Bizarre Lawsuits From The Middle East and Elsewhere

For a little Saturday levity (though obviously not for those involved) here are some rather strange lawsuits from the Middle East. I was googling to verify one I saw on Al Arabiya  today where a woman is suing her husband for threatening to post nude photos of her on Twitter and Facebook  after they got into an argument, and then I found a slew of other equally strange ones.

Quoting a security source, Kuwait’s al-Rai newspaper reported that after the wife informed her family about the threats, her sister tried to mediate in the conflict and calm down the situation to avoid a looming scandal. But when she spoke with her sister’s husband, he threatened her as well, saying he would take nude pictures of her too and publish them.

At this point, the wife’s sister saw that the man must be deterred by law. She immediately went to the police station and filed a complaint. The man is now being sued for using telecommunication means to invade people’s privacy, according to the newspaper.

From Saudi Arabia we have this woman suing her husband for "vilification and extortion" after discovering he was posting photos of her along with disparaging comments on a social networking site, along with threatening and obscene text messages. At first he blamed his ex-wife, but it turns out he was having an affair with the ex and he was the only one who had access. The case has been in the court system for a year.

Another one from Kuwait, though I'm not sure what year.  This time a man sued his wife for beating him. Sadly, domestic violence isn't only perpetrated against women.

Dubai in 2011, a woman was suing her ex-husband for a "loveless marriage". He had E.D and didn't tell her.

This is probably one of the most bizarre, though not from the Middle East. A Chinese man in 2012 divorced, then sued his ex-wife for giving him an ugly baby. He accused her of adultery which she denied. Apparently, prior to her marriage she had $100,000 worth of plastic surgery. He won a $120,000 settlement.

And just to be fair, this comes from the U.S.  Last year a husband sued his ex-wife over  her collection of 1,200 pair of designer shoes. He wants his portion of the worth.

Filipina Maid and Pakistani Worker Get Two Months Jail Time For Having Consensual Sex in Dubai

Only in the Middle East:

A Filipina maid (27) and a Pakistani worker (23) living in Dubai will spend two months in jail before being deported. Their crime?  Having sex without being married.  Apparently, the couple fell in love (after they met on Facebook) and the cook (where the maid worked) snitched on the couple after he caught the worker creeping out of the maid's room in the wee hours of the morning.  According to the worker,

"We chatted for two weeks on Facebook and fell in love. She provided me with her contact number… she helped me sneak into her sponsor's villa , where we had sex," said I.A. when he was questioned by the prosecutors.

Meanwhile, another Filipina suspect, D.D., was fined Dh2,000 for aiding and abetting I.A. to trespass into the villa.

Court records said the lovers were exposed by the sponsor's cook, who spotted I.A. sneaking out of N.S.'s bedroom around 3.15am.

The cook fought with I.A. in an attempt to stop him, according to prosecution records. I.A. was said to have pushed down the cook to the ground and escaped by scaling the villa's wall.

Police identified I.A. from his passport that fell off his pocket when he jumped over the wall.

Police records said the cook informed his Emirati sponsor that he spotted I.A. leaving N.S.'s bedroom after midnight and handed him I.A.'s passport.

I guess the cook had nothing better to do than spy on the Filipina maid at 3:15 a.m.

Human Rights Watch Tells The West To Stop Hating On Islamists

Human Rights Watch has just told the West to stop hating on Islamists, because political Islam is so much more palatable than the autocracies it's replaced in the Middle East.

In its annual report, HRW's Kenneth Roth, executive director, said

“The international community must ... come to terms with political Islam when it represents a majority preference,” he said. “Islamist parties are genuinely popular in much of the Arab world, in part because many Arabs have come to see political Islam as the antithesis of autocratic rule.”

“Wherever Islam-inspired governments emerge, the international community should focus on encouraging, and if need be pressuring, them to respect basic rights ─ just as the Christian-labeled parties and governments of Europe are expected to do,” he said in the introduction to the report.

He added that the international community “should adopt a more principled approach to the region than in the past. That would involve, foremost, clearly siding with democratic reformers even at the expense of abandoning autocratic friends.”

Yes, we have to come to terms with Islamism because the West has no other choice when stupid people choose one equally if not more repressive/oppressive system over another, but we don't have to like it. Nor should we.

He advises the international community to encourage or pressure Islamist-led governments to respect basic rights?  Well Mr. Roth, that's worked very well in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (to name a few), hasn't it.

The Arab Spring movement in the Middle East gave those people who fought so fiercely for major change the perfect opportunity to usher in democracy, but it's something they've obviously squandered.  The Tunisian and Egyptian majority Islamists have said they will remain moderate, but what guarantee is there that they will.

I'm not saying that autocratic/totalitarian leaders are preferable, but Islamic theocracies are far worse. 

Obama The Anti-Israel President

This pretty much says it all.

Note- most of the Islamist rhetoric calls for 'death to the Jews', not just 'death to Israel'.