We realize that there are good and bad in every culture so while we have the terrorists and 9th century Mullah-crats repressing their subjects, we also have glittering examples of culture and progress like the tiny nation of Dubai. Well, Dubai seems to have some problems of its own. From the New York Times: (use bug-me-not for registration)
In Rape Case, a French Youth Takes On Dubai
Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade.
Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.
There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.
Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubais luxury hotel towers.
Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai's status as the Arab worlds paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.
The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.
Good lord -- a bit more:
United Arab Emirates law does not recognize rape of males, only a crime called forced homosexuality. The two adult men charged with sexually assaulting Alex have pleaded not guilty, although sperm from all three were found in Alex. The two adults appeared in court on Wednesday and were appointed a lawyer. They face trial before a three-judge panel on Nov. 7. The third, a minor, will be tried in juvenile court. Legal experts here say that men convicted of sexually assaulting other men usually serve sentences ranging from a few months to two years.
One more bit:
Most infuriating to Alex and his mother, Véronique Robert, is that police inaccurately informed French diplomats on Aug. 15, a month after the assault, that the three attackers were disease-free, the diplomats say. Only at the end of August did the family learn that that the 36-year-old assailant was H.I.V. positive. The case file contains a positive H.I.V. test for the convict dated March 26, 2003.
Alexandre Robert's Mom has started the Boycott Dubai website. One of the comments really spells out the power of such sites -- From Robert Shaw, 41, Senior Vice President (company unnamed):
My wife and I have the financial means to travel anywhere is the world we choose. Recently we discussed visiting Dubai because in light of the current stuggles in the middle east, we viewed Dubai as a progressive arab state. Not any more. We will never travel there and will make sure to influence all friends and family to do the same and tell their respective friends. Dubai is a pathetic, backwards country not worthy of the world's tourism money.
And you bet that Robert and his wife will be talking to other people of similar social status and telling them this story...
