04 May, 2009

mock turtle soup

"The Dubai Traffic Court of First Instance fined (a) 27-year-old Lebanese woman Dh2,000 and ordered her to pay Dh20,000 in blood money for accidentally killing her nine-month-old foetus. The blood money is to be paid to the foetus's successors."

who would be...? 

a woman has an accident, she loses a child she's been carrying for 9-months, and you fine her for reckless behaviour? i cant even begin to imagine what she's going through, but this makes no sense.  and who are the foetus's successors? the woman's husband? or she herself? or the grandparents? i'm still trying to figure out who has suffered the most in this incident. 

and then what makes no sense at all is the headline of a follow- up story:

Heavily pregnant women 'shouldn't drive'. (where Heavily pregnant' is a real term)
the story says:
Salah Bu Farousha, Head of the Traffic Public Prosecution, advised women in the third trimester of pregnancy to avoid driving except in urgent cases.

which isnt absurd. the dude suggests something for the safety of the people, and leaves the choice up to them. but 'heavily pregnant'?
the language is laughable - if only the context wasnt so tragic. 

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do hate making jokes from tragedy but the one that comes to my mind is "Mummy, why are you giving me Dh. 20,000?" "Well, darling, I was responsible for the death of your baby sister many years ago and this is my sentence."

Proud Emirati said...

didn't we agree that u have no right complaining about our laws?

Kyle said...

'i'm still trying to figure out who has suffered the most in this incident.'Hemlock:

The 27-year old Lebanese Woman & Mother that lost a priceless part of her future. But I'll bet you already knew that huh?

And don't mind peasants & imbeciles, here or anywhere else. They're just a minority!

hemlock said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
hemlock said...

PE: i wasnt complaining about the law as much as i was about the editing by Gulf News.
i was also curious about who the court means by 'successors', given how it's the mother who has been accused of killing the child.
and im serious and not being sarcastic. who is the beneficiary of AED 20,000 in this case?

kyle: it doesnt matter who is in what bracket, what matters is who has power over others. if a minority of religious clerics in saudi are going to grant the marriage of a 9 yr old child to a 50 yr old man, that's a minority i'm going to be very very afraid of.
and hello, long time :)

Kyle said...

Hemlock:

I'm glad that Saudi minor's case swung in the girl's favor. And I'm aware some freakos here may debate to the contrary. But my hat-tip to all those that fought on that Saudi's girl side. Goes to prove there's justice, after all, in this world.

And Hey to you too :)

Anonymous said...

well, ok, she's going through a horrible time, knowing that she killed her child but maybe it will stop her tailgating, as she was here - next time she'll maybe kill others apart from her fetus. As for blood money going to the successors, that's not really the point - it's the principle of the punishment. The money itself isn't important.

* said...

This is a general mistake that people who think in one language, and write in another.
Take for example our arabic speaking(Syrian) neighbour trying to tell us about a bull in English.
He said: The husband of a cow.

The article remains atypical of Gulf News reporting.
Starts off with a bang, is frequently repetitive, loses steam somewhere towards the middle, and ends with the headless chicken act.
That whole "going to successors " bit, what is that? Are the rest of us fluent in legalese?

Quoting a reference verbatim, because a comment was made, irrelevant of the fact whether the statements are cohesive or not.

hemlock said...

kaya: i cant agree more with you about the story ending like a headless chicken. it seems the paper is headed by a headless chicken. *sigh* i read the same story in the national later in the day, which made so much more sense. the national quoted someone or the other saying that after a certain period, say, the father may be allowed on behalf of the family to receive diyah money.
considering that the dough will be changing hands from the mother to the father, we may argue that - it doesnt make sense - but im not in a position to judge that.
if the ruling has been carried out just to prove the point that an unborn child has a right to live, that makes sense - i just wish they'd remove the 'recklessness of the mother' part. it was an accident. and accidents can happen to anyone... it's so horrific yar, she carried the baby for a full term...
Allah knows best.

anon 17:46: im not going to reply to your comment because i dont want an argument; but just to clarify things, this post was prompted by how poorly the gulf news story was edited and how it left so many questions unanswered.
and that has been my beef with the newspaper from the first day i read it.

Anonymous said...

and that has been my beef with the newspaper from the first day i read it.

Who are the editors?

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