Posted on 07/13/2002 5:10:44 PM PDT by Michael2001
So now we know the facts, straight from the Supreme Court, that a group of Lebanese Muslim gang rapists from south-western Sydney hunted their victims on the basis of their ethnicity and subjected them to hours of degrading, dehumanising torture. The young women, and girls as young as 14, were "sluts" and "Aussie pigs", the rapists said. So now that some of the perpetrators are in jail, will those people who cried racism and media "sensationalism" hang their heads in shame? Hardly.
The journalists, academics, legal brains and politicians who tried to claim last August that the gang rapes of south-western Sydney were just a run-of-the-mill police blotter story being beaten up by racists, scaremongers and political opportunists don't ever want to acknowledge the truth about that ugly episode in Australian history. They don't want to acknowledge the fear and tension that ran through a part of Sydney they rarely visit and can never understand.
This newspaper was the first to report the story, which had been common knowledge in police and media circles, and it has never censored the race element.
Even last week, with the conviction of two brothers for their part in the gang rape of Miss D, who was 16 when she was held at gunpoint in a Greenacre park, there were media outlets that downplayed the story and air-brushed race from it.
Yet the victims have been crying out for the truth to be told. In court on Friday, one victim gave another a card on which she had written
"Truth is Justice".
In August, when Judge Megan Latham handed out laughably lenient sentences to three men in one gang rape case, which were later more than doubled on appeal, she made a special point of debunking the race link: "There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences," she said. "There is nothing said or done by the offenders which provides the slightest basis for imputing to them some discrimination in terms of the nationality of their victims."
Except that later one of the victims complained her victim impact statement had been "censored" of any "ethnic" references by prosecutors intent on a plea bargain. She was convinced she was raped because of her ethnicity. "You deserve it because you're an Australian," the rapists told her during the five-hour attack.
It's just so inconvenient of the victims to insist on telling the truth.
"I looked in his eyes. I had never seen such indifference," one 18-year-old victim, codenamed Miss C, told the court, remembering one of the 14 men who called her "Aussie pig", gang raped her 25 times over a six-hour period in Bankstown and Chullora, and then turned a hose on her. "I'm going to f*** you Leb style," he said.
Fourteen gang rapists have been convicted, or pleaded guilty, thanks to the courage of seven victims who testified for days in court as their tormentors smirked nearby, the men's families threatened them and defence lawyers suggested they had enjoyed the rapes.
"They're very brave, very strong and very courageous young women," said Salvation Army Major Joyce Harmer, who held the hands of many of the victims through the trials. "They knew this was something they had to do."
There were encouraging signs by the end of the week that some Muslim community leaders were talking of "Muslims accepting responsibility that they may have failed to do things that would have prevented these things from happening", as Amjad Mehboob, chief executive for the Federation of Islamic Councils, told ABC Radio on Friday.
Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, said: "It is certainly a disgrace to our community that people who were born to a Muslim family would commit such heinous crimes." But he went on to say it was "rather unfair" that the rapists' ethnicity had been reported "because these boys themselves have completely disaffiliated themselves from their culture or their religion".
Yes, it is unfair that the vast bulk of law-abiding Lebanese Muslim boys and men should be smeared by association. But their temporary discomfort may be necessary so that the powerful social tool of shame is applied to the families and communities that nurtured the rapists, gave them succour and brought them up with such a hatred of Australia's dominant culture and contempt for its women that they think of an 18-year-old girl, dressed for a job interview in her best suit, sitting on a train reading a book, as a slut.
These were racist crimes. They were hate crimes. The rapists chose their victims on the basis of race. That fact is crucial to this story. If the perpetrators had been Anglo-Celtic Australians, the furore would have been enormous. No newspaper would have left out that fact and you can bet the guilt and shame would have been spread far and wide.
How long before the "peace loving" and "law abiding" Muslims vomit out these monsters from their midst? I'm not holding my breath.
With the exception of possible richochets, that doesn't sound like a bad idea.
Exactly as was done by Moses, Joshua and King David.
Lawyers are pretty much the same everywhere, aren't they?
With what? The Aussies had their guns were taken from them, remember?
Guns are not necessary to kill. The Rwandan Hutu killed a significant proportion of the population of their country in a couple of weeks, mostly without the use of firearms.
I seem to recall that mo-slimes hold Moses in high regard. This would tend to provide a foundation for such a state of affairs. Thank you!
Now that most of these Lebanese rapists have been convicted and sentenced to prison, hopefully it won't take too long before some big, tough Aussie inmates work them over real good. I know that here in the U.S., inmates that are serving time for rape are very much despised by other prison inmates, and child rapists are the most despised.
They were not convicted because they charged rape. They were convicted despite charging rape.
All of these cases I'm aware of have been situations where the husband was absent and the wife became pregnant, which is normally considered pretty clear evidence that sexual activity had occurred, and it obviously wasn't with the absent husband. When arrested for adultery, she claimed she had been raped. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. It's an obvious ploy when faced with a death sentence for adultery.
I don't agree with the death sentence for adultery, but these women are not being prosecuted because they were raped. They are being prosecuted because the court, rightly or wrongly, rejected their claim that they had been raped. People, even women, do sometimes lie, especially when a lie might possibly help them avoid being executed.
BTW, as I mentioned above, this type of law is an obvious violation of the clear meaning of the Koran.
I don't agree with the death sentence for adultery, but these women are not being prosecuted because they were raped. They are being prosecuted because the court, rightly or wrongly, rejected their claim that they had been raped. People, even women, do sometimes lie, especially when a lie might possibly help them avoid being executed.
Man! You're working pretty freakin' hard to justify the unjustifiable....
Obviously a violation of basic human rights, but it certainly appears that a certain, rather influential, segment of Moslems are responsible for implementing these these laws and there subsequent judgments.
If 10 foxes are in charge of 100 hen houses, what does it matter if the majority are sheep?
Granted, but it seems as though many "true" Moslems, in positions of authority, are afraid to speak out against the excesses of those who do violence in the name of Islam.
I know of no Christians, in positions of authority, who would remain silent if any group committed crimes in the name of Christ.
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