The M Word

You meet the nicest people in jail:

Also attending court was Zeky Mallah, a friend of the brothers.

"Bilal Skaf and Mohammed Skaf should be more honoured and respected ... at least these two have not killed any of the victims like the American soldiers have (in Iraq)," he told reporters. "It is okay to label this young man and his brother as rapists who deserve 55 years ... But it is not okay to label some American soldiers who rape innocent young Iraqi women as American rapists."

In December 2003, "Zak" Mallah was the first Australian arrested under the new terrorism laws. He served two years' jail -- meeting the Skaf brothers at Goulburn prison -- after pleading guilty to threatening to kill commonwealth officers, but was acquitted of preparing for a terrorist act.

Skaf will be 51 years old or more and his brother and accomplice Mohammed will be at least 36 years old by the time they are released from jail for this:

August 12, 2000, Saturday -

A young woman is lured to Gosling Park, Greenacre by a man known to her who turns out to be an attacker. When she arrives at the park there are fourteen men expecting to take turns raping her. She is brutally gang raped at gunpoint by two of the attackers as the other men stood "around, laughing and talking in their own language". [2] The victim manages to escape the scene.

Since Skaf spent all day arranging for 14 of his Muslim friends to be there. The victim's escape probably saved her life. They also took part in these events recorded in Wikipedia:

August 10, 2000... two women aged 17 and 18... forced to fellate eight males... August 30, 2000... Another woman... viciously gang raped by a total of fourteen men... September 4, 2000... Two women, both 16... three men repeatedly raped them over a period of four hours.

The UK's Guardian newspaper downplayed - surprise, surprise - the connection between culture and these crimes and tried to make it a law and order issue given a racist slant by white Australians:

...rightwing commentators have jumped at the chance to find a racial explanation for the crimes. Under their analysis, the attacks do not simply give us a window onto the minds of 19 teenage boys in south Sydney, but a wake-up call to the wickedness supposedly inherent in Australia's Muslim communities...

Janet Albrechtsen, a columnist for The Australian newspaper, went one step further by twisting the results of two European studies to suggest that there was a proven link between gang-rape and Muslim culture. The authors of the studies subsequently rubbished her imputations.

But when The Guardian pronounced:

...it seems that perceptions and experience of crime among Lebanese-, Vietnamese-, Chinese- and Turkish-Australians are much the same as those in the population as a whole...

it perhaps unintentionally made a point that would be a cluebat moment for anyone with any brains:

...They (Lebanese-, Vietnamese-, Chinese- and Turkish-Australians) are the victims of the same sort of crimes, worry more about crime as they get older, and feel unsafe in the same Sydney suburbs commonly denounced as hotbeds of lawless Muslim youth.

The issue is not race but religion/culture.

When some of the victims were told they were being raped 'Leb-style' because they were Australian, their attackers were confusing the issue. These attacks were not Lebanese raping Australians but Muslims raping non-Muslims.

Meanwhile, another clue that even the BBC can get:

...the age of sexual consent for girls under Sharia law - within the confines of marriage - is nine, and furthermore, rape is very hard to prove in an Iranian court.

"Men's word is accepted much more clearly and much more easily than women," according to Iranian lawyer and exile Mohammad Hoshi. "They can say: 'You know she encouraged me' or 'She didn't wear proper dress'."

-- Nick