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Afghanistan

Afghan activists still oppose new marriage law - 13 July
A group of Afghan civil society activists rejected a revised version of a contentious marriage law in a letter distributed Monday, calling the amended legislation just as oppressive as the original that critics say legalized marital rape. - AP on Google website

Afghan men may starve unsexy wives - 11 July
An Afghan law which legalised rape has been sent back to parliament with a clause letting husbands starve their wives if they refuse to have sex. - IOL website

Iraq

Saddam Hussein's last interviews revealed - 5 July
Saddam Hussein told his FBI interrogators that he had made a mistake when he destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction without independent verification from United Nations inspectors. The former Iraqi president made the admission in a series of 20 formal interviews and at least five casual conversations with US interrogators between February and May 2004, which have been released under American freedom of information legislation. He said he did not want the world to know that his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had effectively been "eliminated" by UN sanctions because he feared long-term enemy Iran might take military action if Iraq appeared weak. - Telegraph website

Saudi Arabia

Saudi 'genie' sued for harassment - 11 July
A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a "genie" to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say. They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said. The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out. A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans. - BBC News website

See also :
[South Africa]
Demon rape interview OK'd - 28 April 2009
A Free State radio station's interview with a man who claimed he was being raped nightly by a tokolosh did not exceed the bounds of freedom of expression, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission has ruled. In the ruling, released on Tuesday, the commission dismissed one complainant's claim that Radio OFM had made fun of a mentally ill person by broadcasting the interview. Another complainant, identified only as R Thirtle, took interviewer Rian van Heerden to task for making light of what he said was a very real phenomenon. - News24 website

InfoUpdate : an Information Service supplied by the KwaZulu-Natal Law Society