Saudi judge considers paralysis punishment

onlinemoniez

onlinemoniez

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Apr 3, 2009
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This shit makes you appreciate our legal system.

Report: Saudi judge considers paralysis punishment - Yahoo! News

CAIRO – A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, local newspapers reported on Thursday.
Saudi Arabia enforces strict Islamic law and occasionally metes out punishments based on the ancient legal code of an eye-for-an-eye. However, Saudi King Abdullah has been trying to clamp down on extremist ideology.
The reports said Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed after a fight more than two years ago and asked a judge to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker under Islamic law.
The newspaper Okaz said the judge in northwestern Tabuk province, identified as Saoud bin Suleiman al-Youssef, asked at least two hospitals for a medical opinion on whether surgeons could render the attacker's spinal cord nonfunctional. The attacker, who was not identified in the reports, has spent seven months in jail.
The reports cited the letter of response from one of the hospitals and the victim al-Mutairi.
Two of the hospitals involved and the court were closed for the Saudi weekend beginning Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
Okaz reported that a leading hospital in Riyadh — King Faisal Specialist Hospital — responded that it could not do the operation. It quoted a letter from the hospital saying "inflicting such harm is not possible," apparently refusing on ethical grounds.
The papers did not carry any response from a second hospital that reportedly received the request, King Khaled Hospital in Tabuk province.
The story was also carried by Saudi English-language paper Arab News.
Islamic law applied in Saudi Arabia allows defendants to ask for a similar punishment for harms inflicted on them. Cutting off the hands of thieves, for example, is common.
Under the law, the victim can receive a blood money to settle the case.
Human rights group say trials in Saudi Arabia fall far below international standards. They usually take place behind closed doors and without
Those who are sentenced to death are often not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them or of the date of execution until the morning on which they are taken out and beheaded.
Crucifying the headless body in a public place is a way to set an example, according to the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam. expressed concerns over the reports and said the rights groups was contacting Saudi authorities for details.
"We are very concerned and we will appeal to the authorities not to carry out such a punishment," said Lamri Chirouf, the group's researcher on Saudi Arabia. Such measures are against international conventions against torture and international standards on human rights.
Chirouf said this was the first time had heard of a punishment involving the damaging of a spinal cord.
"But it's hard to follow details of the Saudi justice system. People are sentenced in closed trials with no access to the public and no lawyers," he said.
According to Amnesty, in 2005, a convict in the kingdom had his teeth pulled out by a dentist because he had smashed another man's teeth out in a fight.
"We have also had cases of people sentenced to blindness because they have caused the blindness of another person," Chirouf said. "But never anything involving a spinal cord."
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I don't really see a problem with it. He attacked someone with a cleaver and it paralyzed the victim. He should get the same + some time.
 
What bothers me is this: "People are sentenced in closed trials with no access to the public and no lawyers," he said.
 
BigWill said:
I don't really see a problem with it. He attacked someone with a cleaver and it paralyzed the victim. He should get the same + some time.
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Except it does nothing to solve the problem, what's the point? Never really understood everyones huge boner for punishing people, in theory it makes sense but it doesn't actually achieve anything in reality. Systemized physical punishment is pretty much just senseless brutality in itself, don't really see how you're any different to the person committing the crime.
 
kblessinggr said:
No surprise there, however thats not much different than Japan's legal system and treatment of those awaiting trial (though they do get a lawyer just rarely ever see them outside of a courtroom).
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True. Another similarity is keeping people on death row uninformed about legal proceedings then one day springing it on them. "Surprise! Today you're going to die".
 
Bombastic said:
True. Another similarity is keeping people on death row uninformed about legal proceedings then one day springing it on them. "Surprise! Today you're going to die".
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I would throw the "notsureifserious.jpg" up there but maybe that's how it works in Japan. In the states the people on death row know they are on death row, the average duration on death row before they get offed is 10.26 years, usually with multiple appeals during that time.
 
barman said:
an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind
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xentech said:
Except it does nothing to solve the problem, what's the point? Never really understood everyones huge boner for punishing people, in theory it makes sense but it doesn't actually achieve anything in reality. Systemized physical punishment is pretty much just senseless brutality in itself, don't really see how you're any different to the person committing the crime.
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The victim of an assault that leads to being paralyzed would probably find those to be very cavalier statements. It's easy to throw that kind of attitude out there if you don't find yourself in those circumstances.

I say leave it up to the victim, if he wants to give the attacker a pass, then that's up to him, but I can't blame the guy in the least if he thinks that anything less than a similar fate that he met meant justice wasn't served.
 
I have to agree with most in here, however brutal it seems.

In which country do you get your hand cut off for stealing? Doesn't that country have super-low theft rates (hence, the punishment is effective)?
 
barman said:
an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind
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Actually it doesn't. Tit-for-tat makes quite a nice evolutionary stable system.

Required Reading - The Selfish Gene:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282265119&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition--with a new Introduction by the Author (9780199291151): Richard Dawkins: Books[/ame]

Here you go Wiki on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation#Axelrod.27s_Tournaments
 
justo_tx said:
The victim of an assault that leads to being paralyzed would probably find those to be very cavalier statements. It's easy to throw that kind of attitude out there if you don't find yourself in those circumstances.

I say leave it up to the victim, if he wants to give the attacker a pass, then that's up to him, but I can't blame the guy in the least if he thinks that anything less than a similar fate that he met meant justice wasn't served.
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I believe if you get attacked and want to take the matter into your own hands then you should go ahead, you should still be prepared to take the consequences if caught but I don't have a problem with you doing it. It seems a reasonable course of action. I don't however think the state should do it, if you couldn't personally commit these acts yourself I don't think you should support them being used as official punishments.

EDIT: If you are a person who gets satisfied by the violent punishment (as I believe most of us are deep down) of criminals then fine, but I don't think it can be the right of the state to decide when, where and why a man can be physically and brutally punished and/or killed.
 
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