Just read this and am speechless...how can people believe this is right?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-pregnant.html

How is it possible for countries to have such differing beliefs in morality and human rights

I'm shocked you're shocked. This is the status quo in the world. Most people are like this (though many profess otherwise).

Fair enough...haven't read an english language paper in a while and I guess I'm getting a bit too used to living in the swiss bubble!

here is more info, if you would like to do something

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/iwraw/

http://www.iwraw-ap.org/index.htm

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw-one.htm

http://www.awid.org/eng

Similar thing happened in Saudi Arabia a few years ago with the lawyer who lodged an appeal against the verdict on behalf of the victim being de-barred!

Whilst this is incomprehensible to many of us, we have to take it that we are not being told the whole story from this report and before we start Muslim bashing again perhaps we need the full facts (i am not a Muslim by the way even if that was relevant).

With that said, clearly this does go on and it is unacceptable but what rights do we have to condemn such injustices when our countries could barely claim to have the moral high ground with rendition and the invasion of countries without much legal authority, the suppression of third world countries by crippling debt repayments and the support of undemocratic regimes because its suits our own shallow needs.

Whose Morals are right, it surely can't only be based on the morals of the western world because it is that very arrogance that many in the third world object to in the first place.

Why not? Its called culture. Ingrained in them for centuries.

Many Cambodians believe its ok to sell their daughters off to brothels and collect part of their earnings every month to feed the rest of the family. Go figure.

It is the act itself that is barbaric, no one has mentioned religion. In terms of rights for women I think it is entirely justified to criticise these sort of activities as they are illegal in the western world, where women are blessed with more equality. It is not perfect here but it is better than this sort of stuff which is pretty terrible.

Just to clarify somewhat, Bangladesh is actually rather moderate, with a thriving Catholic community (I should know, my bro-in-law wasan active participant whilst working there), so they are not all screaming Jihadists and Sharia fanatics. I'm not condoning this at all, I think it's abhorrent, just don't judge a whole country by the standards of some extremist rural Mullahs.

Agreed...religion for my view has nothing to do with this particular scenario or thread, and wasn't really what I was getting at.

What I do wonder is how can people interpret morality (that is to say, what is right and wrong) so differently that such situations are acceptable in one country but abhored in another? Are we wired differently??

Sure there are individual nut jobs and wackos doing all sorts of bad stuff around the world, but how can an entire nation of individuals living without serious oppression or censorship believe, or at least accept, such actions? Why hasn't the western world rubbed off a bit?

So, Does this mean that if these countries make human sacrifices too, no one should protest because we don't have the moral authority? No. Any government regardless of their past activity have the right to protest against actions like these. These kind of actions must not be tolerated.

Most of the times, people in third world are angry about the selfishness of western government and the arrogant attitude resulting from it.

That's actually a load of bollocks. Cambodia girls often get into prostitution because of the need of the family to survive. As you know in Asian culture the family comes first and people will do whatever is necessary to support it.

No one believes its OK or morally right but it is tolerated as a means to an end.!!

I'm not sure that every individual in Bangladesh accepts these actions . . . I don't accept some abhorrent things that occur in the UK.

Dude, will you please not cut off my entire paragraph and take it out of context? I said it was because of culture that such things happen.

such as boiled chicken and fried liver?

And Westerners amongst others go there to take advantage. It's all inter-connected.

No points judging; I don't know of any country or culture that is highly moral. We in the west just hide our bad deeds in 3rd world countries far far away.

Do people boil chickens in the UK? I think we normally roast them.

And what's wrong with fried liver? Nice bit of veal liver with some sage? Not really an English speciality. The British crime with liver is to stew it with onions until repugnant.

Talking of "culture" I think the guy would have had his legs broken, if not his neck or his belly opened with a knife from the girls family, despite the fatwa pardoning him.

In this kind of scenarios, not everything is fully reported. Innocently or on purpose, hmmm...

Religion has everything to do with this as I suspect that the decision was based on Sharia law and its interpretation by fundamentalists. This action was extreme and in my view wrong but its a cosy subject at the moment that the press loves to highlight despite many other atrocities happening elsewhere.

How often to we read about these abuses in the Kingdom of Saudi or Israeli abuses on the West Bank or Gaza.

Why do you think that the West have higher morals. Unless you see a break down in family values, gluttony, racism, materialism and a complete dis-regard to the environment as signs of high morals?

No I don't think we do, look at all the countries in the world where the west has interfered and tried to impose 'our' values, has it worked? All the current hotspots in the world are countries where we did interfere at some point, then walked away. Civilisations have to evolve for themselves, you can't force your values onto them.

The Chinese in the Uk boil chickens.

Anyway, having read the article it seems clear to me this is fairly typical tribal behaviour from that part of the world (regardless of religion). The "true" story will be something like, one of the village elders wanted this girl, or wanted to buy her family's cow, and was refused, he sent a young man to rape her as punishment - punishment of her or her family. Or some equally petty village/family squabble.

Some of the blasphemy cases in Pakistan have arisen because of a failed business deal.

The mundanity and banality of evil.