Man Who Beat Son To Death Over Grades Has 1 Year Jail Sentence Rejected By UAE Court

An Emirati man beat his 12-year-old son so severely with a cane and an electrical chord the child died. Apparently, papa was unhappy with the boy's school grades. The mother found the bloody, unconscious boy and drove him to the hospital, but the child was dead on arrival.

Under sharia law this is how the judicial process went down for the accused:

Parents can't be sentenced to death under sharia, so that was ruled out. Of course, the death sentence is perfectly fine for adulterers, blasphemers, apostates and homosexuals. But beating someone to death? 15 years max. However, this dad lucked out. The 'beating' charge  was changed to premeditated murder.

Now this is where it gets interesting. There's that 'blood money' clause under sharia law, whereby relatives can receive money and a reduced sentence as retribution.

As the boy’s heirs, the father’s parents, waived their rights to a death sentence, R M was sentenced to three years in jail and a blood money settlement of Dh200,000.

His sentence was later reduced by the appeals court to one year, as the boy’s mother also waived her right to blood money.

On Wednesday, the court of cassation ruled that the heirs should not have been consulted in this case.

The law states that a father cannot be charged with premeditated murder unless he confesses, which R M did not, or if it was a straightforward murder act.

In this case, as the tools he used to kill his son were not weapons, it proved it was an attack driven by anger and not planned.

[snip]

Also, the medical report showed there was not a fatal blow from the father, as the boy died from shock caused by the pain of the beating.

So that pre-meditated murder charge? Thrown out, along with the year sentence. So another hearing will be scheduled.

Gotta love sharia.

The full story here.

Haaretz Lied About Rihanna Giving Nod To Palestine During Israel Concert- Retracts Story

The singer Rihanna has been at the center of quite a bit of controversy during her recent Middle East tour. It started in Abu Dhabi where she was tossed out of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque for taking some "inappropriate" selfies before her scheduled concert there, and then posting the photos on her Instagram account.  She's actually covered from head to toe, but that wasn't enough to stop the usual suspects from becoming offended.


Then she pissed off the Boycott Israel crowd by performing in Israel, so much so that the ultra liberal Haaretz newspaper felt the need to fabricate a story. In an article titled “All Rihanna sees ‘is Palestine’, but Israelis didn’t seem to care,” Haaretz claimed that in her song "Pour it up" she switched the lyrics from "All I see is dollar signs" to "All I see is Palestine," and that "she just kept inserting calls of “Tel Aviv!” in every song – never once saying the word Israel.”  Problem is, Michael Dickson of StandWithUs was at that same concert, and although she did keep throwing in "Tel Aviv"- since that's the town she was playing in, and that's usually what musicians do, mention the town not the country- he never heard her say "Palestine."  But it wasn't just Haaretz, The Huffington Post picked up on the Haaretz story and posted it there, titled: "Rihanna's Tel Aviv Concert Includes Nod To Palestine." Dickson, troubled by what he read, wrote a piece for The Times of Israel regarding what seemed to be a complete fabrication, mentioning he had tried contacting Haaretz for either a back up of the claim or retraction, and was being ignored.  Then a video of the concert surfaced which clearly shows she did NOT, after all, give a nod to Palestine, and this eventually led to a retraction by Haaretz and Huffington Post, along with a change of title on Haaretz, but not on Huffpo.

Shameful for HuffPo to not even do due diligence by checking out the video before reporting on the story, and even more shameful for Haaretz to have posted an outright lie.

Here's Dickson's thorough rundown including the video and updates.

British Engineer Could Spend 1 Month In Abu Dhabi Jail For Insulting Islam

I can't quite figure out what the appeal of the Gulf countries is, either as an ex-pat worker or a tourist.  The beaches might be lovely but the do's and don'ts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are extensive and with even the slightest infraction you can end up in jail. I'm sure there's a truckload of money to be made in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but is it worth the risk? You be the judge:

A British engineer could spend a month in jail because he insulted his Muslim co-workers by telling them in a fit of frustration:

 'When will we finish with the damn mosques?'

Misinterpreting and overreacting, as Muslims are apt to do, his colleagues then tattled on him to the authorities and he wound up in court. The ex-pat (who is appealing the sentence) tried to explain that the 'insult' was not deliberate, and that it was simply his frustration at how slow moving the project was, and that he just

".. wanted it to be ready as soon as possible.'

Apparently he works for Abu Dhabi's parks and recreation and is in charge of designing the gardens surrounding a mosque that has yet to be finished, and obviously taking far longer than it should. 
The engineer will know on February 7 whether he'll be spending a month in jail or be a free man.

If he's smart he'd head on back to England.