Marte Deborah Dalelv Rape Incident
 

http://www.giornalettismo.com/wp-con...3/07/marte.jpg

I first posted about this in the Rape - Whose Fault Is It?, but while it relates strongly to the theme of that thread, I think it deserves its own.

Marte Deborah Dalelv is a 24 year old Norwegian woman who was raped by a colleague on a business trip to Dubai. Immediately after escaping her rapist, she reported the incident to the police who responded by jailing her. She has been imprisoned for sex outside marriage which is illegal under sharia law. The fact this sex was forced on her against her will doesn't seem important.

This happened four months ago. She has now been sentenced to 16 months in prison and is having trouble paying her legal fees. Her employers, The One Planet, who should have helped her out have instead fired her.

I want to post about it here in its own thread because I think more awareness regarding this will put more pressure on Dubai to release Marte so she can come home. Also, this should be an important reminder that women especially should be careful when travelling abroad to countries where women are oppressed. Me and my wife have taken Dubai off our list of holiday destinations.

Another copy & paste from the other thread follows :

If anyone wants to try and help out Marte Deborah Dalelv who has been imprisoned in Dubai due to her own rape, here are some suggestions to some simple things you can do.

• There's an online petition for her release here : Release Marte Deborah Dalelv
  
• There's a facebook page you can "like" here : https://www.facebook.com/releasemarte
  
• There's also an open facebook group one can join. This group has gotten some attention in Norwegian media : https://www.facebook.com/groups/rele...deborahdalelv/
  
• You can put some pressure on Dubai, f.ex tell them you would not go on vacation to a country that imprisons victims of crimes. Their fb page which has a post mentioning Marte can be found here : https://www.facebook.com/DubaiCity1

Finally, Marte was also fired by her employer, The One Planet, for her behaviour.

• Link to a scan of the letter from her employer

Considering this happened on her business trip, I am horrified that they would not support her like helping her out with legal fees. If I travel abroad on a business trip, I am well insured and assume my employer would help me out should I become the victim of a crime, as any employer should. I sent an email to them. If you want to complain to them, their facebook page is here (though it may be down at the moment) and their twitter is here. You can also send an email to them at the following adress : theone@theone.com

If you want to send them something, but don't know what to write, you can copy and paste this text which was written by Norwegian blogger Gunnar Tjomlid.

Source for the letter >> THE One – give ‘em hell! | SAKSYNT

I was not aware of this and I'm outraged and mortified.

I've signed the petition and shared it with Facebook. Poor woman. I can't even imagine what she must be going through mentally right now from not only being raped but being imprisoned for having sex out of marriage. How can they force their religious laws on her? She's from Norway and she's not Muslim so how can they do it?!

After being raped she needs support, especially for her mental health. She must be so frightened. If she doesn't speak Arabic it may be making it even more difficult for her. :(

Well, it's another country. You have to abide by that country's laws just like if you were a citizen...even if those laws are backward and repulsive.

It's so backwards. Why can't tourists have rights like they do in their originating country?

I signed the petition and shared a link on my facebook page (first post of mine since June 11) so I'm hoping that will gain some traction as a few people on my friends list are pretty active with petitions.

This is truly disgusting though and yet another reason to never visit Dubai. This is one of those situations where Anonymous actually come in handy as they can at least ruin the life of the rapist and make life an uncomfortable hell for The One Planet as they have to shelter this shit storm.

Would you want some guy from Dubai having the right to treat you like a woman in his own country?

Senators Murray and Cantwell will be hearing from me. I would ask every American I know to communicate the offices of their state senators as well.

Thanks for posting the links, Tore. I also have signed, e-mailed, and shared via social media.