Why does Dubai (and other countries) imprison women who report being raped? Most of us have heard the grotesque stories about rape victims in Dubai (and probably other countries as well), who have been imprisoned for pre-marital sex after reporting being raped to the local authorities. A woman can be imprisoned for admitting to pre-marital sex, because proving that a rape happened is next to impossible in Dubai, where four male Muslim witnesses are required. If a woman admits to being raped, and the rape cannot be proven by the legal system, the man or men walks free. But why is there no burden of proof for imprisoning the woman? If sex has happened, by Dubai law, one of the parties is guilty of breaking the law. But not being able to prove that the accused is guilty doesn't mean that the accuser is guilty, by any standard of the law, as I know it. Does innocent until proven guilty not exist here? Surely it is not illegal to be raped, and that is the only thing these women are admitting to? On what grounds are they imprisoned? UPDATE: As a comparison, I'd like to explore the following. A victim of consuming illegal drugs against their will, reports the crime at a police station/ hospital in the USA. Health workers perform a drug test, and find evidence of illegal substances. An investigation is started, but due to lack of evidence, no one is charged or convicted of drugging this victim. Could this now result in a criminal case charge against the one reporting being drugged, because the drugs are illegal to consume, and no evidence is found that this was done against their will?
Women are imprisoned on the grounds that they have confessed to engaging in pre-marital sex. If you're looking for the reason why this is the case even when they've been raped, it's because Islamic law, specifically, Sharia law, states that this is the punishment for engaging in pre-marital sex.
I have not read the news report so cannot comment on the alleged offences and police conduct, but what I can say is that the information to given on arrest may be found at section 28 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE): (1) Subject to subsection (5) below, where a person is arrested, otherwise than by being informed that he is under arrest, the arrest is not lawful unless the person arrested is informed that he is under arrest as soon as is practicable after his arrest. (2) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (1) above applies regardless of whether the fact of the arrest is obvious. (3) Subject to subsection (5) below, no arrest is lawful unless the person arrested is informed of the ground for the arrest at the time of, or as soon as is practicable after, the arrest. (4) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (3) above applies regardless of whether the ground for the arrest is obvious. (5) Nothing in this section is to be taken to require a person to be informed— (a) that he is under arrest; or (b) of the ground for the arrest,if it was not reasonably practicable for him to be so informed by reason of his having escaped from arrest before the information could be given. Note the provisions at subsection (3) do not require anyone else to be told the grounds (reasons) at the time of arrest - including members of the public, protesters, bloggers or the press. Kerb-side debates can seriously or significantly distract the officer from ensuring e.g. public safety or preventing e.g. an escape from custody. Also, depending on what else is going on e.g. say in a dynamic and volatile crowd control or public order situation, the person under arrest does not need to told immediately if it would be impractical to do so. The operative phrase being as soon as is practicable, which is not defined by statute as each case needs to be considered individually according to its own set of circumstances. The relevant case law is DPP v Hawkins [1988] 1 WLR 1166, but the only detailed commentary I can find online is behind the PNLD paywall1. Succinctly, the magistrates initially dismissed the case against Hawkins for assaulting four police officers who kept him under arrest without giving the grounds as required by s.28(3) PACE. The DPP appealed, and the Court of Appeal sent the case back to the magistrates saying, inter alia, although there is an obligation under s.28(3) to tell a prisoner of the reason for his arrest as soon as possible (sic) after his arrest, a constable was also under an obligation to maintain that arrest until it was practicable to do so. 1Or free to law enforcement officers
The time between arrest and being presented to a judge depends on the country you are in: japan You can be in jail for 23 days before you even see a judge and are charged, and that clock resets whenever they officially start to investigate you for a different possible charge. You are not charged, you are just accused of this related and greater crime. This tactic even has a special name: Hitojichi shihō. Someone they want to investigate for murder can be first imprisoned to investigate the deposit of the corpse, then for the actual murder, for a total of 46 days maximum - and if the DA isn't creative to get some other lesser included charges in. Against some Yakuza, some DAs allegedly managed to chain up much more. However, those 23 days (per investigation) are all the pre-trial investigative confinement that the state gets before a trial - the moment the formal charge is entered, the trial has to begin soon after... However, the state also often has the arrestee's confession at that point - partially because a creative DA might manage to keep you nigh permanently and in part because you don't have the right to have your attorney at your side during questioning in Japan. This is partially the reason why Japanese courts have such a crazy high conviction rate: more than 99% of the cases brought by DAs are convictions, in most cases using the confession obtained in the pre-charge detention as a piece of key evidence. england-and-wales If you are a suspect of terrorism, you can be kept for up to 14 days before you need to be either charged or released, as Rick explains much better. Generally, 24 hours or 96 hours for serious crimes, starting at the arrest hours, apply. european-union The EU has the European Convention on Human Rights (Art. 5 III): Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 (c) of this Article shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial. Release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial. However, what is Promptly is dependant on what the countries implementing say it is. As an example, let's take a (closer) look at Germany. germany While you can be in investigative confinement (Untersuchungshaft / U-Haft) for months or up to a year typically, you need to be already officially charged and a judge has to affirm you are in U-Haft. This decision that you need to be in confinement needs to be repeated regularily in case of long investigative confinements. This Investigative Confinement, &quot;Untersuchungshaft&quot;, is defined in STPO §112 (~process regulations for criminal trials), and usually is limited to about 6 months before the suspect is to be released or be at trial, but in extremely difficult cases it can be extended by special motion in the layer of Oberlandesgericht, which is about the highest state court. Still, while an extension to 9 or 12 months is possible, there can be cases where this may be extended even further, even if that might not be entirely correct on other grounds - there had been appeals to the European court for human rights about such. On the other hand, once a trial starts and the court sees a flight risk or that you might pose a potential danger, you stay in (or are taken into) Untersuchungshaft for the duration of the trial. That is different from pre-trial Untersuchungshaft, in that you can't appeal on that your trial didn't start yet. In either case of Untersuchungshaft, any and all confinement is counted as time served, like the case of Fritz Teufel. In his case, his trial was seriously delayed and he was in Untersuchungshaft for 5 years before they convicted him to 5 years. In the end, he had already served all the due time due to the investigatory confinement, so he was released almost on the spot - just a little bit of paperwork and he was out.. Now, that is all court-ordered confinement. How far can we get without the court? What does Germany count as prompt? So, unless you have been put into investigative confinement by court order, you have to be released at the end of the day after you were arrested. End of the day is defined as midnight by the general rules. So if you were arrested Monday, 1st of January at 00:01, you are to be released on Tuesday, 2nd of January, 24:00. So, the absolute maximum confinement outside of the daylight-saving change day is 47 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds until you need to have been seen by a judge, but because it is nigh impossible to get to see a judge between 16:00 and 24:00, the typical confinement till you are formally charged and possibly transferred to Untersuchungshaft is usually less. On a mere technicality, there is one day a year where you might be confined twice from 2 AM to 3 AM, but that is also always a Sunday.
Laws criminalizing perjury are not about being mistaken or less believable in your testimony. The crime is, very narrowly, stating something which you do not believe to be true, while under oath. If you make a statement that happens to be untrue but you believe it is true (you are mistaken), that is not perjury. In the US, moreover, you have to assert something literally untrue, not simply say something that could be interpreted as being untrue. Rental arbitration hearings are nothing special, except that witnesses may or may not be sworn under the particular state's laws. If a witness is sworn and unambiguously asserts "Jones gave Smith $1,000 at that time", and another sworn witness asserts "Jones did not give Smith any money at that time", that might suggest that one witness testified as to something that they did not believe to be true. It might also show that they were standing in different places. Even if the circumstances show that the two witnesses observed the same facts, you would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one party knew at the time that their statement was false. It is also possible that one witness made mis-remembered or misinterpreted what they saw. They might say or write something else (under oath, or elsewhere) that establishes that they knew better. An example is US v. DeZarn, which clearly established that the defendant could not have believed the statement that he testified to. With no official record of what a party testified to, it may not possible to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a party committed perjury, since it can be reasonable to doubt claims of what he actually testified to. The defendant's attorney may, however, have to create such a doubt. Some answers could be perjurous if the question and answer are short enough, for example "Did you cash the check?" "No", if witnesses to the hearing testify convincingly that this exchange took place.
The definition of what kind of interaction constitutes rape is normally defined by statute or by case law, which can vary somewhat from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Typically, "penetration" for sexual gratification secured by force would constitute rape, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. Typically, "penetration" does not cease to be rape because it is not accomplished with a male penis. For statistical purposes, the United States Department of Justice defines rape as: Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. What you describe sounds like something that would qualify as rape under most jurisdiction's definitions of that crime. None of the exceptions to the U.S. Department of Justice's definition of rape (e.g. legitimate medical examination or a law enforcement cavity search where one is authorized by law) apply in this case. Even if a particular jurisdiction didn't classify this as rape (and the vast majority would), most would, at a minimum, classify this as sexual battery (i.e. forcible sexual contact not amounting to rape under the local definition), or simple battery (i.e. forcible contact without permission that is not necessarily sexual). Of course, even if it meets the legal definition of rape, a prosecutor or law enforcement who is accustomed to thinking of rape as exclusively a male upon female crime could balk at prosecuting the incident as rape, something that can be hard to get them to take seriously and prosecute when acquaintances are involved even in opposite sex couples. Law enforcement and prosecutors have broad discretion regarding which crimes they prosecute and for which charge. About 1% of people arrested for committing rape are female, and while some of those cases involve materially aiding and abetting a male perpetrator (e.g. by holding down a victim while the male perpetrator engaged in the act), some of those arrests involve the fact pattern that you describe. In part, the low rate of female arrest for rape arises from the fact that women commit violent acts, in general, at a much lower rate than men. The low rate of female arrest for rape also almost surely involves underreporting of rapes committed by women against women, in part, because women are less likely to conceptualize what they have experienced as rape and, in part, because law enforcement is often insensitive or dismissive of these charges in many places.
There are great jurisdiction by jurisdiction differences in the statutes of limitations that apply to crimes. Some jurisdictions have no statute of limitations for any serious crime (e.g. Canada and if I recall correctly Virginia). Others have statutes of limitations for almost all serious crimes other than murder (e.g. Colorado). Where there is a statute of limitations, the primary issue is that the ability of the prosecution and defense to secure reliable evidence that will allow a jury to enter an accurate verdict. This potential to conduct a fair trial can be compromised by a delay in pressing charges. Alibi witnesses can die or disappear to someplace that they can't be located, the location of the alleged crime can change in ways pertinent to proof, memories of witnesses in general can fade. Records or correspondence that could show intent can be destroyed. This is particularly a burden for an innocent criminal defendant who did not know that he or she needed to prepare a defense and gather evidence to respond to criminal charges. Some states toll statutes of limitations during a period of a victims minority or incapacity when brining charges may not be feasible. Other states have a long statute of limitations in rape cases where there is DNA evidence available that can conclusively tie a defendant to the scene of the crime (lack of consent would still have to be established), but a shorter statute of limitations in other rape cases. Murder and fraud are the most common offenses to lack a statute of limitations, in the first case, because it is considered the most serious crime and because the victim is unable to report the crime, and in the latter case, because fraud, by its nature and by the perpetrator's design, may go undiscovered for very long periods of time. Is there a line of reasoning to decide which classes of crime have a limited window for prosecution? While I've given some examples of the considerations that apply, ultimately, this is a legislative and political decision and not a legal one. You can't determine by reason alone which classes of crimes will have a limited window for prosecution. Different legislative bodies make different decisions on the same issues at different times and in different places.
Police can lie However, in the United States they have to read you your Miranda warning (most other democratic countries have similar warnings): You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. They have told you everything they are required to tell you - effectively “we are not on your side.” After that, they can lie their asses off. Of course, they wouldn’t ask you for a DNA sample - they’d ask you if you’d like a glass of water. Then they’ll take the DNA from that.
You misunderstand the significance of the phrase "innocent until proven guilty." This is in part because you are not considering the entire phrase. The full phrase is that an accused party is "presumed innocent until proven guilty." This does not mean that the accused is innocent, only that criminal procedure must take as its starting point that the accused did not commit the crime. The major implication of the presumption, and indeed its original purpose, is that it places the burden of proof on the prosecution. This means that if a prosecutor asserts that you stole something, you do not have to prove that you did not. Rather, the prosecutor must prove that you did. The only reason to present evidence of your own is to rebut the prosecutor's evidence. Another practical implication is that a decision to detain someone awaiting a criminal trial may not be based on the assumption that the accused committed the crime. On the other hand, that decision is not based on the assumption that the accused did not commit the crime. There is a presumption of innocence, but no assumption of innocence, and the government is not obliged before the person is convicted to treat the person as if there is no accusation or charge. Wikipedia has a decent discussion. If we modify your question accordingly, it becomes How can two people be presumed innocent until proven guilty if their stories conflict? Now the answer should be clear. The prosecutor must develop evidence that shows which one of the people has committed the crime. If the prosecutor cannot do that, neither person may be punished.