Montrealer sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia

[Greymatters]

This neonazi, upon discovering past jews in his family tree, converted to Judaism.

So, in reality he was just looking for a social group that could give him the love and support he needed?  Almost brings a tear to my eye...  :

 

[dwalter]

This whole discussion (If it can really be called that) about values in the Middle East and the West really drives home some important points I learned in my Cultural Anthropology class this year. Now to start I want to say I have no experience in the middle east, since we studies Africa and South America, however the concept I feel like I should share is universal to anthropology around the world.

The main concept we learned had to do with removing our cultural bias when viewing another culture, or to quote my professor "To make the strange familiar and the familiar strange."

We live in Canada, anyone who was born in Canada and grew up here as well was exposed to Canadian culture, way of life etc... And that becomes our version of common sense. What we think is just every day good sense, does not apply anywhere out of Canada, or even out of your own home in some cases. Common sense can change even from one city to another.

The point I am trying to make is that before a person can evaluate another culture such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a person has to try and remove themselves from the views they grew up with, and begin understanding the point of view of the culture in question. The middle east gets all the attention these days, but they are not the only ones using the Islamic justice system. Many countries in Africa are Islamic states, and follow the same rules.

I'm definitely not trying to stir up any case and argument, but I do want to say that applying Canadian views to any other country, is going to make anything they do seem strange. So, make the strange familiar. Often the only way to do this is to live among the people, but failing that, read about them, learn about their culture, they background, and look at it objectively before making any claims about the level of 'civilization'.

There is a very good article which I will post on here if I can find an online copy. I think you will all find it really interesting and relevant to the topic at hand.

 

[dwalter]

Here is the article I referred to in my above post: http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html

It is truly interesting to read, I certainly enjoyed it once I figured out the meaning behind it.

 

[ballz]

Meanwhile in the KSA, they watch their TVs, read their INet news sites, see the daily BS and sickening violence committed in the huge western cities, and shake their heads in true disgust.

There is no boyz-in-da-hood crap going on overthere. Yes and near empty prisons too. Kind of makes a guy wonder at times.

In many ways we are uncivilised, but on a different tier.

Now this here sparks some curiousity within me. I just want to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying. Would you say that the way we view some of their daily life as too barbaric, they would view some of our daily life as pure anarchy? In one sense, we are both the extremes of each other? So we view their extreme as crazy because we are on the other end of the extreme, which no doubt has its downfalls. Am I starting to understand or still way off base?

When I get back from my daily life today, I'm going to search up crime rates and all that to see how effective there systems are or how uneffective our systems are. I guess you could look at it either way huh?

 

[Yrys]

Here is the article I referred to in my above post: http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html

It is truly interesting to read, I certainly enjoyed it once I figured out the meaning behind it.

I was so distracted by the weirdness of the Nacireman society (and wondering why I never read about themelsewhere)  that it took me  : "I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me." to wake  me up to the truth...

4 paragraphes to catch it... Must sleep more, I'm slow.

 

[tomahawk6]

When you travel abroad a person is subject to the laws of the country they visit.If you break a law you can and will be prosecuted.In some countries you can buy your way out of trouble and in others there is no recourse. Pedophiles that go to the PI or Thailand and break local laws will spend their time in prisons that we would condemn as unfit.Smuggle drugs into Turkey and Turkish prisons arent very friendly  places. Smuggle drugs in Singapore and you die. Lesser offenses you can be canned - something we consider brutal. The point I make is that when you leave your home country you wil NOT be treated the same as you would in Canada or the US. Our standards are pretty high,but in many countries prisons are supposed to be bad places.In some countries life in prison can be improved to tolerable levels if you have money.If you go to reside in SA you better know ahead of time that the justice system is harsh perhaps even medieval but you commit the crime you are going to pay the price. I have zero tolerance for this guy,he made his own bed and now must lie in it. My advice to others is - stay home.

 

[Timex]

I'm no expert in Saudi Law so this is more of a question than a statement. Isn't this story going to play out like this? The family will petition a member of the Royal Family to intercede, blood money will be offered to the victims family, if they accept then the sentence can be commuted or something along those lines. I seem to remember cases like this coming up in the past.

 

[vonGarvin]

As I recall from the radio news yesterday, Blood Money was an option put forth by the victim's family. The convicted man told his family to not accept it: he was/is innocent (er sei unschuldig: God, sometimes German is much more accurate in these cases).

Anyway, as stated by T6 (and perhaps to amplify), if you don't like a certain country's laws, don't visit there, unless you are prepared to face their version of justice.

 

[Lard of the Dance]

Little off topic but I have to ask. Does this fellow have Canadian citizenship? I read that his family owns a house in Montreal, but he and his family were not born here and currently live in KSA. One of the comments earlier in the thread mentioned the term "citizen of convenience". I have to agree.

 

[dwalter]

I was so distracted by the weirdness of the Nacireman society (and wondering why I never read about themelsewhere)  that it took me  : "I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me." to wake  me up to the truth...

4 paragraphes to catch it... Must sleep more, I'm slow.

Don't worry, it took me even longer to catch it the first time I read it. It's a pretty interesting way of looking at things though isn't it?

 

[Rodahn]

Don't worry, it took me even longer to catch it the first time I read it. It's a pretty interesting way of looking at things though isn't it?

I caught on right at the begining, but then again I can remember reading it in school many years ago.....

 

[Greymatters]

Here is the article I referred to in my above post: http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html

It is truly interesting to read, I certainly enjoyed it once I figured out the meaning behind it.

When it comes to social anthropology, I prefer Rick Mercer.

Id be more interested in this guy's studies of their relatives, the Naidanac tribe.

 

[Yrys]

back on track :

Are our diplomats that dense?

Colby Cosh, National Post  Published: Friday, March 07, 2008

It's not the first time Stockwell Day is getting a bit of a bum rap from critics and journalists. Canada's favourite political punching bag is being
worked over this morning thanks to the case of Mohamed Kohail, a 23-year-old dual citizen of Canada and Saudi Arabia who is currently awaiting a death
sentence in the desert kingdom for being part of a mob that invaded a schoolyard and killed a student in a mass brawl. Last year the justice department
refused to lobby for the life of Ronald Allen Smith, an Alberta man facing lethal injection in Montana for a heinous murder no one seriously doubts he committed,
and for which he received a fair trial a quarter-century ago. The public safety minister became the point man for a new policy of assisting Canadians threatened
with capital punishment abroad on a "case-by-case basis" instead of aggressively trying to prevent its exercise everywhere.

The concern now being raised is that if Canada will not ask the United States for clemency on behalf of Ronald Smith, it cannot reasonably ask Saudi Arabia
to spare Mohamed Kohail:We have retreated one tiny little inch on the holy principle of total, unconditional opposition to capital punishment, and now we are
completely helpless to request that our imprisoned citizens be given any rights at all.

If this were true, the government's failure to stand up for Ronald Smith would have been a catastrophic mistake indeed. But of course, it is not true. Our diplomats
suggest that our lassitude on Smith has made it harder for them to argue on Kohail's behalf. Well, if they are too dim to outline a logical distinction between a fair
application of the death penalty and an unfair one, then they are obviously not much good for anything at all.

Some true bleeding-hearts, to be sure, will interrupt me here to object that there can never be any such thing as a procedurally fair application of capital punishment.
But this is obvious balderdash, as the boys on Death Row will be the first to tell you. Anyone charged with a crime would rather have a fair trial than an unfair one,
even if his life were at stake in both.

It is not the use of capital punishment that makes Saudi justice fundamentally objectionable to "Canadian values," which countenanced hanging well within living
memory. As Ed Morgan argues elsewhere on this page, it is the question of due process, without which no penalty of law can be applied justly. Kohail's trial lasted
just 90 minutes, his own lawyer was excluded from the courtroom for most of it, there are hints of witness intimidation, and it is not clear why a surprising verdict
of first-degree murder was applied to a spontaneous melee that seems to have involved a large element of mischance.

This isn't rocket science. Canadian representatives can raise questions about all these specific facts without challenging the traditional norms that allow Saudi Arabia
to behead murderers in the public square. But for some reason that is exactly what the government's critics deny. Yesterday, former Foreign Affairs ultra-mandarin
Garfield Pardy released a timely legal brief on behalf of Ronald Smith: It contained the pointed argument that "To not seek clemency in Country X because it was
seen as democratic and where the rule of law predominates, would seriously erode efforts to obtain clemency in Country Y where such conditions did not exist."

Countries X and Y, you see, will sit perfectly still and listen sympathetically while Canadians denounce them for having the death penalty-- but any other form of
advocacy, or even simply asking them not to kill our citizens as a favour, is totally out of bounds.

The weaving of such fantasies would not be so objectionable if it did not, in fact, put Mohamed Kohail's life in greater danger with every word by goading those
who will decide his fate. Liberal MP Dan McTeague tore into the Harper government yesterday, calling its request

for clemency an "insult" to the Saudi kingdom. This is how our opposition apparently goes about protecting our citizens abroad -- by encouraging the view that
foreign countries have perfectly good reasons to feel "insulted" if they are approached by our consular officials with questions about a criminal trial. Golly, Dan,
couldn't you find a free day in your schedule to go sharpen up the executioner's sword for him?

McTeague added that treating Saudi Arabia differently from the United States would indicate "that you disagree firmly with the nation. You bring into question
its judicial, its legal, perhaps even its political process." Pardon me for asking, but doesn't Canada, in fact, question those things? Hell, the Saudi monarchy itself
questions them, which is why the country is in the midst of judicial reform.

McTeague's advocacy of transparent lying to Saudi Arabia about the amount of respect we have for its justice system should not be mistaken for a sophisticated
understanding of diplomacy, just because diplomacy does sometimes require transparent lies to be told.

ColbyCosh@gmail.com

 

[Yrys]

Ambassador meets with Canadian facing beheading

The Canadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia has met with a Canadian man who is facing a public beheading.

Ambassador Ron Davidson met today with Mohamed Kohail and members of his family to discuss Kohail's appeal of his murder conviction. Foreign Affairs Department
spokesman Rodney Moore says he cannot go into the specifics of the meeting, citing privacy issues. The meeting comes a day after the lawyer for Kohail was threatened
by judges and kicked out of the courtroom hearing Kohail's appeal.

Kohail's lawyer was ejected from the courtroom in Jidda on Monday after tabling a 27-page document before the same judges that rendered the execution order
on March 3. Kohail's family has argued that their son did not get a fair trial and says the entire case consisted of 10 court hearings totalling 90 minutes.

Link

 

[Yrys]

Sultan Kohail , the brother of the man condemn to decapitation, was sentence to 1 year in prison and 200 lashes.
I wonder how they do the punishment : number of lashes in one seance, medical attendance, etc...

French article :

Un ado canadien condamné à 200 coups de fouet