Gaybriel,

You'll get used to the two or three posters we have here who like to complain about how they've been unfairly moderated and censored all the time. You can usually pick their posts as being those devoid of any actual argument or sincere question.

Not much point in trying to persuade them to just get on with things, because if they didn't have something to complain about, they wouldn't be here.

abu_rashid wrote on Oct 13^th, 2008 at 6:49am:


As per the plan.

abu_rashid wrote on Oct 10^th, 2008 at 8:42am:



In the shadows of splendour
•      October 13, 2008
Behind the opulence and dizzying skyscrapers of Dubai, is an exploited army of migrant workers living in squalor.
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports.
…
How is life? I ask.
"What life? We have no life here. We are prisoners. We wake up at five, arrive to work at seven and are back at the camp at nine in the evening, day in and day out."

…
"They lied to us," a worker with a long beard says. "They told us lies to bring us here. Some of us sold their land; others took big loans to come and work here."
Once they arrive in the United Arab Emirates, migrant workers are treated little better than cattle, with no access to health care and many other basic rights. The company that sponsors them holds on to their passports - and often a month or two of their wages to make sure that they keep working. And for this some will earn just 400 dirhams a month.
…
One experienced worker with spectacles and a prayer cap tells me that things are much better than they used to be. Five years ago, when he first came, the company gave him nothing. There was no air-conditioning in the room and sometimes no electricity. "Now, they give AC to each room and a mattress for each worker."
…
A couple of miles away, the slave market becomes more ugly. Outside a glitzy hotel, with a marble and glass facade, dozens of prostitutes congregate according to their ethnic groups: Asians to the right, next to them Africans, and, on the left, blondes from the former Soviet Union. There are some Arab women. Iranians, I am told, are in great demand. They charge much higher prices and are found only in luxury hotels.
Like the rest of the Gulf region, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are being built by expat workers. They are strictly segregated, and a hierarchy worthy of previous centuries prevails.
…

Many times I am told that while the immigrant workers are living in appalling conditions, they would be even worse off back home.

"We need slaves," my friend Ali, an Iraqi engineer, says. "We need slaves to build monuments. Look who built the pyramids - they were slaves."

Sharla Musabih, a human rights campaigner who runs the City of Hope shelter for abused women, is familiar with such sentiments. "Once you get rich on the back of the poor," she says, "it's not easy to let go of that lifestyle.

"They are devaluing human beings. The workers might eat once a day back home, but they have their family around them, they have respect. They are not asking for a room in a hotel - all they are asking for is respect for their humanity."
…
Sharla Musabih says that economically, Dubai has progressed a lot, "but socially it has stayed behind".



http://www.watoday.com.au/world/in-the-shadows-of-splendour-20081012-4z1i.html?p...

Doesn't matter Lestat!! They'll all the same.

Soren, that's a good point, and I agree it's a despicable situation. Most gulf countries have appalling conditions for non-citizens, and this has to change, it's got nothing to do with Islam though. Under Islam, all people are citizens within the state and all are entitled to health care.