Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “safer”, came with the email note, “Burka time again.”
Mo spouts the usual faith-kissing jargon, while Jesus makes some good points about the “protection” of the burqa. As far as conviction for rape is concerned, most people think that sharia law requires that a conviction of rape requires the testimony of four witnesses is required for a rape conviction, but there’s confusion about this, and some Islamic scholars say the “four witness” rule is for adultery. It appears, though that that rule has been applied for rape, which is a capital crime under Islamic law. A confession and other forensic evidence, however, will suffice.
But there’s no denying that rape victims in Islamic countries have been punished under the assumption that they must have been willing participants, that it was really a case of adultery or that they have dishonored the family. Such women are often punished or killed in “honor attacks.”
The site The Jurist says this about rape, and its mitigation through marriage, but I can’t vouch for its veracity. Perhaps readers know more:
Criminal Codes of Iraq, Syria [Arabic] [pdf], Lebanon [Arabic] [pdf], Libya [Arabic] [pdf], Kuwait [Arabic] [pdf], Bahrain [pdf], Algeria [Arabic] [pdf], Tunisia [Arabic] [pdf] and the Palestinian Territories provide that if the offender of rape lawfully marries the victim, any action becomes void and any investigation or other procedure is discontinued and, if a sentence has already been passed in respect of such action, then the sentence will be repealed.
The logic behind this law is to protect, though not the victim, rather the reputation of the victim in the society where she lives after her honor has been wounded. The honor of a woman is defined by her chastity, and when she is raped she is stigmatized and no longer marriageable. Hence, a marriage to her rapist is perceived as a solution to this problem and an exit from shame that is suitable to the society. This way her family needs not to feel dishonored or, in many cases, the need to seek vengeance-honor crime. Therefore, better than leaving girls shamed, unmarriageable and dishonored or to be killed by their families or relatives the law protects the girls by forcing attackers to marry them. As a result, such legal system legitimizes rape if it was followed by marriage, rewards the rapist and, in fact, allows him to continue his act. Also, the law ignores any redress for the victim, which should be the aim of the law at the first place. Further, it gets its legitimacy from the concept of shame, and prioritizes wrongful social customs over principles of protecting women and their right, as citizens and humans, to live safely with the protection of law and society.
And apparently the “four witness” rule does apply in some places.
Further judicial drawback to already troubling laws regarding rape is the burden of proof. For a rape conviction to actually be handed down, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Qatar and Mauritania laws mandate either a confession from the rapist or a witness account from four adult males
This high bar for conviction guarantees that many rapists will get off, and the victim perhaps punished or even killed. The treatment of women under Islamic law is often oppressive and barbaric. And that’s what Mo reveals in the last panel.
The rape/marriage law in Palestine territories was repealed in 2018, so I understand. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/10/palestine-marry-your-rapist-law-repealed
Steve King no doubt approves.
Of course. None of us would even be here if not for the rape and incest.
Little “progress in women’s equality” there, it seems.
What a piece of work is man — with our limbic system so often out of sync with our prefrontal cortex, and the latter relying on stories of a religious nature to try to resolve the conflict.
If a confession to rape will do as you allege above, I have to wonder what the standards are (and if they are followed) for police interrogations in these countries.
I’m sure you could get as many confessions as you need with a little application of electrical shock in the right places.
This is allegedly how they do things in Liberated Iraq:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/19/iraq-chilling-accounts-torture-deaths
F*** that part of the world and their odious religion.
The woke only know that they are oppressed so it’s OK after all.
In many parts of the Middle East, the culture is 2019 going on 1019.
The Four Witness Rule is obviously archaic. This is the 21st century. Certainly it would make sense now to require at least four videos with at least two confirming the actual type of “non-consensual contact” required to convict a perpetrator./S.
By making public the criminal codes in Islamic societies, The Jurist is clearly committing the offense of Islamophobia. In fact, any public discussion of these codes could be considered Islamophobic. Canadian citizens, in particular, should be cautioned against expressing any thoughts on such matters, in light of Motion 103 passed by the Canadian Parliament in 2017.
They’ve got their thinking on the burka back-to-front. If, as is claimed, the burka is employed to prevent men from catching a glimpse of female skin, provoking uncontrollable lust, why not just take the pieces of fabric cut out to make eye-slits and stick them over the mens’ eyes?
Because it’s the men that make the rules.
This is a vague memory as it’s from so long ago, but it is real event. There was an issue in a ?city a few decades ago in ?India with attacks on women, so there was a proposal for a curfew to be put on women during the hours of darkness. The ?mayor was a women, and she proposed that because it was men that were carrying out the attacks, they should be the ones put under curfew. The curfew idea was therefore abandoned.
I tried to do some Google research to find out more about that story but failed to track it down, not because it didn’t happen, but because there were literally hundreds of search results about similar cases.
It appears that putting women under curfew “to protect them from men” is really common in India.
This particular one is from so long ago it may not even be able to be found. I heard about it in the 1970s, and it may have actually occurred earlier than that.
Typo: The bit I put in bold or the bit I put in italics should not be there.
Muslims insist their religion honours women. The fact that even many Muslim women in the West won’t admit (or can’t see) that the opposite is true amazes, annoys, and frustrates me intensely.
The attitude of the Woke on this annoys me even more. It seems to be that Muslims are usually not white, and in the West are a minority, therefore it’s bigotry to criticize any aspect of their religion. They fail to recognize the appalling way most majority-Muslim countries treat women, Jews, atheists, apostates, and LGBT people in particular.
What about putting women in a bag is not honoring women? You put groceries in a bag. Money goes into a bag! The expression is, “it’s in the bag”. *sarc* 😎
If rape is a capital crime, then I’d say it’s just as well they require four witnesses.
I guess it would be more relevant to say that Islamic law is mediaeval and barbaric and does no favours for either sex.
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