"None of this measured up to being "beheaded with a rusty sword" - merely messing about with childrens' minds by beating discipline and religion into them, often causing lifelong and sometimes severe damage, so I don't know where this registers on your 'sliding scale' exactly Mike."
.,,.
I'm not even trying to establish a precise "scale", Jim, "sliding" or otherwise; but I much deplore the instances you adduce, far more than having to travel a bit for a termination, say: & am glad to read your first clause above, registering for the first time, in contradiction to your previous assertion that "persecution is persecution", so no distinctions as to gravity should be permitted, which appeared to be your attitude before, that there might indeed be distinctions to be made [tho if you are ref'ing a previous post of mine, which cited a report from Tripoli, it was a blunt knife, not a rusty sword, which it reported as having been used. Never forget: Accuracy Matters!]

Re my last post: thinking back, it was only the fact that this Penny Whoever was a woman that made it newsworthy IIRC. There were so many reports at the time of British men working for development companies in Saudi, Yemen, &c, being caned for importing & drinking alcohol that they were hardly news - used to appear in News In Brief columns. The attitude seemed to be that it was worth the risk of a caning to earn the sort of money they could get for this sort of work. Never seemed to occur to them how exploitative & ill-mannered it was to go to someone else's country but feel you had the right to import your own [in their eyes, illegal] lifestyle with you. Hope the canings hurt! Serve them right!

Don't know if this still goes on. Maybe the market for imported developers isn't what it was. Anyone heard of any such instances more recently?

~M~