to be armed.
Incidentally where are you getting your rape figures from? Seems we have a slightly lower rate actually then the USA.
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:44 am Posts: 1154 Location: Denmark
You need to be very careful when comparing crime statistics (and other statistics for that matter). Culture plays a huge part in this, incidentally that NationMaster site you linked to also made this warning: "Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence. "
In a country like the UK my guess is something like 75% of all rapes are reported. In Saudi Arabia I would be surprised if even 5% is reported because of the honor aspect of the culture or the harrassment/disrespect the woman is likely to face from the police.
Also seems odd that you'd omit the stat that SA has 179% more manslaughters the UK but emphasise the homicide rate. Might it be that the real difference between the two nations is when something is considered manslaughter vs homicide.
_________________ Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be
You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
I agree its ridiculous us sticking our nose in and pretending we can tell the saudis what to do, surely our govt taking the chance for diversion tactics from its own fuckups.
As for your obsession with our govt 'disarming us', you would be hard pressed to find 1% of the population here that would want our public to have guns. You can see how violent we are without them. Friday and Saturday nights at pub kicking out time are like mini war zones already and where 80% of our assault figures come from I am sure. We don't want to add guns to our existing issues, most people and most police don't even want the police to be armed.
Incidentally where are you getting your rape figures from? Seems we have a slightly lower rate actually then the USA.
I would point out that the rise in your violent crime stats seems pretty well correlated to your nanny state laws which disarmed you. The most obvious stat which I bring up (the rape statistic) is hardly questionable. If you disarm the populace, the people most harmed will be women, the elderly, and the disabled. But especially women. Women, more than anybody else within society, most need access to firearms in order to balance the disparity in force between themselves and a potential attacker.
The same pattern held here in America within the gun control cities (mainly Chicago, New York, and the District of Columbia). As violent crime fell across the nation since the 1990s, it remained mostly stable in those cities. Having lived in one of them I can tell you that it sucks that every criminal on the street knows I am disarmed. I couldn't carry a gun or a knife of any useful length, or even simple knuckle dusters. The result in recent years was a wave of flash mobs where youth criminals would brazenly mass on a busy city street and rob as many people as they can and then disperse. The police don't give a shit about protecting people and, in America, they don't even have a legal obligation to do it. You can be robbed right in front of a cop and if he doesn't stop the robber, he might get fired, but that's about it.
If the UK were to backtrack on those ridiculous laws, I am extremely confident your crime stats would fall more inline with the United States. You would see the higher homicide rate, but you would have to remember that most of those homicides are suicides, and some of the others are justifiable (a person defended themselves from a criminal). Also, what stat doesn't get tracked very well is the number of attacks which were averted simply by brandishing a gun. It's difficult to get accurate numbers because a lot of these events are not reported, and many others don't get aggregated by law enforcement agencies. But most conservative estimates put the rate in the millions per year. So when gun grabbers scream and yell about the homicide rate, they ignore all of the lives saved, which are quite a lot higher.
That's basically the same sort of thing the UK diplomats are doing when they attack Saudi Arabia's legal system. They fixate on how badly the criminals suffer their sentences without acknowledging the huge number of people who are alive or not victimized by crime because of that system's deterrent effect. So in the case of UK and their guns, they essentially reduced gun-related murders by hundreds (maybe just over a thousand) in exchange for tens of thousands of women raped each year. That deal sucks.
Now.. I am not saying that this eye for an eye business is just, but I do find it ironic that the nation which did most to incentivize violent crime, and is enduring a lot of violent crime compared to non-nanny states, then excoriates a nation like Saudi Arabia. While I agree they take the punishment a little too far (and perhaps a bit too creative), I think the UK ought to see the mote in their own eye.
_________________ The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:57 am Posts: 209 Location: The modern Alice in Wonderland that is the PRC
Ok Doc, but where are you getting your rape stats from? you say they aren't questionable but the civitas stats don't back up your claims that we have a much worse rate then you. The stats say that our 'disarmed' rate is slightly lower then your 'armed' rate. There is also of course as kolokol says the different ways these things are measured and reported in different countries.
I guess for me it comes down to the fact that if having guns meant our assaults went down but my risk of death went up, i will stick with what we have thank you. I have been assaulted twice, once by a drug addict and once with the usual drunken knobs we have here. However I prefer the risk of an occasional beating to being shot dead to be honest. Since if we did have guns these two were definitely among the groups that would have been most likely to have had them, wheras I would never carry one.
As for our ridiculous laws on gun control if you could find a politico to introduce the idea of guns for people there is no way he would get it passed. In our democracy people wouldn't vote for it. Same as you guys wouldn't vote for universal state healthcare.
You want guns so you don't end up like our 'controlling nanny state' and we don't want guns so we don't end up like your 'mad max style king of the hill experiment'
This is percentage of the female population who were raped at some point in there lives.
Total crime victims UK: 26.4% US: 21.1%
It's important to also note that on that site, the stats given as raw numbers are not normalized to the population. So you have to normalize those according to the population (divide population by the raw data).
What you will find is that, while the United States does have a higher homicide rate, our trade off is a far lower violent crime rate, including rape. But I would imagine, if we could find the stats, you would also see the correlation in assaults against the elderly and disabled for the very same reason. Furthermore, if you were to break down in a more micro level within the United States, you would see that the bulk of those homicides are occurring in very small urban regions. These regions are even smaller than the cities themselves, mostly limited to small sections of the cities. The rest of our nation is FAR safer than most of your nation.
What I think a lot of Britons don't seem to understand is that I can choose to live in a very safe environment precisely because I can move to a place where there is a high gun ownership and lower poverty rate. I don't need to carry a gun because others with greater means to purchase and train with them do that. The net effect is that people like me, who don't really have the resources or time to train and carry with firearms still enjoy the benefits of the second amendment. I do not carry a firearm. I care very much about the second amendment because I recognize that a great deal of my personal safety, and the safety of my loved ones, derives from the fact that other citizens can and do carry firearms.
As far as your personal stories of assault.. you also need to realize that your experience would be extremely unlikely for most Americans. Most Americans have never been assaulted. Those who were will most likely admit that they were in a time and place that put them in a great deal of risk as well. For the most part, we can choose to avoid being attacked by avoiding those very small areas where the violent crime is high (poor sections of cities). I have witnessed a homicide but have never been mugged or assaulted. I have been in fights, but I wouldn't call that assault since I chose to fight as well.
This guy breaks it down better than I could. It's worth a watch:
The main point that I am driving at here is that Britons have a HUGE blindspot when approaching these issues because they neglect the numbers of crime victims who were assaulted precisely because you disarmed them. I would prefer to increase the homicide rate by a few thousand (and remember our population is much larger than yours) in exchange for a reduction of hundreds of thousands of rapes, violent assaults, robberies, and so forth. I think people need to come right out and say to peoples faces that they want to inflict hundreds of thousands of rapes in order to reduce gun violence by maybe a thousand homicides. Because I can tell you right now how well that will go down Diane Feinstein.
Your government attacks the Saudi Arabian government for harsh sentencing when Saudi Arabia is actually a safe place to live for their citizens (not accounting for religious persecution). When they criticize the United State's gun culture, they completely ignore the fact that they have endured such high violent crime rates. They don't seem to care about the many, many more crime victims. Just the gun-related homicide rate. It's almost pathological. The data is right there for anybody to notice.
_________________ The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:44 am Posts: 1154 Location: Denmark
Dr. Strangelove wrote:
Furthermore, if you were to break down in a more micro level within the United States, you would see that the bulk of those homicides are occurring in very small urban regions. These regions are even smaller than the cities themselves, mostly limited to small sections of the cities. The rest of our nation is FAR safer than most of your nation.
What on earth makes you think this doesn't apply equally to UK or anywhere else for that matter?
You're cherry-picking your stats without applying any context to them. No one in their right mind will claim the UK is a model society when it comes to crime. High income disparity in both the population and between regions, ethic diversity and poor social programs equals crime. Add to that English culture is just generally violant and assholic, dude this is the people who invented! hooliganism. Reducing this to a question of gun rights make you look like a bafoon. Crime is a monumentously complex issue involving economics, morality, policing, education, intoxication, gender-roles, social programs, healthcare, streetlighting and culture. Only an idiot would reduce it to one variable.
Dr. Strangelove wrote:
Your government attacks the Saudi Arabian government for harsh sentencing when Saudi Arabia is actually a safe place to live for their citizens (not accounting for religious persecution).
This is one of the stupidest comments I've ever heard. I have to ask, Doc are you well traveled? Because this statement reads like a person who's never been out.
Statistics are immensely manipulable and don't do squat without context. Saudi Arabia is NOT a safe place to live. Sure it's very safe for turists and for members of the royal family but it is not a safe place for the common man. The authorities are the biggest threat of all, this is a country where it's illegal for a woman to walk in public unescorted by a male relative and a typical punishment is to be thrown in the back of a van gangraped by the police and thrown back out on the street. Problem solved. It is illegal for a shop to be open during prayer hours but violating this ban will not result in citation but rather handled on the spot with battons, no paperwork needed. This is a culture where you don't call the police if you have a problem with someone (hense the low crime figures) but rather settled it with your fists.
_________________ Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be
You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
This is percentage of the female population who were raped at some point in there lives.
Total crime victims UK: 26.4% US: 21.1%
It's important to also note that on that site, the stats given as raw numbers are not normalized to the population. So you have to normalize those according to the population (divide population by the raw data).
The UK records 'rapes' differently from the US and we use a much wider definition so that could be a reason we end up with a higher amount. I am not sure, would be nice to know if the nationmaster stats used the same definitions across all countries. I imagine they just take what the police tell them.
What you will find is that, while the United States does have a higher homicide rate, our trade off is a far lower violent crime rate, including rape. But I would imagine, if we could find the stats, you would also see the correlation in assaults against the elderly and disabled for the very same reason. Furthermore, if you were to break down in a more micro level within the United States, you would see that the bulk of those homicides are occurring in very small urban regions. These regions are even smaller than the cities themselves, mostly limited to small sections of the cities. The rest of our nation is FAR safer than most of your nation.
As far as your personal stories of assault.. you also need to realize that your experience would be extremely unlikely for most Americans. Most Americans have never been assaulted. Those who were will most likely admit that they were in a time and place that put them in a great deal of risk as well. For the most part, we can choose to avoid being attacked by avoiding those very small areas where the violent crime is high (poor sections of cities). I have witnessed a homicide but have never been mugged or assaulted. I have been in fights, but I wouldn't call that assault since I chose to fight as well.
That is true of any country though, most UK people I know have never been assaulted either. I was unsuprisingly assaulted outside a drug addiction centre by a drug addict and the second time outside of a notorious 'dodgy' local boozer. Both could have been avoided by me not being in such a bad place at the time and certainly the first by not being an idiot young teenager,staring too long at a cracked up drug addict and making a smart alec remark when questioned!
I know you like that video, unfortunately he to has fallen victim to his own complaints due to the fact that he is not comparing like with like due to the differing way we record our crimes.
In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.
The data shown in the ‘Violent crime’ category on police.uk combines the ‘All violence’ plus ‘All sexual offences’ categories used here in the Crime and Policing Comparator. This is to help protect victim confidentiality, since the police.uk maps are showing offences at street level. Because the Crime and Policing Comparator is showing force-level data, we are able to separate out the two categories
Anyway back to Saudi Arabia....if we hadn't got such dirty hands ourselves with our foreign adventures maybe we could say something.
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:57 am Posts: 209 Location: The modern Alice in Wonderland that is the PRC
As for our hooligans, apparently most of them were part timers who gave it up when ecstasy first got big over here and they found a better way to have fun. So who says drugs don't have benefits
Since if we did have guns these two were definitely among the groups that would have been most likely to have had them, wheras I would never carry one.
Why not? Assuming it was legal, you could afford a good one, and you learned how to use it properly, why wouldn't you carry a gun? I'm just curious is all.
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:44 am Posts: 1154 Location: Denmark
Myrtok wrote:
mongrel wrote:
Since if we did have guns these two were definitely among the groups that would have been most likely to have had them, wheras I would never carry one.
Why not? Assuming it was legal, you could afford a good one, and you learned how to use it properly, why wouldn't you carry a gun? I'm just curious is all.
Well since Mongrel is taken his sweet time I'll have a go at this
Why not? Try why? instead.
Why on earth would I carry a gun? I don't intend to shoot someone, I don't want to shoot someone not even a criminal and I don't expect to be assaulted. If I am, well that's just bad luck. I mean, I don't know how it is in the US but in Denmark 94% of all murder victimes '02-'11 were killed by a person whom they had a pre-existing relationship with - stranger on stranger murder is a myth.
I wouldn't carry a gun for the same reason I don't wear steeltipped boots or a lifepreserver. Sure it's possible I might need these, you never know, but it's not probable. If you're that scared you really shouldn't leave your house - life is dangerous, deal with it. Carrying a gun is an acknowledgement that you might be assaulted at any time and that's just too damn stressfull to live with - the mental cost of worrying exceeds the actual risk of harm. It's just not worth the hassle, the chances of being a victim is low and it's not like your life is over just because you get assaulted. It might be but odds are it won't, life goes on. -and it's not like you're powerless just because you're unarmed.
_________________ Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be
You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 11:40 am Posts: 2652 Location: Danmark
I think it is obvious Kol was addressing civil society and the relationship between citizens in his post. Your picture does not prove your unvoiced point. There were guns aplenty, there were armed men able to resist the invasion (or "protection" as it was named). But seeing as the parliament choose not to resist, the army (and we had/have conscription, btw) was not called upon to act. There is absolutely no power in a gun, or any weapon, or even any power in a man or woman wielding a weapon. There is only power in the will to use a weapon. Weapons don't make you safe or powerful. Active participation is power, wether that means active participation in democracy, business, or active participation in that glorious armed revolution some like to believe is just around the corner and that they (of course..) will be fighting in the frontlines of.
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