Redux: British Woman Raped Accused of Illicit Sex

A 23-year-old British woman who reported a rape while vacationing in Dubai has become the double-victim of misogynists. Instead of seeking to find the thug who raped her, the Dubai police have arrested her and charged her with having ambiguously defined illicit sex:

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The young woman was attacked in the toilet of a hotel where she had had been drinking with her fiancé to celebrate their engagement during a holiday in Dubai over New Year’s Eve.

When she reported the rape to police however, she and her 44-year-old boyfriend were jailed themselves for having sex outside marriage, which remains illegal under the emirate’s strict laws on decency. The couple were also charged with drinking illegally outside licensed premises.

According to reports, Dubai police were more interested in questioning the woman about her drinking and sexual preferences than investigating her attack. It is claimed that standard procedure in alleged rape cases was not followed, although legal sources in Dubai dispute this.

It is often the case under ignorant establishments, and not just in the Middle East (in the United States and many other Western nations, women are also often blamed for reasons below), that a raped woman is the one accused of the crime/and,or have her crime dismissed usually under the misogynist reasoning that in her supposed incautious demeanor and immodest dress she brought on the rape. The brute man is excused from personal responsibility.

And this is not Dubai’s first mistreatment of a victim of one of the worst violations against a human being. Roughly a year ago, a French teenager violently raped by three men was accused of being a homosexual using the rape as a cover and because homosexuality is a crime in the United Arab Emirates it was he who was charged with a crime, and had to leave Dubai to avoid arrest.

If Dubai wants to join the modern world, it needs to do more than build an empty World’s Tallest Building. No one will respect and few will visit a society with such a cruel image as to blame the victims - if not moved by universal justice at the very least its rulers should be moved by monetary/tourism consideration. Reforming the legal code and judiciary would not be a bad place to start.

Redux:

The police, seemingly unconcerned by the rape, took their passports and arrested her and her fiancée for illegal drinking and illegal sex. They face 6 years jail. The alleged rapist claims [the] sex was consensual and has been charged with illegal sex.

"There have been some truly appalling injustices in Dubai but this one tops the lot. A desperate, distressed rape victim went with her boyfriend to report the attack to police. And both wound up behind bars," said a diplomatic source.

The question of illegal drinking is a new reality in Dubai, which is trying to clean up its regional image as a center of sleaze and hedonism. The government has banned drinking in many establishments and severely restricted it in many areas in an effort to balance Islamic cultural norms and Dubai's aspiration to be a regional hot spot as a welcoming and festive spot for tourists.

A Paris Hilton reality show taped in the emirate illustrates this attempt at balance. The young known-for-nothing celebrity was invited to film because she brings (supposedly, but I don't see) glamor and attention (not all attention is good!) to the city-state, but her show was prohibited from showcasing alcohol or any crude intimate/sexual conduct.

And this arrest of the British couple follows an entirely different circumstance in the infamous case of a British woman arrested for having sex on the beach. Now that was a genuine crime, although the initial call for punishment was harsh. She and her partner were eventually deported. Whatever the merit of the latter case, all of these case together have no doubt darkened Dubai's image among the British public.

Dubai is so image savvy at times, and yet so often unconscious of its image in more fundamental questions of decency.