DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A Norwegian woman sentenced to 16 months in jail in Dubai for having sex outside marriage after she reported an alleged rape said Friday she decided to speak out in hopes of drawing attention to the risks of outsiders misunderstanding the Islamic-influenced legal codes in this cosmopolitan city.

The case has drawn outrage from rights groups and others in the West since the 24-year-old interior designer was sentenced Wednesday. It also highlights the increasingly frequent tensions between the United Arab Emirates' international atmosphere and its legal system, which is strongly influenced by Islamic traditions in a nation where foreign workers and visitors greatly outnumber locals.

"I have to spread the word. ... After my sentence we thought, `How can it get worse?'" Marte Deborah Dalelv told The Associated Press in an interview at a Norwegian aid compound in Dubai where she is preparing her appeal scheduled for early September.

Dalelv, who worked for an interior design firm in Qatar since 2011, claims she was sexually assaulted by a co-worker in March while she was attending a business meeting in Dubai.

She said she fled to the hotel lobby and asked for the police to be called. The hotel staff asked if she was sure she wanted to involve the police, Dalelv said.

"Of course I want to call the police," she said. "That is the natural reaction where I am from."

Dalelv said she was given a medical examination seeking evidence of the alleged rape and underwent a blood test for alcohol. Such tests are commonly given in the UAE for alleged assaults and in other cases. Alcohol is sold widely across Dubai, but public intoxication can bring charges.

The AP does not identity the names of alleged sexual assault victims, but Dalelv went public voluntarily to talk to media.

Dalelv was detained for four days after being accused of having sex outside marriage, which is outlawed in the UAE although the law is not actively enforced for tourists as well as hundreds of thousands of Westerners and others on resident visas.

She managed to reach her stepfather in Norway after being loaned a phone card by another woman in custody.

"My stepdad, he answered the phone, so I said, that I had been raped, I am in prison ... please call the embassy," she recounted.

"And then I went back and I ... just had a breakdown," she continued. "It was very emotional, to call my dad and tell him what happened."

Norwegian diplomats later secured her release and she has been allowed to remain at the Norwegian Seamen's Center in central Dubai. She said her alleged attacker received a 13-month sentence for out-of-wedlock sex and alcohol consumption.

Dubai authorities did not respond to calls for comment, but the case has brought strong criticism from Norwegian officials and activists.

"This verdict flies in the face of our notion of justice," Norway's foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, told the NTB news agency, calling it "highly problematic from a human rights perspective."

Previous cases in the UAE have raised similar questions, with alleged sexual assault victims facing charges for sex-related offenses. Other legal codes also have been criticized for being at odds with the Western-style openness promoted by Dubai.

On Thursday, Dubai police said they arrested a man who posted an Internet video of an Emirati beating a South Asian van driver after an apparent traffic altercation. Police said they took the action because images of a potential crime were "shared."

In London, a spokesman for the Emirates Center for Human Rights, a group monitoring UAE affairs, said the Dalelv case points out the need for the UAE to expand its legal protections for alleged rape victims.

"We urge authorities to reform the laws governing incidents of rape in the country," said Rori Donaghy, "to ensure women are protected against sexual violence and do not become the targets of prosecution when reporting crimes."

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maclatunji: The Emiratis have a funny way of enforcing the law. Personally, I believe they rely on "loopholes" in their constitution. That is what you get when you don't apply the sharia and seek to modify it to your tastes.

nbright: I don't think it happens only in the Emirate... Most Islamic states do have such laws..

maclatunji:

Be exact about the law you speak off.

nbright: When a girl is charged to court because she was molested.

maclatunji: The Emiratis have a funny way of enforcing the law. Personally, I believe they rely on "loopholes" in their constitution. That is what you get when you don't apply the sharia and seek to modify it to your tastes.

On the paradise island of Maldives, where tourists delight in beaches, sex, and rose petal bungalow beds with breathtaking views, a 15 year-old girl was arrested after years of sexual abuse Police discovered a dead newborn buried in an outdoor shower. The girl’s stepfather had been raping her for years. Her mother ignored the cries of her daugthter. When the girl became pregnant as a result of rape, they pulled her out of school and waited out the nine months, then killed and buried the newborn after delivery. The stepfather was arrested and charged with pre-meditated murder, child sexual abuse of and possession of pornographic materials. The mother, also arrested faces charges for concealing the alleged sexual offenses.
While most would assume the 15-year old girl would be put into child protective custody and receive immediate counseling and support, the girl was arrested, interrogated and charged with fornication. Authorities claimed during her 'interrogation', she confessed to having consensual sex with another man. She was sentenced to a pucblc flogging of 100 lashes and eight months of house arrest. The identity of this other man, or whether he was charged, is not known. And it might not matter.

In Maldvian Sharia-Common Law, in cases of fornication, 90 percent of those flogged, are women.

U.N. Human Rights Chief, Navi Pillay called for a moratorium on corporal punishment.
“This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country,” said Pillay.
Pillay’s statement of concern was met with outrage from the opposition and religious Adhaalath party, giving rise to protests and demonstrations. The Foreign Ministry itself dismissed the calls for discussion on the issue, stating:
“There is nothing to debate about in a matter clearly stated in the religion of Islam. No one can argue with God.”

On October 30, 2008, the United Nations condemned the stoning to death of Aisha Duhulowa, a 13-year-old girl who had been gang-raped and then sentenced to death by a Sharia court for fornication (Zina). She was screaming and begging for mercy, but when some family members attempted to intervene, shots were fired by the Islamic militia and a baby was killed. This happens in Sharia courts of other countries also. The village Sharia courts in Bangladesh, although illegal, regularly punish raped minor girls and women by flogging and beating them with shoes. In Pakistan similar cases of punishing raped women are Mina v. the State, Bibi v. the State and Bahadur v. the State. In Pakistan similar cases of punishing raped women are Mina v. the State, Bibi v. the State and Bahadur v. the State. Sharia courts in Pakistan have punished many thousands of raped women by long term imprisonment. It became so chronic that raped women stopped reporting to police.

How to prove rape under sharia: Muslim jurists will only accept four male witnesses. These witnesses must declare that they have "seen the parties in the very act of carnal conjunction." Once an accusation of fornication and adultery has been made, the accuser himself or herself risks punishment if he or she does not furnish the necessary legal proofs. Witnesses are in the same situation. If a man were to break into a woman's dormitory and rape half a dozen women, he would risk nothing since there would be no male witnesses. Indeed the victim of a rape would hesitate before going in front of the law, since she would risk being condemned herself and have little chance of obtaining justice. "If the woman's words were sufficient in such cases," explains Judge Zharoor ul Haq of Pakistan, "then no man would be safe."

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/how_sharia_rapes_justice.html#ixzz2ZeCVGuMw
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maclatunji: ^The only one that is worth reacting to is the third one. In a country where Sharia is properly practised, there is segregation between the sexes. It would be difficult for a man to explain what he was doing in an all female establishment for example were he to be accused of rape in such an instance.

It is funny how you posted a crime by a single individual and tried to use it to define Islam. I saw in the news last night, a pastor caught for raping 2 eleven- year old girls, would it make sense for me to suggest that christianianity supports rape because of that?

bobthebuilder99:

Did the police arrest the eleven year olds and put them in jail?