Fayhan al-Ghamdi is a well-known television commentator in Saudi Arabia who, while not recognized as a cleric, commonly instructed people on good Muslim values and lifestyles. We discussed his case earlier when he was released from jail after paying “blood money” for the raping, torture, and killing of his five-year-old daughter. Now, he has been given just eight years in prison and 800 lashes for the unspeakable crime. Ghamdi’s second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes in Saudi Arabia, you can be sentenced to death for adultery, apostasy or blasphemy. However, raping, torturing, and killing a toddler is just a matter of some blood money and an eight year stint. A husband can never be executed for killing one of his children or a wife under religious Sharia law.
The daughter, Lama, was only five but al-Ghamdi accused her of not being a virgin. She was admitted to a hospital on December 25, 2011 with a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns as well as a broken back. Ghamdi had used cables and a cane in the beating. A social worker is quoted as saying she had been raped “everywhere”. She lingered in the hospital for ten months before dying.
While the mother insisted that she would not take blood money, she ultimately took one million riyals ($270,000). Other reports put the amounts at $50,000 or half of the cost of a boy.
Any punishment was too much for some. In the initial hearings, the judge indicated that, under Islamic law, a father could not be punished for the death of a daughter.
But Sudia Arabia is our friend! Oil! Kenya! Blue is up, green is down!
The U.S. would do well to give this country the palm of its hand.
ANY, note the Caps, ANY culture that is sexually repressive breeds this kind of horror. The faux moralists who would “protect” their societies from sexual liberation, doom them to creating monsters with repressed sex drives that result in behavior such as this. We are told the opposite by these religions moralists as they decry a societies “descent” into sexual liberation. Their views are nonsensical. The sexual drive is among the most powerful instincts possessed by humans, if not the most powerful. To deny it and to repress it breeds mental illness on a societal and individual level.
For those who would pretend to misunderstand my point I am in favor of laws that would criminalize sex when there is coercion, or when one of the parties lacks the wherewithal to understand the nature of the relationship enough to see that informed consent has not been given.
The repressive, fundamentalist views of religionists actually cause more of the “sin” they seek to repress. Beyond that though it dooms their people to unfulfilled sex live for the most part because of the opprobrium they cast upon it. The broader harm and excess of this type of repression is the stifling of women’s humanity and equality. They devalue women into breeders, housekeepers and vessels for men’s overheated libidos. This disgusts me as does the entire repression of women in certain Islamic countries; as does the
repression of women in christian societies; in Jewish societies and in Hindu societies. View sex as evil and you view women as evil temptresses to be controlled. Have that view and you are incapable of having a mutually satisfactory sexual relationship with a woman.
And don’t get me started on the folly and horror connected with repression of normal homosexual urges.
It is Pirate Territory. But there is some law there. Kind of similar to that imposed on board a pirate ship rather on land in a Pirate Territory. The law of the pirate ship is more articulated and is imposed. On land in a Pirate Territory all one has to control behavior are competing non governmental forces which are couched in religion or tribal rituals. It is not like saying three Hail Marys and going back to work as in Europe.
Most of us will judge this man based upon our own cultural perspective, which has almost completely eliminated the authority of parents, and especially the authority of a man to govern his own household. This is not a case where their culture says that this man has done no wrong. It is a case where the recognition in law of parental authority mitigates the harshness of the penalty.
In our culture, we allow the authorities to take away children from parents if the child’s parents smoke and subject the child to the hazard of second hand smoke. It is very difficult for us to understand this other culture which would be shocked at our values in this regard. From their perspective, they see parental authority as very important, so the case is more analogous to the way many view abortion here in this country. With abortion, people say that a mother has a choice over her own body, so if she chooses to kill her unborn fetus, that is perfectly fine. How is this conclusion reached? On the basis of recognizing the mother’s authority over her own body and over the fetus that is growing inside her. To another culture that does not place as much significance on the authority of the mother, the action of the mother may appear more like the actions of this man.
I’m not condoning the evil acts of this man against his own flesh and blood. One might easily make the case that he should be punished more harshly rather than less harshly because the child cannot defend herself and she expects protection and comfort from her parent. I am simply trying to understand this other culture. We place a lower value on parental authority once a child is born. Their culture places greater importance upon parental authority, which mitigates the death penalty from being applied.
I would like to see this ‘Animal’ put into a giant ‘food processor’ and be blended to a nice smooth consistancy….
Bring him here…. We will see what happens to him…. This is where I think the death penalty is appropriate…..
Tootie 1, October 9, 2013 at 8:16 am
Sorry. I’m typing on this blasted ipad.
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Your cognition is the problem, not the ipad.
Sorry. I’m typing on this blasted ipad.
Making it up too.
Issac
Christ and Christianity were doing no such thing. You are just stuff up.
Mohammed had sex with a nine year old girl whom he married when she was six. The Muslim world promotes this worldview of female children because that is what the Koran demands of adherents. Those who go against it are denying their faith (in this case a good thing).
Mohammed trafficked in female sex slaves and Islam approves of it to this day.
It is no wonder when Democrats cozy up to Islam and hate Christ who did neither of these crimes. People who advocate snuffing out the lives of 50 million plus innocents have no problem approving of religions that promote having sex with the children who survive abortions. And since Democrats believe in slavery, the trafficking in women is a no brainer for them.
This religion is 700 years younger than christianity. 700 years ago christianity was doing far worse things. Perhaps a religion has to evolve into the almost benign and often laughable thing that it should be. Hopefully groups like Monty Python will be doing TV shows in these backward countries soon, basing their humor on the nonsense found in islam and reducing these horrible actions by the distance of history. “Off with their heads.”, wasn’t so funny a few hundred years ago.
For now, it is hard to believe that the leaders of these countries hobnob with our leaders and are invited to tea at the White House, # 10 Downing Street, The Lycée, etc. It’s hard to believe that there are countries that allow fairy tales to dictate justice. Resurrections, flying horses to the heavens, and other fairy tales; how can you take these people seriously? Ah, yes, to fuel my 9 miles to the gallon SUV, I forgot. Perhaps fairy tales are not so bad after all.
No punishment is truly sufficient for raping, torturing and killing a 5-year old.
Not minimizing the horrible crime, but the column seems to ignore the 800 lashes.
Obviously I have no experience with anything like that, but I went to an English boarding school – we used to get 6 strokes on the butt with a bamboo walking stick for various transgressions.
By the 6th stroke, the skin at the impact area was broken, you were badly bruised and you were bleeding (sitting was extremely uncomfortable for several days).
Now imagine the cumulative effects of 800 lashes – it could well be a death sentence.
Justice Holmes 1, October 9, 2013 at 6:59 am
The things that religion allows, it makes one weep.
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The article JT linked to (Int. Business Times) points out that “Fayhan al-Ghamdi, who is not recognised as a cleric by the Saudi religious circle …”
Child abuse activists, as well as Lama’s mother have expressed concern about how effectively punishments will be carried out. Also, high numbers of lashes are never given consecutively, but administered over time. Given the mind set of the authorities, I too am skeptical about how the sentence will be carried out, or once out of public view, whether it will even be carried out.
It was international outrage and pressure that got the case this far.
Again, it is not “that religion” that is the problem here, it is the way some horrible people choose to interpret it. Obviously, this guy chooses to interpret it in a way that sets him up as the authority on what to do and allows him to get away with unspeakable acts. The fact that he is even allowed to use his 5-year-old daughter’s alleged “lack of virginity” as an excuse for it is obscene. Because yeah, we know what sluts 5-year-olds can be, right? Absurd, in more ways than one.
Six hundred lashes isn’t exactly a walk in the park, you know. The British Navy in the 18th/19th centuries only handed out a dozen to three dozen lashes with the cat o’ nine tails. Some of the Nore mutineers were flogged round the Fleet and some of those, I believe, died.
I am seldom at a loss for words, but this is one of those times. If there ever were crimes that justify stoning, this is one of them.
That part of the world is charging headlong into the ninth century, ready or not.
The things that religion allows, it makes one weep.