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Spine for a Spine
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Author:  Uncle Fester [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Spine for a Spine

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/19 ... latestnews

Quote:

CAIRO – CAIRO (AP) — 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, the brother of the victim said Thursday.

Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed and subsequently lost a foot after a fight more than two years ago. He asked a judge in northwestern Tabuk province to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker under Islamic law, his brother Khaled al-Mutairi told The Associated Press by telephone from there.

He said one of the hospitals, located in Tabuk, responded that it is possible to damage the spinal cord, but it added that the operation would have to be done at another more specialized facility. Saudi newspapers reported that a second hospital in the capital Riyadh declined, saying it could not inflict such harm.

Administrative offices of two of the hospitals and the court in Tabuk were closed for the Saudi weekend beginning Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

A copy of the medical report from the King Khaled Hospital in Tabuk province obtained by the AP said the same injury al-Mutairi suffers from can be inflicted on his attacker using a nerve stimulant, and inducing the same injuries in the same locations. The report was dated six months ago.

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Saudi Arabia enforces strict Islamic law and occasionally doles out punishments based on the ancient legal code of an eye-for-an-eye. However, King Abdullah has been trying to clamp down on extremist ideology, including unauthorized clerics issuing odd religious decrees.

The query by the court, among the most unusual and extreme to have been made public in the kingdom, highlights the delicate attempt in Saudi Arabia to balance a push to modernize the country with interpretations of religious traditions that critics say are out of sync with a modern society.

The Saudi newspaper Okaz identified the judge as Saoud bin Suleiman al-Youssef.

The brother said the judge asked at least two hospitals for a medical opinion on whether surgeons could render the attacker's spinal cord nonfunctional. He and Saudi newspaper reports did not identify the attacker

Khaled al-Mutairi, 27, said the assailant was sentenced to 14 months in prison for the attack that paralyzed his younger brother, but he was released after seven months in an amnesty. He said the attacker then got a job as a school teacher .

"We are asking for our legal right under Islamic law," the brother said. "There is no better word than God's word — an eye for an eye."

A Saudi newspaper 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.

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.

Khaled al-Mutairi said his family is not interested in blood money, and would be ready to send the attacker abroad to perform the operation if it were not possible in the kingdom.

Human rights group say trials in Saudi Arabia fall far below international standards. They usually take place behind closed doors and without adequate legal representation.

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.

Amnesty International expressed concerns over the reports and said the rights group 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 Amnesty 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."


Maybe that "Do no harm" part of medical ethics is secondary to God's justice. I do feel sorry for the King of Saudi Arabia, he is trying to drag his country out of the middle ages, to bad its a country of his family's making.

Author:  Screeling [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:59 pm ]
Post subject: 

Do physicians in middle eastern countries take the Hippocratic (or similar) oath?

Author:  DFK! [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re:

Screeling wrote:
Do physicians in middle eastern countries take the Hippocratic (or similar) oath?


That may depend on where they were trained.

Author:  Colphax [ Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:28 pm ]
Post subject: 

I think the "specialist" hospital in the article that refused to do the procedure was living up to the Hippocratic oath, at least in principle.

I'm not as clear on doctors, but I know that many nurses in Saudi are foreign workers.

Author:  Lex Luthor [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

In this article, a judge wants to break an attacker's spine as equal retribution for his crime. This "eye for an eye" rule dates back to King Hammurabi, who created the first Code of Laws in the world. The unprecedented legal system was quite barbaric, although it at least establishes guidelines for behavior. Before then, the mantra had been "do whatever and try not to piss people off", where the king is just the most powerful brute... very Stone Age mentality.

Memes such as "an eye for an eye" readily spread across different cultures... and eventually people proclaimed these the will of God. Where they got this idea is subject to debate, but the idea of God mandating laws was quite contagious, and more acceptable than simply the King's opinion of what is best. These laws were codified into religious texts, such as the Koran, which is still extremely popular today.

Devoutly religious people often take the words of their scripture literally, and are often in opposition to modern cultural advances. These resisted advances are not just technology, but also such things as womens' rights, democracy, music, marriage and art. For the most part, modern culture advances positively, although that is another discussion. Here we are talking about the legal system, which in countries as Saudi Arabia is very counter to modern Western culture. It can easily be argued that the legal system of Western culture is "better", in the sense that it is more beneficial to mankind.

What I mean to say is that we started with no legal system. The king was a brute. Then came the code of laws, which included "An eye for an eye". This is obviously superior to the prior way. Now thousands of years later, we have a legal system that has been progressively calibrated over the years through legislation and judicial review. It started from the Constitution, which also took ideas from British law and European philosophers. Existing state laws were in place prior to the Constitution.

Since so much work has been done to create Western law, using the U.S. as the example, it is obviously superior to archaic Koranic law. It is superior in the same way that a rifle is superior to a sword. The sword was invented first, but after centuries of developing weaponry, the rifle was created.

The idea that God wants these ancient laws to still be used is like God telling us we should literally use swords, and therefore we need to lay down our rifles.

This is why the judge is a dumbass for evoking an "eye for an eye" based on religious grounds.

Author:  darksiege [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:41 pm ]
Post subject: 

Ethnocentrism much?

Author:  Arathain Kelvar [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re:

darksiege wrote:
Ethnocentrism much?


Is he wrong?

Author:  Farther [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 2:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:

Arathain Kelvar wrote:
darksiege wrote:
Ethnocentrism much?


Is he wrong?


If this speaks to the post by Lex Luthor, I would say that he probably is wrong, on at least one point: It could be argued that it did not start with the Constitution. If I recall correctly the Magna Carta was a fore-runner of the Constitution and so the argument could be made that it started there. Or so it seems to me, anyway.

Author:  Arathain Kelvar [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 2:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:

Farther wrote:
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
darksiege wrote:
Ethnocentrism much?


Is he wrong?


If this speaks to the post by Lex Luthor, I would say that he probably is wrong, on at least one point: It could be argued that it did not start with the Constitution. If I recall correctly the Magna Carta was a fore-runner of the Constitution and so the argument could be made that it started there. Or so it seems to me, anyway.


Agreed on that point.

Author:  DFK! [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 3:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:

Farther wrote:
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
darksiege wrote:
Ethnocentrism much?


Is he wrong?


If this speaks to the post by Lex Luthor, I would say that he probably is wrong, on at least one point: It could be argued that it did not start with the Constitution. If I recall correctly the Magna Carta was a fore-runner of the Constitution and so the argument could be made that it started there. Or so it seems to me, anyway.


Predecessor in spirit perhaps, but not in purpose. The Magna Carta secured rights for the barons of England against the Crown. It did nothing for the layman.

Author:  Lex Luthor [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 3:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

Lex Luthor wrote:
It started from the Constitution, which also took ideas from British law and European philosophers. Existing state laws were in place prior to the Constitution.

Author:  Farther [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 3:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

Lex Luthor wrote:
Lex Luthor wrote:
It started from the Constitution, which also took ideas from British law and European philosophers. Existing state laws were in place prior to the Constitution.


I know my point was a bit of a nit-pick.

Author:  Diamondeye [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 5:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:

DFK! wrote:
Farther wrote:
If this speaks to the post by Lex Luthor, I would say that he probably is wrong, on at least one point: It could be argued that it did not start with the Constitution. If I recall correctly the Magna Carta was a fore-runner of the Constitution and so the argument could be made that it started there. Or so it seems to me, anyway.


Predecessor in spirit perhaps, but not in purpose. The Magna Carta secured rights for the barons of England against the Crown. It did nothing for the layman.


Maybe, depending how you look at it. Moving from only the King having rights to the nobles having rights is sort of a predecessor in purpose.

Author:  Aethien [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 6:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

Uncle Fester wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/19/report-saudi-judge-asks-hospital-damage-convicts-spine-paralyzed-man/?test=latestnews
{snipped the article}
Maybe that "Do no harm" part of medical ethics is secondary to God's justice. I do feel sorry for the King of Saudi Arabia, he is trying to drag his country out of the middle ages, to bad its a country of his family's making.


I have to ask - Why do you say that the King of Saudi Arabia is "trying to drag his country out of the middle ages"? I get no sense of that whatsoever. He and his family like it like that and, as you say, it's of their own making. To me it's more accurate to say that he wants to keep his country in the middle ages, while enjoying some modern-day benefits and a *****' armed forces.

Author:  Diamondeye [ Mon Aug 23, 2010 7:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

Aethien wrote:
Uncle Fester wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/19/report-saudi-judge-asks-hospital-damage-convicts-spine-paralyzed-man/?test=latestnews
{snipped the article}
Maybe that "Do no harm" part of medical ethics is secondary to God's justice. I do feel sorry for the King of Saudi Arabia, he is trying to drag his country out of the middle ages, to bad its a country of his family's making.


I have to ask - Why do you say that the King of Saudi Arabia is "trying to drag his country out of the middle ages"? I get no sense of that whatsoever. He and his family like it like that and, as you say, it's of their own making. To me it's more accurate to say that he wants to keep his country in the middle ages, while enjoying some modern-day benefits and a *****' armed forces.


The Royal family of Saudi Arabia is modernistic relative to much of their population. They really don't like it like that because they realize the problems that it causes them dealing with everyone else, especially when the oil runs out or other energy sources become pravalent.

He may not want to drag his country all the way into the 21st Century, but there's a lot of room in there between 21st Centur and Middle ages for progress.

Author:  Uncle Fester [ Tue Aug 24, 2010 4:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

I think the royal family of Saud has realized the monster they have helped create, the fundamentalist ideology they sponsored to distract the poor is turning on them. Just an impression.

Author:  Hokanu [ Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spine for a Spine

Shadowhawk?

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