Monday School: Cleric only gets a fine for murder

Yes, today is Monday! Which means it’s time for Monday School! Always your humble servant, ready to deliver a weekly dose of “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You Yesterday!”

Today’s lesson is going to distrubing to most readers. As a father of two children myself, I am infuriated by it.

Last week, a story regarding the death of a small six year old child made the news and has been circulating the net with a fury.

According to various sources, the six year old girl was raped, tortured and beaten to death. When I first read this article, I was sickened and disturbed by what happened to this poor child. The article also went on to inform us that the crime was conducted in Saudi Arabia. The most distrubing part was that not only was this man an Islamic Cleric, but he was also the child’s father.

According to multiple sources, six year old Lama was admitted to hospital in December of 2011 with multiple injuries such as a crushed skull, broken ribs, fractured left arm, and extensive bruising and burns. The hospital also confirmed the little girl had been raped “everywhere”. If that wasn’t bad enough, the child’s fingernails had been torn off and hospital staff report the child’s rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed. According to the same sources, the man accused of doing to brutal and evil act confessed to police. He didn’t deny a single thing and admitted to doing all these brutal things to his own child.

Now I know what a lot of you are thinking: if this incident occurred in late 2011, why is it big news right now?

It’s a fair question. The reason why this story is going viral is because the father/cleric who confessed to committing this terrible crime was sentenced last week. Not only was this man NOT imprisoned for what he did, but all he had to do was pay a fine for his infraction. According to various news sources “Under Saudi law, al-Ghamdi has had to pay only £31,500 in ‘blood money’, even after confessing to the heinous crime.”

That’s it, just a fine. As if that wasn’t bad enough, according to the courts the judge only levied half the usual fine for this because his child happened to be a girl. Aparently if the child he had murdered and raped were a boy, he would have paid more. Once again that whole Islamic ‘women are only worth half a man’ policy at work.

I don’t know where to start with this. The fact that child abuse, rape, torture and even murder is a crime that doesn’t warrant a jail term in Saudi Arabia is shocking. This is the taking of human life! The abuse and rape of a child alone would warrant at least ten years in prison in most civilized socities, and in some nations murder would carry a sentence of death. But in Saudi Arabia, you pay a fine. Outrageous!

Let’s move on to the fact that this crime was committed by someone who is a Cleric of Islam. According to many Muslims I have spoken to, Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace. So where does this Cleric think it’s all right in Allah’s eyes to rape, torture and murder a six year old child?

What I want to know more than anything else about this is the stand people of Islam are going to take with this man. Is he still going to be a Cleric after what he did? Priests all over Europe and North America are serving time in jail just for raping small children, and yet this man who raped and murdered a child (his own child) is not only free to walk the streets but might still have his job?

If this doesn’t convince you of how fucked up religion can get, I don’t know what will. Rape is bad. Beating a child and ripping out their finger nails is bad. Murder is bad. How can someone who claims to follow a ‘religion of peace’ do all these terrible things to their own child? The fact that Islam (at least the people in Saudi Arabia) don’t seem to have a problem with this is evidence of how outdated and out of control religion has really become.

This man should be in jail. Forget that, in some countries he should be on death row for what he did. Do you think Texas would have let this guy to with a fine for what he did just because he was religious and it was done to a girl? Not a chance.

I’m curious to what people of faith and of Islam happen to think about this. This crime was committed by a Cleric, someone who is supposed to be an example of religious values. How is this man not in jail and possibly still a Cleric of Islam?

People around the world are furious about this and for good reason. Life is sacred, children (male or female) should never be treated like this, ever. As a father myself, the idea of doing any of this to any child, let alone my own repulses me completely. There is no excuse for what he did, and the fact that he only paid a small fine for what he did and nothing more is revolting.

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