To be disgusted with Qatars assault on these women?

[ChristmasStocckings]

I'm honestly shocked at how these poor women have been treated and my heart breaks for them. How on earth did anyone think that this was ok? No one should be forced to have an examination that they did not consent too. There is no excuse for this behaviour.

www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/doha-dfat-registers-serious-concerns-after-women-pulled-off-plane-strip-searched/news-story/f4eb941d267c2211605238a574935995

@Chanjer

That's not what I said Orcus

Which is precisely the problem. You were engaging in irrelevant whataboutery.

@Friendsoftheearth

it was legal and not sexual assault

A forced internal examination without permission and at gun point is certainly not legal in most countries - and it would be a very, very serious offence here in the UK, and I am assuming in most other civilised countries.

Qatar are not known for their glowing human rights, but this incident takes the country to a whole new level of barbarity. It is unreal that you are seemingly supporting such action.

We aren’t talking about the UK or any other ‘civilised’ country.

In the country that it occurred in, it was legal.

Whether it was right or wrong, heavy handed, unnecessary etc - it was legal and not sexual assault.

The oppression and murder of Jewish people and other undesirables during WII was "legal".

The incarceration of migrant children in America is "legal."

The abuse and long-term imprisonment without trial of both adults and children held in refugee camps or held as terror suspects, often on shaky grounds, is "legal."

Imprisoning and beating women for the crime of being raped is "legal."

Everything that happens in the Handmaid's Tale is "legal" according to the new laws passed in Gilead.

Why on earth would anyone be ignorant enough to imagine that because something is legal, it cannot be sexual assault? That just sounds like you don't know anything about, well, anything.

Vote with your feet if you don't agree with the way Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi etc treat women and employees. They are banking on the return of tourism after covid, you can express your displeasure by choosing not to go there ever again, choose a place that cares about women and equality.

@Friendsoftheearth

Vote with your feet if you don't agree with the way Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi etc treat women and employees. They are banking on the return of tourism after covid, you can express your displeasure by choosing not to go there ever again, choose a place that cares about women and equality.

Much better off voting in a UK government that isn't in hock to these places to start with.

In the country that it occurred in, it was legal

It is worth considering that for a moment, it is perfectly legal apparently in what is supposed to be a very conservative Muslim country? I have one question - how many muslim women were stripped and examined and frogmarched off that plane?

What do you know about it, the US have been propping up the saudis for decades!

On the subject of the relationship between legality and sexual assault, another obvious example that comes to mind is the widespread rape of enslaved women and sometimes men in the US (I'm not familiar with the laws on this point in other Western Hemisphere countries that participated in the Atlantic slave trade). There was no legal prohibition of master slave rape there. Meaning it was legal. It would take a fuckwit indeed to argue those slaves weren't sexually assaulted, whatever the legal position.

I guess RunningFromInsanity would have been perfectly happy to be raped by her husband (only explicitly made illegal in the UK in 2003)?

After all, abuse and oppression is totally fine and dandy as long as whoever is in power says it's legal! It's not like countries like the UK ever debate laws that threaten women's rights or anything.

In the country that it occurred in, it was legal

Many years ago, I saw a bumper sticker (in the US) that said "The people that hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people that killed her were obeying it".

Pretty much a pitch perfect dismissal of the "Oh, but it's legal" school of thought. And no less than I'd expect from a country where a President said it was a citizens duty to break a bad law. (Awaits a whatbout Jeffersons rather confused views on slavery ...)

Pointless comparing UK to Qatar in 2020.

Clearly the women in much of the ME have been repressed, sold and harmed for centuries - the western world are at least attempting to make changes happen. I can't see that happening anywhere in a meaningful way across the ME - beyond the staged, ridiculous saudi stunt 'allowing' women to drive to show how thoroughly modern they are!

@Chocaholic9

I apologise and you are right I was tone death. I think I've been numbed over the years because of the repeated assaults in the UK on me and people around me.

I am numb.

Ironically I'm guilty of the selective empathy that I failed to highlight.

Agree that some of the “well legally in that country it’s not sexual assault” arguments sound uncomfortably close to “well it’s not real rape unless you were forced at knifepoint”...

I am horrified that people are dismissing this as just being the local rules. Respecting cultural differences are things like which foods are deemed acceptable and which are not. Rounding up every woman in an area and violating her in the name of an investigation is wrong. Flat out wrong. There is no cultural excuse.

I honestly hope they don’t find the mother either. A woman who leaves a baby behind like this is doing it because she is terrified.

I read about it on Facebook, had to close the app because I was fuming at the rape apologists who had come out en masse to defend what happened in the comments under the article. YANBU at all and this is a reason why I would never ever voluntuary visit Qatar.

@Dyrne

Agree that some of the “well legally in that country it’s not sexual assault” arguments sound uncomfortably close to “well it’s not real rape unless you were forced at knifepoint”...

www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html

@LaBellina

I read about it on Facebook, had to close the app because I was fuming at the rape apologists who had come out en masse to defend what happened in the comments under the article. YANBU at all and this is a reason why I would never ever voluntuary visit Qatar.

Luckily your government does it so you don't have to.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar%E2%80%93United_Kingdom_relations#Diplomatic_visits

Also agree with Pp- I would have been far too frightened to say no to this happening to me and resist. The very real and very terrifying possibility of being stuck in Qatar and in prison would have seen me comply.

TRIGGER WARNING

Growing up in London in the 90s and 00s we were often intimately searched.

Police officers would conduct the search in full public view at the side of the road. Not only were we violated we were humiliated too.

There was a human rights inquiry into this and report published around 2010. Police abused the misuse of drugs act and PACE. We were treated like suspects and animals. We were children. We were innocent.

If you were a boy an officer would put their hands down your pants lift your penis and move it aside, they would cup your testicles, turn you around and run their hand in between your bum.

Searches like this were far less common with girls but they did happen. If you were wearing tight jeans you might get away with a police officer pulling your waistband out and taking a peak with a torch. If you were wearing loose clothing like joggers you would have your groin patted, you would be made to stand feet shoulders width and your labia shifted left and right. And you would have a had a hand run up between your bum.

Older people didn't like us congregating or loitering near shops or restaurants. We didn't have anywhere to go. Our homes in council blocks were crowded, we didn't have gardens.

Searches were threatened. Yes. Threatened. It was used as an intimidation tactic to get us to disperse and 'stop loitering'. We used to loiter happily on our local heathland until they built a supermarket over it.

@MrsToothyBitch

Also agree with Pp- I would have been far too frightened to say no to this happening to me and resist. The very real and very terrifying possibility of being stuck in Qatar and in prison would have seen me comply.

Same. I'd assume if I were in Qatar and the authorities wanted access to my vagina, it'd be happening regardless.

I wonder if it is now time for a travel ban.

Australia and other western countries should be responding now to a serious breach such as this, and they should certainly be reconsidering their options as to whether they can continue to offer travel advice that Qatar is a safe country. It is not a safe country for women to travel to, and travellers should be made fully aware that Qatar poses a significant danger to travellers.

This is the very least that should happen. I would want to see them go further and withdraw diplomats and other representation.

It was only a short time ago when the Hay festival organiser was assaulted in Abu Dhabi and now this. Clearly it is very very unsafe for women to travel there.

It's a shame @SerendipityJane. I really hope at least ordinary citizens (women!) will no longer visit there for holidays as a result of this gross violation of human rights. Shameless and disgusting.

I grew up in London at the same time as you, and I have seen or heard of this happening ske never ever.
The only time anyone was subject to this would be once you are admitted into prison to ensure you are not carrying drugs.

We are talking about serious levels of unreported crimes of rape and murder in the ME.