Amnesty International Urges Saudi Arabia Not to Deliberately Paralyze Man as Punishment

[cory777]

Source: Amnesty International

Amnesty International today urged the Saudi Arabian authorities not to deliberately paralyze a man in retribution for similar injuries he allegedly caused during a fight.

"We urge the Saudi Arabian authorities not to carry out such a punishment, which amounts to nothing less than torture. While those guilty of a crime should be held accountable, intentionally paralyzing a man in this way would constitute torture, and be a breach of its international human rights obligations,”" said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, acting director of the Middle East and North Africa Program.

Reports say a court in Tabuk, in the northwest of the country, had approached a number of hospitals about the possibility of cutting the man's spinal cord to carry out the punishment of qisas (retribution), as requested by the injured victim.

One hospital reportedly said it would be possible to medically administer the injury at the same place on the spinal cord as the damage the man is alleged to have caused his victim using a cleaver during a fight more than two years ago, causing similar paralysis.

Read more: http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20100820001&lang=e&rss=recentnews

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[JI7]

1. the Saudi Leadership are family friends of the Bush family

[east texas lib]

3. George Bush made my chickens quit layin' eggs!

:grr:

[tabasco]

4. Are you minimizing the damage the idiot puppet AWOL Bush did to this country?

Why would you do that?

[east texas lib]

6. No, I'm marveling at the fact that people devote their energy and time to decrying what's Done...

Instead of devoting it to getting our country back on track. You can't turn back the clock and change the past. Learn from the past so you may improve your future. But don't sit there and stew about it.

[bitchkitty]

14. Who's stewing? I saw an offhand reference.

Maybe Bush should talk to the Saudis on behalf of this man. He is, after all, like a brother to them!

[Iowa]

19. Bullshit...

Focusing our attention on (as you put it), "decrying what's done", is the only way to prevent the same things from occurring in the future. Letting torturers off Scot-free is a surefire way to institutionalize state-sanctioned torture. Those in power who refuse to prosecute torturers are complicit in the torture, and are no better than the torturers themselves.

[tabasco]

22. Riiiiight.

Let's just forget all about the people who drove the country in the ditch and lied us into war.

Wouldn't want to waste time looking back or anything.

"Learn from the past." LOL. You don't even want to look back two fucking years. You'd rather blame it on Obama.

Why don't you get lost?

[totodeinhere]

16. True, but the present Democratic administration is also in bed with them. n/t

[saigon68]

2. Good thing we invite these "people" (sarcasm) to amerika

Fundamentalist nut jobs

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Any doctor sick enough to do this had better forget about moving to another country

to practice medicine.

[rasputin1952]

7. Holy Shit!

This is barbaric!

[ensho]

8. S.A. seems to prefer the 17th century to the 21st

religion has them living in a bubble. not the real world.

[Heywood J]

11. 17th century?

I think you forgot the modifier "BC"...

[Warren Stupidity]

13. uh no - 1600s England for example, or France, or anywhere else in Europe

the use of massive retributional punishment was entirely common. For example, read the works of or commentary on Voltaire, who made it his mission to fight against this stuff in the mid to late 18th century. It was the enlightenment that slowly brought an end to our own barbarity.

[Posteritatis]

18. The 17th century was the time of the 30 Years' War. Saudi Arabia's pleasant by comparison

...even if things like this make me wonder if they want to get a little closer to that 'ideal.'

[corkhead]

9. an "eye for an eye", how very Old Testament of them.

[rasputin1952]

10. The thing about that is...

it is embedded in the OT law, as a limiting feature. If you were blinded by someone, you could not demand the other's head in retribution. If you lost a toe, you could not demand 2 toes from the person responsible for the act that caused the amputation.

Here's the real gist of the situation though, while one could not demand more than what was lost...the other extreme was that complete forgiveness could be be an answer. Between these two limits lay a variety of possible options. The OT has this embedded as law, most likely because the Code of Hammurabi was rife with death for almost everything.

A surgical procedure to paralyze this individual is barbaric beyond the extreme...it is not justice, it is an insane way of dealing w/something as basic as one can get. People need to rise up and demand that situations like this should never exist.

[happyslug]

12. His family did NOT come up with enough money???

Remember the "Tooth for a tooth" requirement is in place of some other source of compensation for the injury. In many cultures this is NOT even criminal, it is suppose to be handled by the families of the victim and the person who did the injury NOT the state. That is the traditional Arab way of handling such disputes. Mohammad accepted it and made it part of Islam, but it Pre-dates him and is inanate in most cultures.

Now, we in the west have more or less dropped the concept of the extended family. We are no longer liable for injuries caused by our relatives to others (We have not been since the at least the Reformation), but even as late as the early 1800s if some one in your family was murdered, it was a FAMILY DUTY to file a Criminal Murder Charge against the Murder NOT the State's (This changed in the US about 1830 as the US adopted the Concept of the "District Attorney", in England later).

My point is this has almost nothing to do with Religion, but Culture. Today, we want the STATE to go after Criminals. Prior to about 1800, even in English Speaking Countries, that was the duty of the individual, his and her's extended families and other friends and relatives.

Here the Court is hearing the case of a VICTIM, who is has NOT been offered a Satisfactory settlement. He is thus asking for the court to do to the Defendant what the Defendant did to him. The Defendant's family has two chooses, make some sort of reasonable offer OR leave the Defendant in the same position the Defendant left the Victim. Furthermore such cases have existed for Centuries and the court have more or less a guideline to go by. Some one is NOT willing to pay, and I suspect it is the Defendant's Family.

Side note: If you really want to stop this, set up a fund to compensate the Victim. Once it is high enough even the most religious court will force the Victim and his family to accept it. This is an issue regarding money, the threat is just that a threat to force the Defendant and his extended family to pay up.

[truth2power]

15. And this man's photo is not on the cover of Time becasue?...

Oh, wait...the Saudis are our BFF's. Can't be demonizing 'em.

[rayofreason]

17. Let's let the Saudis...

...build more religious schools here so they can spread their interpretation of Islam!

Well, I know we can't restrict the building of new mosques (or churches, stone circles, whatever...), but we can demand transparency about funding of projects to expose Saudi connections and criticize Wahhabi/Salafi Islam at every turn, mocking their beliefs (go SouthPark!). Just prepare to be condemned as Islamophobe. And maybe have death threats against you (believable ones). Even if you just draw cartoons.

[yurbud]

20. don't doctors take the Hippocratic Oath there?

[yurbud]

21. our government criticizes Hugo Chavez but embraces 12th century thugs in Saudi

[Lightning Count]

23. Not sure what to do in this situation. He definitely isn't an innocent youth.

I would think a civilian trial and a long prison sentence would do.

"Khadr was captured in a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002 and is charged with murdering U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer with a hand grenade during the battle.

He also is charged with making roadside explosives for use against U.S.-led forces, spying on U.S. convoys, providing material support for terrorism and conspiring with al Qaeda to commit terrorism against civilians.

In rejecting the defense argument Khadr was tortured into confessing, Parrish said there was "credible evidence" that the accused started making incriminating statements only after he learned that American troops had found a videotape at the compound that showed him and others making improvised bombs."