The legal and non-legal responses to situations have proven their effectiveness in the case of Australian citizen Alicia Gali’s unfair conviction in another country. The success of the legal and non-legal responses from both the UAE community’s perspective and Gali’s differ greatly due to the differing values and law systems.
Alicia Gali was an Australian citizen who took up a ‘dream job’ opportunity as a beauty salon manager in the Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort in Fujairah. When spending an evening drinking at the hotel bar she last recalls one of her co-workers putting ice in her drink before waking up naked with broken ribs and massive bruising. Gali although admitting she had no memory of the night; her co-workers under oath claimed
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that Gali consented to have sex with them and her injuries were from falling whilst dancing on a table. Soon after, Gali approached her work manager who said to avoid authorities or getting medical attention because she could be in trouble for adultery if the rape can’t be proven.
Since Gali had not finished her work at the hotel they refused to return her passport which led to her contacting an Australian consular officer in neighbouring Dubai. The officer gave Gali very little help, only advice of ‘considering the need to be in the country’ and no warning that unproven rape complaints could lead to sex outside marriage charges under the local law. Alicia was forced to sign a confession written completely in Arabic admitting to “sex without marriage, damaging honour, promoting sin and drinking alcohol”. She was sentenced under Article 356 of the Crimes Against Honour chapter in Sharia law to one year …show more content…
imprisonment. The effectiveness of the responses to Gali’s situation is greatly determined by what perspective the conviction was seen from. Sharia Law holds very different values from that in Australia and can be foreign to most tourists visiting the country, rape without four adult Muslim men willing to testify to seeing the rape is deemed as a sex outside of marriage crime upon all persons involved. From the vantage of the UAE courts, Sharia Law had been effectively executed in the imprisonment of Alicia Gali. From the perspective of Alicia many aspects of her trial were unfair. She was forced to sign a statement written completely in Arabic with no translator present. The Australian consular officer was extremely ineffective in assisting Gali; she was given no warning of the risks of reporting a rape case under Sharia Law. The embassy was also fully aware that the hotel was holding her passport illegally and had not assisted in having her passport returned, nor had they advised her to seek local legal representation at the court trial. Media coverage of Alicia Gali’s story had become effective in preaching the story but held very little power in stopping the situation.
The Australian Government had requested Gali’s family to not publicize the case during her imprisonment, but at the time of Gali's release her criticism of the Australian consular service and her lawsuit against the Starwood hotel network gained international media attention. Her story being published in the Huffington post and a 30 minute documentary film in Yahoo! News Australia on the Sunday Night program was effective in informing the public on the risks of travelling to countries run under Sharia Law. The wide media coverage of the event had shortened Gali's imprisonment from one year to 8 months in March
2009. Channel 7 were effective in raising awareness and aiming to prevent the issue from occurring again by broadcasting Alicia’s story and giving information to people planning to travel to countries run under Sharia Law. As well as spreading publicity on her case they had also contacted those who wronged her in aim to gain compensation; The Australian Embassy in Dubai and the Starwood hotels chain. With Alicia getting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while incarcerated, Channel seven’s Sunday night had also created a fundraising site to allow followers to donate to help cover Alicia’s medical bills. Gali’s employer at Starwood hotels had breached workplace obligations by failing to have systems in place to protect their workers against assault and therefore was detrimental to Gali’s case. Because of the neglect the hotel had in protecting Alicia and illegally holding onto her passport against her will, she has sued Starwood hotels; who have now claimed to have offered Gali the required support after her imprisonment. Legal responses had no immediate response to the problem and were completely ineffective by taking no responsibility or giving any adequate advice, while non legal responses had quickly made the case known and shortened her imprisonment proving itself more effective. The success of the responses altogether had proven almost useless in preventing her imprisonment but powerful in warning citizens planning on visiting countries run under Sharia law and the risks involved.
Renee Heikamp, 19, and case worker from the Catholic Children’s Aid Society (CCAS), Angie Martin, were charged with criminal negligence resulting in the 1997 death of newborn baby, Jordan Heikamp. The charges were dropped shortly after Jordan’s death, due to a lack of evidence from the investigation of a 63-day inquest. (CBC, 2001). Renee Heikamp and her baby were residing at the Anduhyaun shelter that services Aboriginal women fleeing abuse during the time of his death. Jordan Heikamp had starved to death, weighing only 4 pounds, 4 ounces less than what he weighed at his pre-mature birth, in May 1997; a photograph shown to witnesses at the inquest revealed the corpse of the baby who was little more than a skeleton.
... The offenders’ rights to a fair trial were upheld under s 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1980) which can be seen in that she had adequate time to prepare her defence (1 year, 8 months and 27 days) and that she had the right to presumed innocent until proven guilty. The offender also had adequate legal representation and didn’t require any legal aid.
Justice can be achieved through various processes and principles if applied correctly, similarly justice can also be denied through these same processes and principles. This is exemplified through the Andrew Mallard case (M v The Queen 2005 HCA 68), and the missing persons case of Kieffen Raggett (2007) which shows how the incorrect application of processes like police investigations and coronial inquests can lead to justice being denied. Furthermore, legal principles such as; the rights of the accused and victims, are instrumental in achieving justice as shown through the application of these principles within these cases. These processes and principles can fail due to prejudged conclusions, police corruption, human error and cultural barriers
“The Alienable Rights of Women” by Roxanne Gay and “The Myth of the Latin Woman” by Judith Cofer complement each other because they both discuss how women are perceived and stereotyped by others/society. Both of these articles talk about different ways on how in which women are being perceived by society. They show how women face many different types of injustices through the use of stereotypes and misconceptions.
Case Study: Malone family and Ciara’s allegation I am a qualified Social Worker, working in a family resource centre. This case is in relation to the Malone Family, who live nearby and have attended the centre, on and off for the past 2 years. Ms Malone uses the service to meet her friends, at the centre café. During one of her visits, she has arrived with bruising covering her face. It has also come to my attention, that Ms Malone goes to the domestic violence centre refuge and after a period of time, returned home, with the younger children.
Late May 2011, a YouTube channel by the name of ksawomen2drive posted an eight minute video. The first day it was up it became the most viewed clip in Saudi Arabia, and became so popular it started trending worldwide. Any non-Arabic viewer might have been slightly baffled by its popularity. To them it would merely be a clip of a woman in a hijab driving while talking to her passenger, and a poorly filmed clip at that. The hundreds of thousands of Arabic viewers however, saw something all together quite different. They were witnessing a crime take place, an act of dissent. The video gained over 600 000 the few days it was up, but was taken down following the arrest of the driver shown in the clip. Manal al-Sharif was that driver.
MICHAELSEN, C., THE RENAISSANCE OF NON-REFOULEMENT? THE OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS. .
...W. (2011), ‘Any one of these boat people could be a terrorist for all we know!’ Media representations and public perceptions of ‘boat people’ arrivals in Australia’, Journalism, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 607-626.
This current event is coming from CNN breaking news about the “special prosecutor to look at cold case perjury claim” by Ann O'Neill. The article is about a younger girl playing outside named Mariah, who was abducted from her front yard by this man who claimed his name was Johnny. Her grandmother noticed as she was cooking that her granddaughter was on a stranger’s back. At the time she did not see no self-harm about the situation only because they were where she could visible see them. Not even 10 seconds later, the grandmother looks up and screams because she does not see Mariah or the man that was giving her granddaughter a piggyback ride anymore. She runs outside to see if they might have went to
Liberty is a fundamental human right, recognized in major human rights instruments to which Australia is a party. People who are held in detention are particularly vulnerable to violations of their human rights.
Compare and contrast the arguments that have been advanced for and against the incorporation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Law in the criminal justice system.
Salah Ya’aqubi was an Arab citizen of Israel in 2005. For an international nursing conference in London, Ya’aqubi was one of the four college students selected to represent the state of Israel at the event. When he arrived at the airport the day of the flight, however, airport security stopped Ya’aqubi for a special inspection. Ya’aqubi had no previous security record and was told that he was being stopped under suspicion of the possession of explosives. After having his luggage overturned and being interrogated twice,...
Overall Australia’s human rights record is of high-quality but is blemished by few human rights violations. Australia has freedom of speech, a corruption-free legal system, legal protection against discrimination, access to secondary education, the right to vote in elections, access to clean water, privacy protection, freedo...
... words of Princess Sultana about the many abuses of women in Saudi Arabia. Women in Saudi Arabia's only purpose is sex, and the production of male children. Other than that they are seen as invisible and incompetent. They are given no identity at birth and their deaths are unaccounted for. Saudi women are also forced to cover up their beautiful faces with veils and abaayas. Women of royalty also get treated just as horribly as the lower class women. Jean Sasson did an excellent job of conveying Princess Sultana's pain, aggravation, and grief. Through this book readers will know of Princess Sultana's hopes and dreams of equal treatment for Saudi women. Princess is a well supported and informative book that will teach it's readers the mistreatments of women in Saudi Arabia.
Wemmers (1996) highlights that an effective criminal justice system also protects human rights. Victims are gradually being seen as the notable possessors of such rights that lead to reviews in our domestic system and also by international bodies. The protection of said rights, such as in South Africa where less express definitions between ‘victim’ and ‘human’ rights are being made by policy m...