Eastern Laws and our Western Laws...

[JoeTruth]

First, Eastern (fundamental) laws...

Forced annulment keeps couple apart
By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press.

Two years ago, a knock on Fatima and Mansour al-Timani's door shattered the life they had built together. It was the police, delivering news that a judge had annulled their marriage in absentia after some of Fatima's relatives sought the divorce on grounds she had married beneath her.
That was just the beginning of an ordeal for a couple who — under Saudi Arabia's strict segregation rules — can no longer live together. They sued to reverse the ruling, publicized their story and sought help from a Saudi human rights group.
But the two remain apart and Fatima said she is considering suicide if her recent appeal to King Abdullah does not reunite her with her husband.
"Only the king can resolve my case," Fatima told The Associated Press by telephone in a rare interview. "I want to return to my husband, but if that is not possible, I need to know so I can put an end to my life."
Fatima's case underscores shortcomings in the kingdom's Islamic legal system in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.
The most frequent victims are women, who already suffer severe restrictions on daily life in Saudi Arabia: They cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.
Recently, the king did intervene and pardon another high-profile defendant — a rape victim who was sentenced to lashes and jail time for being in a car with a man who was not her relative.
The two cases have brought Saudi human rights once again into the international spotlight, revealing not only the weakness of the kingdom's justice system, but the scant rights of Saudi women.
"When I heard that the (rape victim) was pardoned, I couldn't believe it. My case is so much simpler than hers, since my divorce is invalid," Fatima said.
Fatima said her husband, a hospital administrator, followed Saudi tradition in asking her father for permission to marry her in 2003.
"My brother reported good things about him, so my dad accepted his proposal," said Fatima, a computer specialist who was 29 when she married.
She said her father knew that Mansour came from a less prominent tribe than hers, but that he did not mind because he "cared about the man himself."
A few months after the wedding, several of Fatima's relatives, including a half brother, persuaded her father to give them power of attorney to file a lawsuit demanding an annulment, she said.
Then her father died, and Fatima said she had hoped the case would be dropped.
But on Feb. 25, 2006, police knocked on the couple's door to serve Mansour with divorce papers — which said his marriage had been annulled nine months earlier.
"We were shattered. How did this happen? Why?" Fatima asked.
Under Saudi law, a woman needs the permission of her family to marry.
Saudi lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, who used to represent the couple, said local interpretations of Islamic law hold that relatives of a married couple have the right to seek an annulment if they feel the marriage lowers the extended family's status.
He said authorities are reluctant to overrule such annulment orders, believing they are private matters within extended families.
Fatima took the couple's 2-year-old daughter and 4-month-old son to live with her mother, who had persuaded her to let Mansour deal with the legal issues on his own.
But after three months without her husband, Fatima and the children sneaked out of her mother's house and flew with Mansour to the western seaside city of Jiddah, where they sought to live in anonymity.
Saudi police soon discovered them and imprisoned the family for living together illegally.
"The police told me I either return to my (mother's) family or go to jail," Fatima said. "I chose jail."
"My children and I were thrown in a cell with women sentenced for pushing drugs, practicing witchcraft and behaving immorally," Fatima said. Authorities allowed her to send her daughter back to live with her father, but the infant stayed with Fatima in jail.
"He learned to speak in jail, he learned to walk in jail and his teeth came out in jail," she said.
Meanwhile, Mansour went to court to appeal the divorce ruling, but a Riyadh appeals court upheld the decision in 2007.
Last September, the head of a prominent Saudi human rights group reportedly asked the kingdom's highest court to review the case.
Bandar al-Hajjar, head of the National Society of Human Rights, submitted two Islamic studies concluding that the divorce was invalid, according to the Arab News, a Saudi English-language daily.
The studies, conducted by Islamic researcher Adnan Al-Zahrani and Bassam Al-Bassam, a counselor at the Court of Cassation in Mecca, said that if a woman's legal guardian represented her at the original wedding, then other relatives have no right to object to the marriage based on compatibility.
Both studies concluded that Fatima married Mansour with her father's permission, and that only the wife can decide whether she wants her marriage annulled, the paper reported.
Despite their legal fight, Fatima and Mansour remain apart.
After nine months in jail, Fatima moved to an orphanage where she and her son share an apartment with several other women.
Fatima said she is holding out hope the king might pardon her, and recognize her as "married to Mansour, before God."
"I love him more than ever. He's the only one who has stood by me," she said.


AND our laws...

A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire.
Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires.' The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued and WON! Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company, which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable 'fire' and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars lost in the 'fires'.

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine. This is a true story and was the First Place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

ONLY IN AMERICA, NO WONDER THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES THINK WE'RE NUTS!

[bevaaler]

Still laughing at the last part, thats awesome.. First part, not funny, seems Women are treated worse than dogs over in the middle east. Erik

[katonk]

http://www.snopes.com/crime/clever/cigarson.asp

[stinkyrider]

We are just as crazy and insane as they are. We just have a different brand of crazy.

"In the legal system, women face discrimination as the criminal laws of Saudi Arabia adhere to strict Islamic precepts. An example of this is the requirements for testifying in criminal proceedings; The witness must be deemed sane, the age of an adult, and a Muslim. Non-Muslims may not testify in criminal court. Women may not testify unless it is a personal matter that did not occur in the sight of men. The testimony of a woman is not regarded as fact but as presumption. The reasons women are forbidden to testify in proceedings are (quote):[10][11]

1. Women are much more emotional than men and will, as a result of their emotions, distort their testimony.
2. Women do not participate in public life, so they will not be capable of understanding what they observe.
3. Women are dominated completely by men, who by the grace of God are deemed superior; therefore, women will give testimony according to what the last man told them.
4. Women are forgetful, and their testimony cannot be considered reliable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_r...n_Saudi_Arabia

Also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_...n_Saudi_Arabia

[Seat Sniffer]

as stated by an ex-judge teaching collegiate law: "The legal system has absolutely nothing to do with justice. If justice is found in a court of law, it is merely a by-product fabricated from the exploitation of loopholes in the system".

http://www.stellaawards.com/

[EMrider]

Great story, but I had a feeling a snopes link would appear regarding that lawyer/cigar story.

We are just as crazy and insane as they are. We just have a different brand of crazy.

Hope you're not being literal here. IMHO we are not even close to being as crazy or insane as conservative Islamist states, regardless of how you define crazy. I've been to Saudi quite a few times and the place is absolutely surreal.

[JoeTruth]

Originally Posted by EMrider

Great story, but I had a feeling a snopes link would appear regarding that lawyer/cigar story.

Hope you're not being literal here. IMHO we are not even close to being as crazy or insane as conservative Islamist states, regardless of how you define crazy. I've been to Saudi quite a few times and the place is absolutely surreal.

I wasn't sure about the cigar story as I got it from a friend through one of those emails. Obviously, not a true story. Oh well!

The first story is surreal; especially considering our standards of living and the freedom and liberties we have. I posted it to further remind people of how good they have it here in the states. Far too often, I hear people whining and they have no idea what a 3rd world struggle or being repressed is like. I was born in the middle east and have seen some crazy stuff and don't miss any of it one bit. Saying that, "crazy" is relative. It's all they know and live. On the bright side of things, they have an amazingly low crime rate and a very low prison populations. We would too if people were being hung for stealing or committing adultery. They deliberately make a show of it in public to detour others. Talk about harsh and barbaric!

[EMrider]

Originally Posted by JoeTruth

I wasn't sure about the cigar story as I got it from a friend through one of those emails. Obviously, not a true story. Oh well!

The first story is surreal; especially considering our standards of living and the freedom and liberties we have. I posted it to further remind people of how good they have it here in the states. Far too often, I hear people whining and they have no idea what a 3rd world struggle or being repressed is like. I was born in the middle east and have seen some crazy stuff and don't miss any of it one bit. Saying that, "crazy" is relative. It's all they know and live. On the bright side of things, they have an amazingly low crime rate and a very low prison populations. We would too if people were being hung for stealing or committing adultery. They deliberately make a show of it in public to detour others. Talk about harsh and barbaric!

Yep, the more time I spend abroad the less patience I have for the whiners (few/none of whom have spent time in places like Saudi BTW). The USA has its problems for sure, but IMHO it is the best place to live on any criteria. I'm very thankful and lucky to be here.
R