Saudi Cops Grab U.S. Woman In Starbucks
Kingdom's Religious Police Take Her To Jail For Sitting With Man In Coffee Shop
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Unidentified Saudi women walk along a suburban street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in this Nov. 15, 2006 file photo. (AP)
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The woman, who spent a day behind bars, was strip-searched and forced to sign a false confession before being released, the newspaper said. The Times declined to publish her name at her request.
The 37-year-old businesswoman works for a finance company in Riyadh. Her problem began when her office lost electricity. She and her male colleagues then went to a nearby Starbucks to use the coffee shop's Internet connection.
She sat with a male colleague in the Starbucks' family area, the only place women are allowed to sit with men.
“Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked 'Why are you here together?' I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” she told the Times.
Following her arrest and interrogation, the woman was hauled before a judge.
“He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell.' I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she told the Times.
The newspaper said the woman had received a visit from officials at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. A U.S. official told The Times that it was being treated as “an internal Saudi matter” and refused to comment on her case.
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See all 785 CommentsBush''s buddies.
Standing for freedom, democracy, and human rights.
Just like his best friend Mussharef.
Delivering "Democracy" to the middle east, and the world. Fascist style.
ST
"We courted evil while condemning it, suffering its fate."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com
Power to the infidels!!!!
But since we need their oil, let''s keep giving them billions of dollars.........
The divide between the West and the extremist Wahabi version of Islam grows deeper and wider, all the while the dictators of the Middle East refuse to modernize and develop their countries - but they don''t fail to blame the United States for the problems of their own making.
Mainstream Muslims need to eradicate the extremists who keep them in the dark ages, or someone else will.
Posted by gemstate01
Don''t bring your religious beliefs into this...Gay couples do not have anything to do with a U.S. woman being harassed in a foreign country. The people who are responsible for the harassment should be held responsible for their actions.
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Posted by tuckerndfw
what an idiot.
Saudis are VERY STRICT about what people do in public.
Maybe next time she and her colleagues will go to someone else''''s office or to one of their own homes rather than flaunting the rules.
Besides that, her story sounds phony. It''''s highly unlikely she was strip searched.
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Posted by tuckerndfw
You obivously didn''t read the WHOLE story, only the parts that YOU wanted to see. It clearly states that she sat with a male colleague in the Starbucks'' family area, the only place women are allowed to sit with men.
Posted by roger_inkart at 09:50 AM : Feb 07, 2008
How about brain dead "ProRats", the Pope of Hot Air Al Gore, refusing to drill for oil in the US for the last 15 years. We wouldn''t be in this energy mess now if we had. Ordinary people can''t afford your alternative energy solutions, go do some research instead of just running off at the mouth.
Posted by mygramma at 09:39 AM : Feb 07, 2008
The extremists are the mainstream, this is why you see no mas protests over issues like you do in the West.
Kingdom''s Religious Police Take Her To Jail For Sitting With Man In Coffee Shop
Where are we fighting the Taliban again ??
Kingdom''s Religious Police Take Her To Jail For Sitting With Man In Coffee Shop
When is Bush going to spread democracy in Saudi Arabia ??
Take a good look at this, though. This is the kind of country the Religious Reich want you and I to live in. When any group is allowed to force it''s religious moral values on a country, freedom has truly been lost.
Posted by jowand at 09:54 AM : Feb 07, 2008
If we had spent half as much on developing that alternate energy as we did hunting for more oil, it wouldn''t be so *** expensive.
Posted by jowand at 09:54 AM : Feb 07, 2008
If we had spent half as much on developing that alternate energy as we did hunting for more oil, it wouldn''''t be so *** expensive.
Posted by rf35 at 10:03 AM : Feb 07, 2008
Harass jowand, plenty of HOT air...
We have our own values and code of ethics. Our own view of how we should treat people; our own paradigm for how to conduct gender/gender relationships.
Nothing I have said above should be taken to mean I accept what I consider a bullsh!t worldview and a despicable invasion of someone else''s private morality. The United States does NOT have to subsidise a national charter that is as out of synch with our own as Saudi Arabia''s.
Cut ''em off completely. Cut ourselves off. We may have to do with the inconvenience of a lessened oil supply but the Middle East will have a much harder time having to do with a lessened food supply.
Yeah, the Saudi government can do what it feels is neccessary but we here need to elect an Executive Branch and Congress with enough iron in their spines to say to them:
"Your internal policies are your own business but unless they are liberalized we will not consider you an ally, we will not give you aid nor will we trade with you".
If Huckabee had his way women being 2nd class citizens would added to the Constitution!
Posted by LloydBest1 at 10:07 AM : Feb 07, 2008
Isn''t it the Bush Doctrine to spread democracy ?
IOWEIGN
Yes.
But only if it''s in Iraq.
And only if they are democratically controlled by Bush and his henchmen.
And his private SS Blackwater.
ST
"Everyone is guilty until anonymously abducted, tortured to death, and proven innocent.
The New American Constitution, George W. Bush & Henchmen"
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com
AND BUSH STILL KISSES THE KINGS A/S/S.
Hey Georgie, ask them to lower the price of oil again. LOL
Could you imagine if we harrassed a Saudi in THIS country like that? My goodness, the cop would lose his job and we''d all have to attend mandatory sensitivity trainings and learn their language. If I were anybody, male or female, I would not set foot in any Middle Eastern country.
Funny how you hear how bad women are treated in Afghanistan but never in a place like Saudi Arabia because they are "allies." The truth as we see is all Middle Eastern/predominately Muslim countries treat women like dirt. I''m all for shutting them all out. We''d adapt and be better off without them.
Not everywhere is the U.S.
Special creative hate award to those of you who equate this story somehow to Huckabee and Christians. You are the truly intolerant.
Posted by ojama at 10:24 AM : Feb 07, 2008
Then why does Huckabee want to add an amendment to the Constitution to reflect "God''s" standards - whose "God"...
In Michigan:
"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it''s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that''s what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it''s in God''s standards rather than try to change God''s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."
Let me make my position very clear and very straight.
I do not advocate any agressive moves or military strategies to compel KSA or anyone else into complying with what WE believe is proper western culture. We have had quite enough of that already, thank you.
But we do have some latitude in conducting our foreign policy that does not interfere with another sovereign nation''s internal affairs.
we have the right to form alliances, give aid (if we can afford to do so) and make trade agreements based on terms and conditions we set. Other nations do not have to accept them. It is the hope, though, that ours are sufficiently reasonable that they do.
If KSA can not adjust their internal policies to ones that more closely align to our own with respect to basic human rights, then we are at perfect liberty to suspend any agreements with them and they are at perfect liberty to take their business somewhere else.
So I don''''t want to hear any complaints about how women are treated in other cultures coming from those moral relativists out there, you have no standing.
Posted by ritewingman at 10:29 AM : Feb 07, 2008
Join Bush - in spreading democracy in Iraq...
Re: "The woman, who spent a day behind bars, was strip-searched and forced to sign a false confession before being released, the newspaper said."
So...same as here, pretty much.
It was her problem.
She chose to go there, she chose to work there and she chose to do business there...learn and respect the customs or do your business elsewhere.
Not everywhere is the U.S.
Oh. Wait a minute...she was released. My bad.
This is exactly why we shouldnt associate ourselves with this arrogant, caste based country. What civilized country in this day and age has rules about where a woman can sit in a Starbucks? Truly this shows why religion should not drive government policy.
IOWEIGN
It is the Bush doctrine to "incentivize productivity" and to avoid "disincentivizing entrepreneurship".
"Spreading democracy" is a tactic to achieve those ends.
If you wonder what that Mary Matalinish-gobbledygook means, it means to harvest all value out of the resources - be they natural, human, or infrastructure - of any nation they can without allowing any of that value to escape in the form of taxes or wages and benefits.
In short, the core policy of Bush and his supporters - the Glen Beck style of "conservatives" - is economic rape.
I call for them to remove their stores from any nation that legalizes discrimination.
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