It's not everyday you get to discuss sodomy in class, if only in passing.
But today I started a new course in International Criminal Law, and we were discussing issues of extradition (ie State A wants State B to give up a person who committed a serious crime in State A). So say, hypothetically, John murder someone in Australia and then escapes to the US, Australia has the right to demand the US extradite John back to be prosecuted. Nothing funny about this, until...
We come to the Netherlands. Many things are legal here where it is illegal (and therefore a crime) elsewhere... here you can legally abort, you can use soft drugs, you can legally solicit a prostitute, euthanasia is legal...and sodomy too is not a criminal offence.
So say John 'commits' sodomy in Iran, where the sentence may be death, and he now escapes to the Netherlands. To the Dutch authorities, John did nothing wrong, so there's no reason to extradite him back to Iran, where he most likely will face a death warrant.
After class a bunch of my friends were discussing and joking around this, and I nonchalantly asked them what the law on sodomy is in their countries. One response made me laugh out loud:
"Well, in university we didn't really do much sodomy."
I beg to differ.
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related news: Iran just executed yet another homosexual, and critcised western countries with same-sex marriages as "the weakness of western culture".
2 comments:
Some things are illegal in Netherlands, but legal in other countries. For example, to rape a woman was virtually legal in Pakistan, while being a victim of a rape is a crime punishable by stoning.
Now Pakistan is moving towards prohibiting rape by law. Of course the new law draws strong opposition. To read more about it check this BBC article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6148590.stm
Hugs,
Michael.
I think it's a very different case in an Islamic country like Pakistan. Islamic (Sharia) law (in 'western' eyes) oppresses females in that it the female rape victim has the burden to prove that she was raped. Of course it's not 'legal' to rape, but how do you get four witnesses to testify on your behalf that you are a rape victim? Even more problematic when most rape cases occur within the family. And so if the woman who cries that she's been raped but cannot prove it has to face stoning, because it is presumed that it is the woman who 'entices' the man to rape her. Thus in a (somewhat) twisted reasoning the man who rapes is the victim.
The move is a step in the 'western' idea/standard of what rape is, and who is the victim.
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