Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu
(May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you)
It is reported that Ibrahim b. Adham (May Allah have mercy on him) (d162H), once passed through the market of Basrah. People gathered around him and asked:
O Abu Ishaq, Allah the Exalted says in his Book. "Call on me, I will answer your prayers", but we have been calling on Him for a long time and He does not answer our prayers. [Ibrahim] replied, "O people of Basrah, your hearts have died in respect to ten things :
1. First, you know Allah but you do not give Him His rights;
2. Second, you have read Allah's Book but you do not act by it;
3. Third, you claim to love Allah's Messenger (Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) yet you abandon his Sunnah;
4. Fourth, you claim to be enemies to Shaytan but you conform to [his ways];
5. Fifth, you say you love Paradise yet you do not work for it;
6. Sixth, you say you fear The Fire yet you put yourselves closer to it [by sinning];
7. Seventh, you say death is true but you do not prepare for it;
8. Eighth, you busy yourselves with the faults of others and disregard your own;
9. Ninth, you consume the favors of your Lord but are not grateful for them; and
10. Tenth, you bury your dead but take no lesson from them."
Thursday, July 14, 2011
License to Exploit Servant Abuse Case Could Challenge Diplomatic Immunity
By Andreas Wassermann
Diplomatic immunity was originally meant to protect embassy personnel from arbitrary harassment. But a new case in Berlin, involving the alleged abuse of a Indonesian servant, makes it clear that human rights sometimes get lost in the shuffle. The case could go to Germany's highest court.
Where else could Devi Ratnasari have gone? Should she have gone down to the nearby river and jumped in? Or perhaps to the junkyard lying across the bridge behind the house? Or to the four-lane street where the No. 139 bus stopped? And what then? She doesn't speak a word of German, and she also didn't have any money for a ticket.
Instead, the petite Asian woman opted to stay in her employer's apartment on Boca Raton Street, in northwestern Berlin. For more than a year and a half, laboring seven days a week, usually until late into the night. She was humiliated, kicked and beaten with a stick -- like a serf. That, at least, is what she told the police.
Devi Ratnasari, not her real name, is from Indonesia. The 30-year-old had been working as a household employee for a Saudi Arabian diplomat until eight months ago. And if it hadn't been for Nevedita Prasad at Ban Ying, a center focused on combating human trafficking, she would likely still be slaving away in the diplomatic residence -- just like so many other women in Berlin from Indonesia and the Philippines.
Diplomatic immunity was originally meant to protect embassy personnel from arbitrary harassment. But a new case in Berlin, involving the alleged abuse of a Indonesian servant, makes it clear that human rights sometimes get lost in the shuffle. The case could go to Germany's highest court.
Where else could Devi Ratnasari have gone? Should she have gone down to the nearby river and jumped in? Or perhaps to the junkyard lying across the bridge behind the house? Or to the four-lane street where the No. 139 bus stopped? And what then? She doesn't speak a word of German, and she also didn't have any money for a ticket.
Instead, the petite Asian woman opted to stay in her employer's apartment on Boca Raton Street, in northwestern Berlin. For more than a year and a half, laboring seven days a week, usually until late into the night. She was humiliated, kicked and beaten with a stick -- like a serf. That, at least, is what she told the police.
Devi Ratnasari, not her real name, is from Indonesia. The 30-year-old had been working as a household employee for a Saudi Arabian diplomat until eight months ago. And if it hadn't been for Nevedita Prasad at Ban Ying, a center focused on combating human trafficking, she would likely still be slaving away in the diplomatic residence -- just like so many other women in Berlin from Indonesia and the Philippines.
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