I’m looking for examples of laws on the books in the world’s nations that openly favor or oppress certain groups. I’m not asking about laws that are reasonable (children aren’t allowed to do this or that, convicted felons aren’t allowed to do this or that, blind people aren’t allowed to drive, etc.), but rather, I’m looking for obvious and eggregious examples of favoritism and/or persecution based on class, social status, etc.
By way of example: ISTR reading somewhere that Buddhist monks in Thailand are afforded certain special privileges that the general public is not (though what those privileges are I cannot say).
*Let’s not include religious persecution in this discussion, since it is so widespread.
Malaysia has a set of laws the explicitly favour native Malays over other ethnic groups. And I don’t know the details but I beleive India has laws that attempt to favour members lower castes in order to counter-act centuries of entrenched prejudice.
Are you looking for things like Affirmative Action? For things like “everybody must do military service if drafted, but conscientious objectors can choose civil service instead”? For “if you’re a member of the priesthood of any religion you pay less tax than other folks with comparable income”?
They don’t have to *wai * anyone, not even the king. (The *wai * is the traditional palms-together gesture accompanied by a slight bow.) They ride free on most public transport, and the best seats are made available to them. Other than that, I’m not sure what other extra privileges there are. It’s almost 1:30am now, and the wife is asleep; I’ll ask her in the morning.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor, to sleep under bridges , to beg in the streets and to steal bread.”
–Anatole France
Quite a number of countries still have conscription which either makes military service mandatory for men alone (as is the case in most countries with conscription), or provides for men to serve longer service than women (as is the case in Israel).
Any employer who denied a job to a woman because she was a woman would be facing a lawsuit so fast his head would spin, and he would most certainly lose it.
But many religions do this every day and it is considered legal.
What about the laws specifically designed to protect indigienous tribes? You’ll find those in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, at least one Scandinavian country (to protect the Sami, aka Laplanders) and a number of others.
On the flip side, women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia.
In Nicaragua, Peru and the Phillipines, only native-born citizens are allowed to serve in parliament.
Indonesia was the same way. At least, that’s the reason my parents gave me for why most of our extended family has an Indonesian family name except for a few branches (including us) that had already left Indonesia before the legislation was enacted. If you’re interested, you can read the summaries on Wikipedia which gives more examples than just the forced name changes.
And in North Africa, either Morocco or Algeria, I don’t recall which, has/had a set of laws that explicitly forbade Berbers (of which the Tuareg are often considered a subgroup) to give their children Berber names, among other things. I particularly remember that since I was doing some character research online and that struck me because it resonated with my family’s own experience.
It might not exactly be what the OP is looking for, but one can call it a privilege for Scottish voters in the UK that Scotland has its own parliament responsible for certain devolved matters in Scotland, while the same issues in so far as England is concerned are handled by the UK Parliament as a whole - including MPs from Scotland.
The same goes for Wales and Northern Ireland, AFAIK.
I disagree - there are a number of jobs where the gender of the person filling the position are part of the job description, and they’re perfectly legal - provided that the employer can show some reason why a person of another gender couldn’t fill the position. No number of lawsuits will get a woman hired as a Chippendale’s dancer, for example.
I don’t know if it’s the same way now, but I recall that even being in possession of Chinese writing was illegal in Indonesia. The Chinese characters. Has that law been repealed?
I asked the wife about Buddhist monks in Thailand, and she doesn’t know of any special legal privileges besides the ones I mentioned before, and those are really honorary and traditional rather than set in law. But possibly they are exempt from the military draft. There is an annual lottery each year, and young men of a certain age may or may not be selected; I’ve never heard of a monk having to participate.
It is my understanding that naturalized Thai citizens do not have the right to vote in Thailand. Candidates for naturalization usually come from much poorer countries than Thailand, but there’s the occasional farang (Westerner). Years ago, a Dutchman became the first farang to be naturalized, and so he was big in the news. During one report, he said how happy he was with his new citizenship and couldn’t wait to go vote in the next election. The authorities sort of panicked at that and checked to see whether that was legal. If there wasn’t a specific law against it then, there soon was! (This was just a guy who loved Thailand, but most farangs who obtain citizenship do so for business reasons. They get enormous tax privileges. But they’re supposed to give up their previous citizenship, dual nationalities not permitted in Thailand. I do know of at least one prominent American businessman here who is still an American; he just keeps quiet about it.)
Foreigners cannot own land in Thailand. They can own buildings and condos but must prove the money for them was transferred from abroad.
And with condos, no more than 49% of the units in any building may be foreign-owned, although I just heard yesterday that that part of the law is about to be repealed, because of the sluggish economy.