United Arab Emirates Designates CAIR a Terrorist Group

CAIR's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are too much for the United Arab Emirates to ignore. Thus, UAE has designated CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) a terrorist group. Meanwhile, politicians and the media in the U.S. continue to grovel before CAIR, going so far as to help CAIR and its Muslim Brotherhood-linked associates hold a prayer service at the National Cathedral.

Associated Press—The United Arab Emirates designated the Muslim Brotherhood and dozens of other Islamist groups as terrorist organizations on Saturday, ratcheting up the pressure on the group by lumping it together with extremists such as the Islamic State group and the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria.

The federation's Cabinet adopted the designations against the 83 groups, the official state news agency WAM said. They include Al-Islah, an Emirati group suspected of ties to the Brotherhood whose members have faced prosecution in the seven-state federation, which includes the cosmopolitan business hub of Dubai and the capital of Abu Dhabi.

The move follows a decision by Saudi Arabia in March to designate the Brotherhood a terrorist group along with al-Qaida and others. The Emirates voiced support for the decision at the time, and accuses Islamist groups of trying to topple its Western-backed ruling system.

Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have taken a firm stance against the Brotherhood since its ascendance in Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring, and the oil-rich Gulf neighbors are strong supporters of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. He was elected earlier this year after leading the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Egypt labeled the 86-year-old Brotherhood a terrorist organization in December.

The Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the kingdom of Bahrain earlier this year recalled their ambassadors from fellow Gulf state Qatar to protest what they say as its failure to stop meddling in other nation's affairs and for backing groups that threaten the regional stability. Analysts widely saw that as a swipe at Qatar's perceived support for the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.

The Emirates list includes the Islamic State group it is helping to bomb as part of U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Among the other groups targeted are the Pakistani Taliban and the Yemeni Shiite rebels known as Houthis.

Also on the list are a number of Western Islamic organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the United States' largest Muslim civil liberties group. (Continue Reading.)

For more on CAIR, watch this:

Norwegian Designer Marte Deborah Dalelv Sentenced to Prison for Being Raped in Dubai

In the United Arab Emirates, if a woman claims to have been raped, she must produce four male witnesses of the rape. If she can't, she has just admitted to having sex outside of marriage, and she will be imprisoned. Where did UAE lawmakers get the idea that accusations of sexual crimes can only be substantiated by the testimony of four male witnesses?

Qur'an 24:4—And those who accuse honourable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them (with) eighty stripes and never (afterward) accept their testimony. They indeed are evil-doers.

Unfortunately, women who enter the country on business aren't informed that if they are raped, they are absolutely helpless before the law. Thus, rape victims go to police thinking that they will receive justice, not realizing that "justice" has a completely different meaning in Islam.

Marte Deborah Dalelv

BBC—A Norwegian woman has spoken out about the 16-month prison sentence she received in Dubai after reporting a rape incident to police.

Interior designer Marte Deborah Dalelv was on a business trip in Dubai when she says she was raped.

The 24-year-old reported the March attack to the police but found herself charged with having extramarital sex, drinking alcohol, and perjury.

Convicted earlier this week, she says she is appealing against the verdict.

The appeal hearing is scheduled for early September.

Describing the sentence as "very harsh", she told the AFP news agency: "I am very nervous and tense. But I hope for the best and I take one day at a time. I just have to get through this."

The case has angered rights groups and the authorities in Norway.

Ms Dalelv says she had been on a night out with colleagues on 6 March when the rape took place.

She reported it to the police, who proceeded to confiscate her passport and seize her money. She was charged four days later on three counts, including having sex outside marriage.

Her alleged attacker, she said, received a 13-month sentence for extra-marital sex and alcohol consumption.

The Norwegian government had secured Ms Dalelv's conditional release so, since being charged, she has been living under the protection of the Norwegian Seamans' Centre in Dubai.

But she told Norway's NRK News that following her sentencing on Tuesday she was now officially wanted by the Dubai authorities.

"I should have been imprisoned since Tuesday," she said. "But I have been told they are not searching for me."

The sentence has been condemned by Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide who is quoted as saying that it "flies in the face of our notion of justice" and was "highly problematic from a human rights perspective".

The Norwegian authorities are reportedly trying to contact the authorities in Dubai about the situation.

The London-based Emirates Centre for Human Rights called on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to which Dubai belongs, to quash Ms Dalelv's conviction.

It said the UAE's claims that it is attempting to end discrimination against women was undermined by a legal system that "prohibits the achievement of justice for cases of sexual violence against women".

According to the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, UAE law states a rape conviction can only be secured after a confession or as the result of testimony from four adult male witnesses to the crime. (Continue Reading.)