Legally killed in the name of honor.

Category:

Honor Killings/Islam

Degradations, violences and execution on Muslim women.

A referential (short) handbook on how to, "treat women in Muslim oriented families" in order to preserve and prevent the own family honor to be smudged.


First step: degradations.

Method of choices to keep women in a diminished role in societies: nose cutting, bride price, female genital mutilation, forced marriages, polygamy, and forced virginity testing (these are many form of degradations in which many Muslim women are facing in many Muslim-Nations).

Second step: violences.

Method of choices to be applied for asserting the own male status: marital rape, beating, and any other form or shape of domestic violences and abuses.

Step three: Execution.

And after all the above women are not well behaved and subdued, then the ultimate punishment is prescribed: killing the offending woman.

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Honor killing, an outrageous and cowardly act towards any human being.

Honor killings are brutal form of executions, and most of the times these are perpetrated on women by their own family's members. There are a variety of methods to use for washing a own soiled family's honor: by strangulation, by clubbing, by stabbing, by axing, by setting ablaze, but the most hideous of all by stoning the victim.

In all the likelihood you may think that all the above is coming from a sadistic torturer's mind. But, even though it is just a hypothetical handbook that's the sad reality for most of the Muslim women treated like belongings all over the Muslim's world. Since their remote history as yet in the present days, those women are been forced to face on daily basis with all those kind of humiliations.

Social injustice against women are consented by most of Muslim nations with their judiciary system that warrants honor killings on the grounds of tradition, culture, and assault on a family member’s manhood.

Women are judged and executed by the own family member/executioner without given a chance to explain or to clear up any possible misunderstanding. Afterwards, for women the only mean left to escape their sentence of death is by suicide.

Nobody really knows, how many Muslim girls and women are murdered around the world each year in the name of, "family honor" since their deaths often go unreported and unpunished. Most of the times, mutilated women's bodies are found casually in ditches with their throat cut and chopped into pieces.

In the name of honor.



Unfortunately nowadays, while honor killings may be more prevalent in the Middle East, these are no longer unknown occurrences in the West.

How to kill a malignant disease.

To demystify and uproot the tribal concept of “honor” so deeply entrenched in many archaic societies in the middle East as well in other parts of the Muslim's world, there is only one route: education since the early age of any committed Muslim.

Many Muslim apologists are arguing that this plague has nothing to do with Islam, maybe it is so? But, what about some Imams start to preach some tolerance and equality, particularly in favor of women rather than wasting their time in preaching hatred from the minarets of their mosques.

Red.eVolution

More to read here: Honor Killings.

Du'a Khalil, a young life cut short.

Category:
Honor Killings

In memory of Du'a Khalil.



On April 7th: will be a day of remembrance for a young life cut short too soon. This young life belonged to a 17th years old girl brutally killed by a mob of over one thousand men. This horrifying crime took place in Bashika, a town in the north Kurdish area of Iraq. Her name was Doaa Khalil Aswad, she belonged to a religion sect called Yazidi. Her only crime was, to love a teenage boy of the wrong religion, a Muslim boy.

I must say, I watched these videos a couple times and they are horrendous and heart wrenching videos to watch. I showed these same videos, to friends and relatives and they all got deeply shocked and appalled while watching them. A couple weeks ago, I received an e-mail from stophonourkillings.com, (also I'm a contributor on this site) asking me what I could do to commemorate the Du'a Khalil Aswad violent murder and the thousands of other women and girls who have lost their lives this year, in the so-called "honor" killing. Been a blogger, my natural response to this latter would had been: to write an article! But, I recognize now is not that easy to write about it. How, could I write about a tragedy of this immensity, a tragedy of a real human being been brutally murdered by a nasty crowd and some family members while others, were watching and taking videos. I know, there will be other bloggers who will be posting on the same topic, and I don't want to post anything already said.

Dying too young by an atrocious death.

A word of advice: these videos are really disturbing to watch.







When watching that young girl been dragged by her neck to her death or, when seeing her face soaked in her own blood or, when her body was mercilessly pounded and kicked before she was stoned to death, what else can I add? Those frames taken from video phones are already telling a lot! They are telling us of a ferocious beating, they are telling us all the cruelty perpetrated from brutal barbarous against a defenseless girl. What more can I say? Words are meaningless when such perverse and cowardly acts are committed against any human decency. No one in the right mind can justify this hideous crime, any conscience will rebel by just watching at these extremely horrific images.


Any of us, can imagine all the horror she must had felt. After watching these videos, words can't be enough to express all the anger and disgust we feel toward those bastards, those...I wanted to say beasts, but I'm afraid that comparing them to beasts, even beasts will get offended if, I compare them to these worthless human scums. Sorry, but I can't contain myself, I should blog in a more sensible way but I can't, I feel outright compelled after watching these videos, to vent my outrage toward these dregs of humanity. Any reasoning will fade away, when those crude images are hammering in my brain. I am not a journalist, my blog it's not a newspaper therefore, I will express myself the way I really feel on this matter. I wish these criminals, to pay for what they have done!

(as a last offence)

Khalil's body was buried with the remains of a dog.

I wanted to do something more then just write about it, so I went in this site: petitiononline.com to sign a petition against honor killing and stoning of women in Kurdistan. All together we can make a difference, we can stop these inhumane atrocities to ever happen again! Please you too, head to petitiononline.com to petition against the cruelty of killing and stoning of women in Kurdistan.

ICAHK is asking you to remember Du'a Khalil and the thousands of other victims of so-called 'honour' this April 7th.

What you can do:

Find out more about Du'a Khalil

1. Spread the word
Write a letter to your local papers, raising the issue of so-called 'honour' killing.
2. Du'a KhalilBlog for Du'a
Write a blog entry for Du'a Khalil on the 7th April, perhaps using one of our graphics available here, or post about her story on your forums
3. Contact the KRG
Send an email to the Kurdistan Regional Government asking what progress there has been in finding and prosecuting Du'a's killers and what they intend to do to reduce the rate of 'honour' killings in Kurdistan (there have been at least 300 other victims since Du'a's death.)
4. Sign the petition
Sign the petition, join the Facebook group
5. Tell someone about it
Whether your friend, relative or workmate, use April 7th to tell Du'a's story and highlight the inhumanity of 'honour' killings across the world
6. Get together
Organise an event to remember Du'a, whether its a candle-lit vigil or a private gathering to remember her. You can discuss ideas and get together in this thread and please send us your photographs.
7. Put up a poster
Print out and put up a poster in your window to show that Du'a Khalil is not forgotten. Download Colour poster or Black and white [Large PDF files]
8. Join the Facebook event
A Facebook event has been created: click here to join.
9. Read a good book
The anthology written in honour of Du'a Khalil Nothing But Red will be launched on April 7th with proceeds going to Equality Now
10. If you are in Britain
Go to the Conference in London on 12th April. More details here
11. If you are in France
Go to the Conference in Paris on 7th April. More details here

If you have any other suggestions about how to mark this terrible anniversary, please contact stophonourkillings.com.

You won't suffer anymore, because you are now in heaven guarded by an army of angels.

A very sad...Red.eVolution

An Iranian father, killed his 14 years old daughter by stoning her to death.

Category:
Honor Killings

Honor Killing in Iran-An Iranian father, punishes his 14 years old daughter, by stoning her to death.

A 14 years old girl, stoned to death because her father believed she was having an affair with a man. The matter happened in a deserted locality of the periphery of Zahedan. Zahedan is the capital of the Sistan and Baluchestan Province, which it's situated in the southeast of the Iranian's country.



The Sistan and Baluchestan Province (it's a territory situated in the southeast of the Iranian's country).

*****

Sharif (that's the name of the father killer), after he was arrested by the Iranian police, justified his criminal act by saying "I had to save my honor". Sharif, has admitted to have stoned to death the little girl "by the name Samieh" with the aid of a friend, without showing sign of repentance. "I suspected that she had a relation with a man and I was forced to stone her to death, for being able to wash my soiled honor", would have said Sharif during his interrogation. "I did not have any other choice", has added the man. He told the event of the lapidation, in the minimums details to his enquirers.

As he, recalls the murder:

He had loaded the young daughter on his car and after took her to the desert, in the rural province of Zahedan, close to the Afghan's frontier. There, he stoned to death with the help of some friend, the young daughter. "In the car, she had a terrorized look. I believe, she knew what was going to happen to her. During the lapidation she yelled, asked mercy. But, I did not have any choices", told Sharif to the daily paper Etemad Iranian.

Aftermaths:


Today, the father is in jail with hes friend. The killing of the young Samieh in the desert, faraway from other people's looks, wasn't enough for him to avoid the jail. In fact, to denounce him was the desperation of a mother. The mother of the young murdered girl. Not even the mother of Hina Saleem (the Pakistani girl, killed by the own father in Italy) had never dared, to accuse the husband.

Sharif will pay in jail for his murderer crime, in a sentence between three and nine years. The sentence don't even come close to the hanging sentences, reserved to assassins in Iran.

The law.

In Iran in fact, the father is considered to be the "owner of the blood" of the daughter and the crimes to avenge the honor (above all in the rural zones) are justified by the common moral. Sharif, suspected that his daughter had committed "illicit actions" with a man and than, he decided to gave her the right sentence of death. A death deserved to the adulterates, meaning death by stoning.

According to Article 83 of the Islamic Penal Code of Iran, stoning to death has been declared a permissible punishment for a few different types of adultery.

Death by Stoning, a barbaric sentence given to adulterates.

more in the following links:

• Father Stones Her Daughter To Death In An Act of Honor Killing.
• Honor Killing in Iran -- Father Stones 14 Year Old Daughter To Death
• The case file of a father who murdered his daughter in an act of "honor killing" with the assistance of another man by stoning her to death, is now under review in Zahedan's general court. According to our reporter, a few days ago, a distraught woman, who was crying uncontrollably, contacted the authorities in city of Zahedan, and reported the murder of her daughter.

• Death by Stoning.
• Published May 9th, 2007 in Iraq War, Women.
• Du’a Khalil Aswad was a 17 year old girl living in northern Iraq. Her family belonged to the Yazidi religious sect. (Yazidi is a combination of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian, and Islamic elements — neither Christian nor Muslim.)

• A letter about Stoning to Death.
• A few weeks ago my mother, Mehrangiz Kar, wrote an article about stoning to death in Iran. She received many different feedbacks for her article that was published in Farsi. Among those responses we found an astonishing letter from an anonymous person whose mother was stoned to death twenty six years ago. Since the strength of the words of this letter paralyzed my body and mind for a few minutes, I decided to quickly translate the text.

Women in the Muslim world -[Chapter II] Sharia law.

Category:

Islam

I was ready, to post the second chapter of "Women in the Muslim world ", "Sharia law."
but after reading comments from the first chapter, I decided to introduce these comments on the beginning of this new chapter:

*****
Red, thank you for blogging about this subject.
Actually, in Jordan, there are three penal code articles that offer leniency to the perpetrators of these crimes--Articles 97, 98, and 340. Article 340 is rarely, if ever, used. Usually, Article 98, having to do with crimes committed in a "fit of fury" is used as a defense.
Syria has comparable laws offering leniency to the killers.
And in countries like Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey, which have reformed their laws to effect stiffer penalties, female suicide rates have shot up.
It's believed that now, instead of doing the killings themselves, the perpetrators are forcing girls and women to kill themselves, so they can avoid punishment.
These are being called "honor" suicides.

Ellen R. Sheeley author of, "Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"

I was in Italy in August, 2006, and was horrified to read the news accounts when Hina's body was discovered and her family members charged with her murder.
I was happy to see Italy use the fast-track system to bring them to justice and mete out sentences last week.
If we do not speak up for the victims of these vengeance murders, who will?
I echo the Italian slogan you have posted on your blog -- Enough Silence.

Karen Tintori, author
Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family
www.karentintori.com

*****

Thanks for your inputs in this matter.
I'm quite stoned of this new developments, these new ways of circumnavigate the laws in these countries by enforcing women to kill themselves is really appalling to any human conscience.
When I started this blog I recalled a motto I heard sometime ago to best describe it " More of us, are talking about a matter, more chances our future will get".

Unfortunately in these cases it fits the scope.
This is one way I hope, to help these unfortunate women: more of us are talking about these crimes, more chances of forcing these people in listening, to how outraged is humanity against their misdeeds.
We'll keep talking until their barbaric codes of honor will in the end stop.
Right now I'm so enraged after reading these comments, that I'm afraid I can write something which I'll regret later.

One thing for sure, regarding this matter I'll keep posting more from now on till, all these senseless killings will one day cease!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the news:

In London, a 70-year-old woman and her son were convicted July 26 for the honor killing of Surjit Kaur Athwal, who was murdered after threatening to get a divorce.
Both the woman and her son face life sentences in prison.
The verdict came a week after a British court concluded proceedings in the sexual torture and murder of a Kurdish woman, Banaz Mahmod, at the hands of her father and uncle, who both received life sentences.
A third man involved in the honor killing was sentenced to 17 years in prison; two others are still at large.
A woman from India, a 31-year-old widow and mother of two children (ages 12 and 13), committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a train, because her family had summoned her back to India to marry an old relative (70 years).
She apparently left a letter to explain that she preferred to die rather than to do this.
The children are now with a foster family until the Italian courts decide further.

some other related links:

"The Whore Lived Like a German"
In the past four months, six Muslim women living in Berlin have been brutally murdered by family members.
Their crime? Trying to break free and live Western lifestyles. Within their communities, the killers are revered as heroes for preserving their family dignity.
How can such a horrific and shockingly archaic practice be flourishing in the heart of Europe? The deaths have sparked momentary outrage, but will they change the grim reality for Muslim women?



Four arrested in Iraq 'honor killing'.
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (CNN) -- Authorities in northern Iraq have arrested four people in connection with the "honor killing"
last month of a Kurdish teen -- a startling, morbid pummeling caught on a mobile phone video camera and broadcast around the world.
Dua Khalil, 17, was beaten and stoned to death by a crowd in northern Iraq.



Thousands of Women Killed for Family "Honor".
Hundreds, if not thousands, of women are murdered by their families each year in the name of family "honor."
It's difficult to get precise numbers on the phenomenon of honor killing; the murders frequently go unreported, the perpetrators unpunished, and the concept of family honor justifies the act in the eyes of some societies.

If a woman brings shame to the family
through allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, by refusing an arranged marriage, or attempting to obtain a divorce--her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to murder her.

'Honor' killing spurs outcry in Syria.
A 16-year-old's killing spurred the country's grand mufti to call for legal reform and protections.
Damascus: Experts estimate that between 200 and 300 honor killings take place each year in Syria.

..........and the list goes on, too many to list.


It's a sort of epidemic in Arab countries, and unfortunately this decease, as not been left behind when emigrants had moved into western nations.
Murderers are not just husbands, fathers, sons, any man of a family is entitle to make justice if, a female member will dishonor their own " honor".
and reading from the above links, doesn't matter how young victims can be.

The second chapter of "Women in the muslin world -[Chapter II] Sharia",
was supposed to be a little longer, I reduced it for the introduce, I added in the first part of this article.

*****

Sharia.

Definition from Jennifer Brea:

Sharia is a system of laws, customs, and norms governing Muslims' political, economic, and social relations.
Sharia makes no distinction between public and private life, treating all aspects of human relations as governable by God's law.
Sharia has aroused a lot of controversy in Western countries, particularly over its unequal treatment of women.
Sharia admonishes women to wear headscarves and discriminates against female ownership of property.
In more extreme cases, Sharia has been associated with so-called "honor killings" of women accused of adultery as well as those who have been victims of rape and the use of stoning, mutilation, and public execution for a variety of crimes including adultery and theft.
Some also believe Islamic law calls for the death penalty for acts of blasphemy or apostasy - turning away from the faith.
It should be noted that not all Muslim women wear head scarves.
Some wear both head covering and veil, called the Niqab.
Others wear merely simple head scarves called Khimar.
The Burqa and Chador cover the woman from head to foot, and are worn in some Muslim countries.
All clothing that is said to follow the laws of Allah is called Hijab.

*****

Women are not just killed for matters of honor, but in other cases such as, dressing "immodestly" they can be harshly punished by having caustic acids thrown on their faces for not covering it well enough, or in other cases for wearing jeans, or jewels.
Other times they are just lapidated.
Attacking women in such horrible ways is neither acceptable nor can be allowed, but still it keeps on, reinforced by sharia-laws.

The condition of Muslim women, may be the most pressing women's issue of our age, the world needs to wake up, is not a matter of religions or national identities, but of humanity, we can't stand still while, all these keep perpetrating in the name of ancients, and some time barbaric beliefs.

You can read more about this topic from this link: "Why Sharia Law must be Opposed"

Next:
Chapter III : Dressing code -how is affecting European communities.

Continue.....

Women in the muslim world -[Chapter I] "Honor Killing".

Categories:

Honor Killings/Islam

I like to watch news, beside American news I watch BBC world news,
and even though been living in the States for over twenty years I still like to watch Italian news.
I want to underline a story, which wasn't highlighted enough by Americans news media.
It's a murder which was reported by Italians media, It impressed me for it's barbaric and hideous murder of a young women, she was slain by her relatives, because she had "become too Westernized".

Hina saleem a 21-year-old girl which was murdered by her father "Mohammed Saleem", because she refused to conform to an Islamic lifestyle, while refusing an arranged marriage and instead wanted to integrate into Italian society.
Not only did she worked in a bar where alcoholic beverages were served but, worse of all, she had entered in a common law relationship with a 30-year-old Italian man.
For her family, the scandal was too much to bear.
For Hina's family, action was needed to restore their family "honor", by committing an "honor killing".
Mohammed Saleem with the help of relatives, slaughtered his young daughter by cutting her throat on August 11, than Hina's body was wrapped in bags, and afterward dumped in a hole dug in the family's garden in the town of Sarezzo.
Hina Saleem was found by police on August 13, 2006.
Her mother, in Pakistan at the time of the murder, acknowledged to police that her husband had killed Saleem who "did not behave like a good Muslim girl."

So-called honor killings (murders, nearly exclusively of women, of persons who are perceived as having brought dishonor to their families) bare often identified with Islam.
In Pakistan, where "honor" killings are known as karo-kari, is probably the country where such atrocities are most pervasive.
In Jordan, "honor" killings are sanctioned by law.
According to Article 340 of the criminal code, "A husband or a close blood relative who kills a woman caught in a situation highly suspicious of adultery will be totally exempt from sentence."
"Honor" killings are also regularly reported in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

An Italian court on this past Tuesday, convicted Mohammed Saleem and two of his brothers-in-law for the murdering his daughter.
The court in the northern city of Brescia sentenced each of the three to 30 years in prison for the slaying of Hina Saleem.
In addition, the girl's uncle was convicted of helping hide her body.
He was sentenced to two years and eight months.
Hina Saleem is now buried in the area reserved for Muslims at Brescia's Vantiniano cemetery.
An earlier court hearing refused her family's request for her remains to be returned to Pakistan.

God, it's this sentence enough?
No, I believe wasn't enough, I don't believe in capital punishments, but in this case, I question my believes.
In the muslim world it's like, women are worth very little, they are valued as a things not human beings, just soulless things to own and dispose as they wish.

In a Italian interview with young Muslims from the Pakistan community, I felt horrified when listening to these youngsters (youth grown up there), they justified the Hina' father, saying he did the right thing, killing his daughter, because "she was giving him too many problems".
A part which I didn't see in this interview, was the Muslims girls speaking out, may be because they are kept close in their own homes.

Cases similar to Hina's have been reported in France and Denmark.
In England last September, a Kurdish father slit his daughter's throat because he disapproved of her Christian boyfriend and Westernized way of life.
And, recently, in the port town of Taranto in southern Italy, a Muslim man who suspected that his wife had committed adultery decided, after consulting with members of his local Muslim community, that she should be stoned to death.
The tragedy was only averted thanks to the intervention of local police.
Another Kurdish woman was killed by her father for having a romantic relationship with a Swedish man.

Continue....