Ladies: Would YOU Behead a Man Who Raped YOU?

I asked myself that question after I read this story, and I don't know how to answer it.  What WOULD I do in such a situation?

The original story is at CNN

Turkish woman awaits trial after beheading her alleged rapist

From Talia Kayali, CNN

updated 9:21 AM EDT, Thu September 6, 2012

 

(CNN) -- A woman in Turkey is awaiting trial after beheading a man who she says raped her repeatedly for months and is the father of her unborn child. Her lawyer says the woman killed the man to protect her honor.

 

Nevin Yildirim, a 26-year-old mother of two, lives in a small village in southwestern Turkey. She said the man, Nurettin Gider, began the attacks a few days after her husband left in January for a seasonal job in another town, according to a source close to the case.

 

Yildirim said Gider threatened her with a gun and said he would kill her children, ages 2 and 6, if she made any noise, according to the source. That was the first of repeated rapes over the next eight months, the source said.

 

At one point, Yildirim said, Gider sneaked into her house while she was asleep and took pictures of her, the source said. One of the pictures shows her pregnant body. Gider threatened to publish the pictures if she didn't obey him, the source said.

 

In small villages like hers, honor is held above all else, and women carry the burden of honor for their families. Pictures like those would have been devastating for Yildirim and her family and could have posed a danger.

 

On August 28, at least five months pregnant by a man who she said continued to rape her, Yildirim said she decided she had had enough. Gider was climbing up the back wall of her house. "I knew he was going to rape me again," she said at her preliminary hearing August 30.

 

She said she grabbed her father-in-law's rifle that was hanging on the wall and she shot him. He tried to draw his gun and she fired again.

 

"I chased him," she said. "He fell on the ground. He started cussing. I shot his sexual organ this time. He became quiet. I knew he was dead. I then cut his head off."

 

Witnesses described Yildirim walking into the village square, carrying the man's head by his hair, blood dripping on the ground.

 

"Don't talk behind my back, don't play with my honor," Yildirim said to the men sitting in the coffee house on the square. "Here is the head of the man who played with my honor."

 

She threw Gider's head to the ground, the witnesses said. Video from Turkish broadcaster DHA, which arrived on the scene before the authorities, showed Gider's head on the ground.

Witnesses called authorities and Yildirim was arrested.

 

Gider was 35 and the father of two children, 15 and 9. He was married to an aunt of Yildirim's husband.

 

Yildirim told her legal representative she regrets what happened, the source said.

 

"I thought of reporting him to military police and to the district attorney, but this was going to mark me as a scorned woman," Yildirim said, according to the source. "Since I was going to get a bad reputation I decided to clean my honor and acted on killing him. I thought of suicide a lot but couldn't do it."

 

Yildirim said she was worried people would judge her children because of what happened, the source said.

 

"Now no one can call my children bastards," she said, according to the source. "I cleaned my honor. Everyone will call them the children of the woman who cleaned her honor."

 

The source said Yildirim went to a health clinic a while ago seeking an abortion, but health workers told her she was 14 weeks pregnant and abortion was not an option.  In Turkey, abortion is allowed during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, after which it is permitted only to save the life or health of the mother or in cases of fetal impairment, Human Rights Watch said.

 

At her hearing, Yildirim said she doesn't want to keep the baby and that she is ready to die, the source said. The public prosecutor's office has ordered a medical examination to decide whether Yildirim may have an abortion and to assess her mental stability, the source said.

 

Yildirim's father, Zekeriya Yildiz, told DHA his daughter did not report the alleged abuse to anyone in the family.  "If she would have told us, we would have taken other precautions," he said.

Yildirim is in the local jail while she awaits trial.

 

In a report last year, Human Rights Watch decried gaps in Turkish law that it said leave women and girls unprotected from domestic abuse. Some 42% of women older than 15 in Turkey and 47% of rural women have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a husband or partner at some point in their lives, the group said.

 

"She has lived through a terrible trauma. She must be charged with self-defense," said Gursel Oztunali Kayir, a sociologist at Akdeniz University and a member of Antalya Women Support Organization.

 

 

How is someone CHARGED with SELF-DEFENSE?  Is this the equivalent of "involuntary manslaughter" in U.S. law? 

Proud of Triple Honor Killing

A sick religion, an even sicker culture that condones this behavior.

From CNN

'Honor' murderer boasts of triple killing

By Reza Sayah, CNN

updated 4:35 PM EDT, Mon August 20, 2012

Kot Chutta, Pakistan (CNN) -- From behind the steel bars of his jail cell, Muhammad Ismail described with uncanny ease how he shot and killed his wife, his mother-in-law, and sister-in-law.

"The first shot hit the side of her body," Ismail said. "I left her there and went next door and killed my wife's mother and sister. I made sure they were all dead. Then I locked the door and left the house."

Without any apparent regret, Ismail said he would do it again. "I am proud of what I did. That's why I turned myself over to the police."

Ismail's confession to the triple-murder that took place last February in a village in central Pakistan is a rare and chilling first-hand account of a so-called 'honor' killing -- the murder of women who are usually accused of dishonoring their families by being unfaithful or disobedient.

Ismail accused his wife of eight months of repeatedly flirting with other men and spending long hours away from home.

"My wife never made me happy," said the 20-year-old who played drums in a traditional Pakistani wedding band before his arrest. "She was like a prostitute. She never took care of me."

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported 943 women were "killed in the name of honor" in Pakistan last year, an increase of more than 100 from 2010.

Rights groups blame the increase in 'honor' murders partly on what they call an ineffective justice system in Pakistan that too often allows killers to go unpunished.

Despite his videotaped confession to CNN and an earlier confession to police, prosecutors say Ismail can soon be a free man if his victims' family agrees to accept compensation for the killings. Receiving blood money is an option for victims in many conservative Muslim societies under the Islamic principal that mercy is more noble than revenge. But women's rights activists complain that in patriarchal societies like Pakistan, 'honor' killers regularly bully and threaten the female victim's family into accepting blood money.

"When it comes to the crime we have a natural reaction of shock and horror, but when we see the justice system not work, our heart breaks," said legal advisor and rights activist Bushra Syed.

According to human rights lawyer Zia Ahmed Awan, victims' families in Pakistan are also at a disadvantage because 'honor' killings often take place in male-dominated communities where women are often viewed as property with few rights to defend themselves and little access to legal aid.

"In parts of the country there is hardly any legal help for women," Awan said. "This crime is growing because the courts and laws are not responding to the cries for help."

Awan said police, lawmakers and judges in these communities are too often either corrupt or lack the proper resources and power to investigate and prosecute crimes. Instead they regularly defer to a traditional system of justice where powerful tribal leaders and male heads of families rule on disputes, he said. [In other words, Sharia justice is NO JUSTICE.  And they have the gall to point their fingers at the West and call us corrupt?  Remove the beam from your own eye, Islam, before accusing us of having a mote in ours.]

In 1999 Awan set up Pakistan's first hotline for female victims of abuse and families who lost loved ones to 'honor' murders. He called it the Madadgar Help Center. Today Awan has help centers in four cities, providing thousands of victims and families shelter, legal advice, and medical care, often free of charge.

Hamida Bibi called Awan's help center in Karachi after her newlywed daughter's husband allegedly killed her for having an affair.

"Somebody told us to come here because they could help us," Bibi said. "They said they would listen."

Awan said the fight against "murders for honor" is slowly paying off; that police are making more arrests, the courts are prosecuting more cases, and the media is paying attention.

But rights groups agree the steady increase in such deaths and the possibility that confessed killers like Muhammad Ismail are often set free are stark signs that the fight is far from over.

"Honor" Murderers Convicted

About fricking time!

Jury finds Afghan family guilty in honor killings
Today

KINGSTON, Ontario (AP) — A jury on Sunday found an Afghan father, his wife and their son guilty of killing three teenage sisters and a co-wife in what the judge described as "cold-blooded, shameful murders" resulting from a "twisted concept of honor" in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians.

Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and using the Internet.

The jury took 15 hours [surprised it took them that long\ to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia's childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.

Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said the evidence clearly supported the conviction.

"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honorless crime," Maranger said. "The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor ... that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

In a statement following the verdict, Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson called honor killings a practice that is "barbaric and unacceptable in Canada."

Defense lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father's first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn't call police from the scene.

After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, "We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust."

His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother."

Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, "I did not drown my sisters anywhere."

Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, but said his client will appeal and he believes the other two defendants will as well.

But prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis welcomed the verdict.

"This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances," Laarhuis said outside court.

"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," he said to cheers of approval from onlookers.

The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.

Shafia's first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.

The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father, the court was told.

The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar's room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was becoming almost impossible to control: skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.

Shafia's first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and "made life a torture," while his second wife called her a servant.

The prosecution presented wire taps and mobile phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honor killing allegation. The wiretaps, which capture Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves, were a focal point of the trial.

"There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this," Shafia said on one recording. "Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows ... nothing is more dear to me than my honor."

Defense lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts do the accused say they drowned the victims.

Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.

"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said." [No.  Actually, the sonofabitch and his idiot pawns were convicted for killing three daughters/sisters and the first wife of Mr. Gutter Trash when they became too  much of an "embarrassment" to him.  I HOPE HE BURNS IN HELL WITH A PITCHFORK UP HIS ASS FOREVER AND EVER.  IAMEN.  I hope Wife Number Two suffers an Equal Fate.  I have in mind for Son a very special fate that has to do with his penis being ripped off and shoved down his throat, over and over again, for all eternity.  He, of all, should have known better.  He, of all, should have said NO.  But he didn't.]

"Honor" Killing Strikes Again: Woman Butchered in Hospital Bed...

...after she gave birth to twins - in Amman, Jordan. 

Jordan woman killed in hospital over pregnancy
AFP – 22 hrs ago.

A Jordanian man was charged on Sunday with killing his 24-year-old widowed daughter in hospital after she gave birth to twins, a judicial official said.

"Amman's criminal court prosecutor charged the man with premeditated murder after he confessed to shooting dead his daughter on Saturday," in Deir Alla in the Jordan Valley, the official told AFP.

The official quoted the suspect as saying "I was shocked that she was pregnant. I was enraged and shot her dead because she did something shameful."

The woman has been a widow for four years.

"The man claimed he wanted to check on the condition of his daughter ... then he shot her in the head," said Ahmad Hwarat, head of the hospital where the killing took place.

Murder is punishable by death in Jordan but in so-called "honour killings" courts can commute or reduce sentences, particularly if the victim's family asks for leniency.

Between 15 and 20 women died in such murders each year in the Arab kingdom, despite government efforts to curb such crimes.


How is this a religion that civilized human being can tolerate in any way, shape, or form?  THE "TRUE BELIEVERS"  KILL WOMEN JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE WOMEN.  Hey, Daddy, are you going to hunt down the 'father' of these twins, cut off his penis, stuff it down his throat and then cut his heart out and watch him die, too?  That's what he deserves, in my book.  What about the twins?  Is some maniac in your family going to kill these innocent babies, too?

And you'll get away with it...

Horrific Honor Killing Triggers Repeal of Lenient Laws in West Bank

As reported by Associated Press at Yahoo News.

Harsh West Bank `honor killing' brings tougher law
By NASSER SHIYOUKHI and KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Nasser Shiyoukhi And Karin Laub, Associated Press – Thu May 19, 3:40 pm ET

SURIF, West Bank – A 20-year-old Palestinian woman who was thrown into a well and left to die in the name of "family honor" has not become just another statistic in one of the Middle East's most shameful practices.

The killing of Aya Baradiya — by an uncle who didn't like a potential suitor — sparked such outrage that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas scrapped laws this week that guaranteed sentences of six months or less for such killings.

And in another sign of changing attitudes, the young college student is being mourned as a "martyr" and her grieving parents are being embraced, not shunned, by neighbors.

So-called "honor killings" are committed regularly in traditional Arab societies that enforce strict separation between the sexes and view an unmarried woman's unsupervised contact with a man, even by telephone, as a stain on the family's reputation. There were nine such killings in the West Bank last year, and Jordan reports about 20 every year.

Women's activists hailed Abbas' decision as a milestone in what they say is still a long road toward protecting women from such abuse.

"Such a tragic event managed to send a message that change is needed," said rights campaigner Hanan Ashrawi. "We have traction and we are going to move."

Suha Arafat, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's widow, emerged from self-imposed seclusion to praise Abbas. Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press, she said she tried to persuade her husband many times to take such a step, but was told the Palestinian people faced other pressing problems that needed to be dealt with first.

One of 13 siblings, Baradiya lived in the West Bank town of Surif near the city of Hebron, where she majored in English literature at Hebron University. She wore the traditional Muslim headscarf and classmates described her as chaste and noble-minded.

"She was lovely. She was intelligent. She had a big heart," said the woman's mother, Fatma, calling her daughter "the dynamo of the household."

She disappeared on April 20, 2010, and was killed that same day, though her body was not discovered until 13 months later, on May 6, after her 37-year-old uncle, Iqab Baradiya, confessed to the crime.

On the day of the killing, the uncle and two accomplices snatched the woman and tied her hands and feet, Hebron police chief Ramadan Awad said. The suspects told interrogators she screamed and demanded to know why they wanted to kill her, but the uncle said only that she deserved to die, he said.

She told them she had done nothing wrong, then her attackers dumped her into the well.

The water would have reached to her neck, Awad said, adding: "We can't be sure ... if she died immediately or it took her a long time to die."

Aya Baradiya's parents, Ibrahim and Fatma, said they reported their daughter missing within hours after she failed to come home from university but did not learn her fate until this month.

Fatma Baradiya said she barely left the house during her daughter's unexplained absence because she sensed her neighbors' disapproval. In Arab society, women live with their parents until they marry, and a sudden absence from home quickly causes gossip.

The police chief said suspects in honor killings often come forward immediately because they don't face serious punishment and a confession is part of the "cleansing" of family honor. However, Aya Baradiya's uncle remained silent, even saying at one point that his niece had called him and told him she just decided to go away.

Palestinian media say the uncle disapproved of the woman's suitor, who had approached the family through traditional channels, asking for her hand in marriage. One accomplice said the men talked about the alleged relationship as they planned the killing.

The woman's father, Ibrahim, said he had given his blessing to the union but wanted her to wait until she finished university.

Iqab Baradiya, who has been in custody since his confession, showed remorse in a television interview, saying he was influenced by town gossip about his niece, though he did not elaborate on what drove him to kill her. "I feel like a criminal," he said. "I wasn't thinking."

As the horrific details emerged, Surif residents and students at Hebron University staged rallies, demanding the death penalty for the killers. They held up signs calling Aya Baradiya a "martyr," the ultimate badge of honor in Palestinian society.

Palestine TV dedicated a program to her last weekend, and a senior Abbas aide, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, called in, saying the Palestinian president was watching and was saddened by the case. He said Abbas planned to scrap the laws guaranteeing leniency for such slayings.

Ashrawi, a former legislator, said Abbas had promised women's groups several years ago to scrap the laws, but put the issue on ice until the most recent killing.

Abbas delivered on the promise Sunday, signing a decree that scraps provisions that make killing for family honor a mitigating circumstance, Abdel Rahim told AP. Suspects could now even face the death penalty, he said.

Leniency for honor killings dates back to a 1960 Jordanian legal codex, parts of which are still in effect in the West Bank; the area was under Jordanian rule until it was captured by Israel in 1967. Awad, the Hebron police chief, said that under the old system, someone who killed for family honor would get a maximum of six months in prison.

In 2010, there were nine family honor killings in the West Bank, Awad said. In most cases, "family honor" was just a pretext, he added: Men would kill to clear the path for remarriage, get their wives' gold or because of problems in the family. The tougher new laws will likely reduce the number of such killings, he said.

In Hamas-ruled Gaza, at least 10 women were killed by male relatives over the past three years, according to a local activist, Majda Ibrahim. She said punishment is generally light, though in one case, a man was sentenced to death for killing his cousin after she rejected his marriage proposal. The man is on death row.

Jordan's King Abdullah II and his wife Queen Rania, a women's rights activist, have faced an uphill battle with the country's conservative tribal parliament to impose stricter penalties for honor killings. Even though perpetrators now face up to 15 years in prison, judges still hand out lenient sentences.

Arafat's widow, Suha, said that when she lived in the Gaza Strip with her husband in the 1990s, she used to hide women feeling threatened by male relatives and would help smuggle them to safer areas.

She said she and the wives of other leaders in the region, including Jordan's then-Queen Noor, tried in vain to persuade their husbands to do more to protect women. "I said, `Yasser, we have to do something'," Arafat recalled in a telephone interview from the Mediterranean island of Malta.

Jordanian activist Rana Husseini said change is coming, even if slowly. "I am really happy to see governments are moving," she said. "It's not the movement we are expecting, but better than nothing."

In Surif, Aya Baradiya's family wants the death penalty for her killers.

Her 29-year-old brother, Rami, welcomed the promise of tougher punishment, saying he hoped it would serve as a deterrent. "This is a victory for all of us," he said.

___

Laub reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City and Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.

Honor Killing Defendant Set to Stand Trial in Arizona

I hope he fries - I really really hope he fries.  Life in prison is too good - and a waste of taxpayer money.

From Yahoo News (Reuters article)
Arizona "honor killing" trial set to start
By David Schwartz David Schwartz – Sun Jan 23, 9:08 am ET
PHOENIX (Reuters) – An Iraqi immigrant is due to begin trial on Monday to face charges he murdered his daughter by running her over with a Jeep because he believed she was too Westernized.

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin in Maricopa County Superior Court in the case of Faleh Hassan Almaleki, accused of what prosecutors say was an October 2009 "honor killing" over his daughter's behavior.

Police say he crashed his Jeep Laredo into his 20 year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki, and her boyfriend's mother, as the two walked across a parking lot in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria. The daughter died two weeks later; the mother recovered.

The 50-year-old Almaleki faces life in prison if convicted by the 12-member jury.  He is charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and two counts of hit and run.

A spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office declined comment on Friday. Jeff Kirchler, Almaleki's public defender, did not respond to a message left with his office.

Almaleki told detectives and witnesses that he was angry at his daughter because she was "too Westernized," and he felt she was defying Iraqi and Muslim values, said Jay Davies, a spokesman for the Peoria Police Department.

The daughter had shunned an arranged marriage, and was living with her boyfriend and his mother, police said.

The United Nations has documented honor killings in Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and other countries, but the practice of killing a family member -- often a woman or a girl -- over perceived shame is relatively rare in the United States. [Baloney - it's only because the dudes are getting hip to the fact that we don't like that kind of shit here in this country and actually prosecute people for murder for killing a female family member - and so they are getting trickier in how they arrange the deaths.]

Following his daughter's death, Almaleki fled to Mexico and later to London, where he was taken into custody upon his arrival. He is being held on $5 million bail.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Jerry Norton)

The Monstrous Crime of Honor Killings - Growing and Spreading

Honor crime victim Fakhra Khar,
drenched in acid by her husband in
Karachi in 2001.  She lived.

Where are the voices of Islam crying out against this practice, these horrible crimes?  Read just a few examples of "honor" killings that I included in this excerpted article below and you tell me - why are the leaders of Islam not speaking out forcefully against this practice?  Why are they not screaming against it and issuing fatwas outlawing the practice and authorizing the killing of its practitioners from their mosques?  Don't read this article if you don't have a strong stomach.
From the Independent.com

The honour killing files:

The crimewave that shames the world

It's one of the last great taboos: the murder of at least 20,000 women a year in the name of 'honour'. Nor is the problem confined to the Middle East: the contagion is spreading rapidly

By Robert Fisk
Tuesday, 7 September 2010

It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the "honour" of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women's groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations' latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but which now spans half the globe.


A 10-month investigation by The Independent in Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank has unearthed terrifying details of murder most foul. Men are also killed for "honour" and, despite its identification by journalists as a largely Muslim practice, Christian and Hindu communities have stooped to the same crimes. Indeed, the "honour" (or ird) of families, communities and tribes transcends religion and human mercy. But voluntary women's groups, human rights organisations, Amnesty International and news archives suggest that the slaughter of the innocent for "dishonouring" their families is increasing by the year.

Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey appear to be the worst offenders but media freedoms in these countries may over-compensate for the secrecy which surrounds "honour" killings in Egypt – which untruthfully claims there are none – and other Middle East nations in the Gulf and the Levant. But honour crimes long ago spread to Britain, Belgium, Russia and Canada and many other nations. Security authorities and courts across much of the Middle East have connived in reducing or abrogating prison sentences for the family murder of women, often classifying them as suicides to prevent prosecutions.

It is difficult to remain unemotional at the vast and detailed catalogue of these crimes. How should one react to a man – this has happened in both Jordan and Egypt – who rapes his own daughter and then, when she becomes pregnant, kills her to save the "honour" of his family? Or the Turkish father and grandfather of a 16-year-old girl, Medine Mehmi, in the province of Adiyaman, who was buried alive beneath a chicken coop in February for "befriending boys"? Her body was found 40 days later, in a sitting position and with her hands tied.

Or Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, 13, who in Somalia in 2008, in front of a thousand people, was dragged to a hole in the ground – all the while screaming, "I'm not going – don't kill me" – then buried up to her neck and stoned by 50 men for adultery? After 10 minutes, she was dug up, found to be still alive and put back in the hole for further stoning. Her crime? She had been raped by three men and, fatally, her family decided to report the facts to the Al-Shabab militia that runs Kismayo. Or the Al-Shabab Islamic "judge" in the same country who announced the 2009 stoning to death of a woman – the second of its kind the same year – for having an affair? Her boyfriend received a mere 100 lashes.

Or the young woman found in a drainage ditch near Daharki in Pakistan, "honour" killed by her family as she gave birth to her second child, her nose, ears and lips chopped off before being axed to death, her first infant lying dead among her clothes, her newborn's torso still in her womb, its head already emerging from her body? She was badly decomposed; the local police were asked to bury her. Women carried the three to a grave, but a Muslim cleric refused to say prayers for her because it was "irreligious" to participate in the namaz-e-janaza prayers for "a cursed woman and her illegitimate children".

Rest of article.

Convicted for Honor Killing

Turkish Kurd guilty of 'honour killing' Thu Dec 17, 9:43 am ET LONDON (AFP) – A Turkish Kurd was found guilty Thursday of murdering his 15-year-old daughter more than a decade ago, in what prosecutors said was an honour killing. Mehmet Goren, described in court as a psychotic bully who terrorised his family, faces jail for killing his daughter Tulay because of her relationship with an older man who belonged to a different branch of Islam. The London schoolgirl disappeared in January 1999, shortly after her father told his eight-year-old son to kiss his sister goodbye as he would never see her again. Her body was never found. Goren's wife Hanim, who had suffered three decades of abuse at his hands, was among those who gave evidence against him, weeping and screaming in the witness box and demanding he reveal where the body was so she could bury it. One of his other daughters, Nuray Guler, also testified against him, screaming: "Even animals would not do what you have done." Prosecution lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw told the court that the Goren case was a "terrible reminder of what honour-based crime can involve" and a "wake-up call" to the existence of so-called "honour killings" in Britain. Police had become involved with the family in the weeks before the murder, when Goren beat up his daughter's boyfriend, Halil Unal, then complained about their relationship to officers and demanded she take a virginity test. Tulay ran away and told police her father had beaten her and she would rather go into care than return home, but her mother persuaded her to go back. Goren attacked his daughter's boyfriend for a second time just 13 days after Tulay went missing, this time with a hatchet, and it was while in hospital that Unal reported his girlfriend missing. But police failed to put two and two together and it was two months before they began to suspect Tulay had been murdered. They submitted a file to prosecutors in 2000 but were told there was not enough evidence for charges. Goren was finally arrested in 2008, along with his two brothers, after a review. Both his brothers were cleared of wrongdoing in court Thursday. An ethnic Kurd from Elbistan in Turkey, Goren had moved to Britain claiming asylum in 1996. He was jailed in 2000 for his hatchet attack on his daughter's boyfriend but escaped deportation because his family all lived in Britain. The 49-year-old admitted hitting his daughter and wife but denied murder, saying he still believed Tulay was alive and "will turn up one day".

A Pakistani Rape Victim Fights Back

It is a very sick society that puts "shame" on a female and expects her to commit suicide or be killed by a male relative for being a victim of rape which, as we know, has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with sadism and machismo on the part of the male perpetrators of this vicious hate-filled crime against defenseless females. (Photo: By Nicholas D. Kristof, Assiya Rafiq, front, and her mother, Iqbal Mai, in the background.) Article from The New York Times Not a Victim, but a Hero By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: July 25, 2009 MEERWALA, Pakistan After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and thought her problems were over. Then, she said, four police officers took turns raping her. The next step for Assiya was obvious: She should commit suicide. That’s the customary escape in rural Pakistan for a raped woman, as the only way to cleanse the disgrace to her entire family. Instead, Assiya summoned the unimaginable courage to go public and fight back. She is seeking to prosecute both her kidnappers and the police, despite threats against her and her younger sisters. This is a kid who left me awed and biting my lip; this isn’t a tale of victimization but of valor, empowerment and uncommon heroism. “I decided to prosecute because I don’t want the same thing to happen to anybody else,” she said firmly. Assiya’s case offers a window into the quotidian corruption and injustice endured by impoverished Pakistanis — leading some to turn to militant Islam. “When I treat a rape victim, I always advise her not to go to the police,” said Dr. Shershah Syed, the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Pakistan. “Because if she does, the police might just rape her again.” Yet Assiya is also a sign that change is coming. She says she was inspired by Mukhtar Mai, a young woman from this remote village of Meerwala who was gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council. Mukhtar prosecuted her attackers and used the compensation money to start a school. Mukhtar is my hero. Many Times readers who followed her story in past columns of mine have sent her donations through a fund at Mercy Corps, at http://www.mercycorps.org/, and Mukhtar has used the money to open schools, a legal aid program, an ambulance service, a women’s shelter, a telephone hotline — and to help Assiya fight her legal case. The United States has stood aloof from the ubiquitous injustices in Pakistan, and that’s one reason for cynicism about America here. I’m hoping the Obama administration will make clear that Americans stand shoulder to shoulder with heroines like Mukhtar and Assiya, and with an emerging civil society struggling for law and social justice. Assiya’s saga began a year ago when a woman who was a family friend sold her to two criminals who had family ties to prominent politicians. Assiya said the two men spent the next year beating and raping her. The men were implicated in a gold robbery, so they negotiated a deal with the police in the town of Kabirwala, near Khanewal: They handed over Assiya, along with a $625 bribe, in exchange for the police pinning the robbery on the girl. By Assiya’s account, which I found completely credible, four police officers, including a police chief, took turns beating and raping her — sometimes while she was tied up — over the next two weeks. A female constable obligingly stepped out whenever the men wanted access to Assiya. Assiya’s family members heard that she was in the police station, and a court granted their petition for her release and sent a bailiff to get her out. The police hid Assiya, she said, and briefly locked up her 10-year-old brother to bully the family into backing off. The bailiff accepted bribes from both the family and the police, but in the end he freed the girl. Assiya, driven by fury that overcame her shame, told her full story to the magistrate, who ordered a medical exam and an investigation. The medical report confirms that Assiya’s hymen had been broken and that she had abrasions all over her body. The morning I met Assiya, she said she had just received the latest in a series of threats from the police: Unless she withdraws her charges, they will arrest, rape or kill her — and her two beloved younger sisters. The family is in hiding. It has lost its livelihood and accumulated $2,500 in debts. Assiya’s two sisters and three brothers have had to drop out of school, and they will find it harder to marry because Assiya is considered “dishonored.” Most of her relatives tell Assiya that she must give in. But she tosses her head and insists that she will prosecute her attackers to spare other girls what she endured. (For readers who want to help, more information is available on my blog at: www.nytimes.com/ontheground.) Assiya’s mother, Iqbal Mai, told me that in her despair, she at first had prayed that God should never give daughters to poor families. “But then I changed my mind,” she added, with a hint of pride challenging her fears. “God should give poor people daughters like Assiya who will fight.” Amen.

Honor Killings Rage Unchecked in Pakistan

Here is jus a sampling from the Daily Times, which reports news from Pakistan. In almost all incidents, the victims are female: Monday, July 06, 2009 ‘Honour’ killings remain unchecked By Rana Tanveer LAHORE: ‘Honour’ killing seems to go unchecked in the city as it claimed three lives in two incidents during the last week. On July 2, a newly married couple was killed in the name of ‘honour’ in Barki police precincts. Ramazan shot dead Khalid and his wife Shamim, who had eloped and married without the consent of their families. Ramazan was Shamim’s cousin and both had been engaged. The other incident took place on July 5, when a boy, Irfan, killed his uncle Shahadat Ali for marrying his mother after the death of his father in Kahna police precincts. Reportedly, Irfan considered the marriage a matter of ‘honour’. In 10 weeks, nine people were killed in the name of ‘honour’ in the city. Among these incidents, on June 18, in Sabzazar police precincts, Iqbal killed his sister Adeeba (22) for having an alleged affair with a boy. The accused tried to hide the incident by shifting the body to some other city, but the police recovered the body after chasing the accused. On June 2, Nawaz of Ferozewala killed his sister Shehnaz Bibi, who was a mother of two, for having an affair with a man. On May 26, Ahsan Elahi gunned down his wife Shazia in Liaquatabad police precincts. On April 20, Zulfiqar Khokhar of Green Town killed his sister Shahnaz (35) and niece Farah (18) for honour. In Kahna, on April 16, a woman was killed by her in-laws in the name of ‘honour’.

Iraqi Women Treated Worse Than Mad Dogs

Story from The Los Angeles Times: (Photo credit: Alaa al-Marjani / Associated Press A poster at a Najaf rally reads “Stop violence against women.”) In Iraq, a story of rape, shame and 'honor killing' Alaa al-Marjani / Associated Press After prison guards assaulted an Iraqi woman, she turned to her brother for help. But he — and society — failed her. By Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmed April 23, 2009 Reporting from Baghdad -- Sometimes, it's the forbidden stories, the ones people are afraid to tell in full, the ones that emerge only in fragments, that reveal the truth about a place.This is such a story. It's being told now not because the complete truth is known, but because the story nags at those familiar with its outlines, and because it says as much about Iraq's progress as it does about Iraq's resistance to change. This much is known: A young woman imprisoned in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, sent a letter to her brother last summer, appealing for help. The woman, named Dalal, wrote that she was pregnant after being raped by prison guards. The brother asked to visit her. Guards obliged. The brother walked into her cell, drew a gun and shot his visibly pregnant sister dead. His goal: to spare his family the taint of a pregnancy out of wedlock, a disgrace in Iraq often averted through so-called honor killings of women by their relatives. For prison guards, the killing was also a relief. "They believed that her death would end the case," said a lab worker at Baghdad's central morgue, where the victim's body -- still carrying the 5-month-old fetus -- was sent. The case might have ended there were it not for the morgue employee, who was determined to see those responsible held to account. At the employee's insistence, lab workers using freshly acquired DNA-testing equipment drew a sample from the fetus. The prison guards were ordered to submit DNA samples and did so, apparently unaware of the sophistication of the morgue equipment and the people trained to use it. "They thought we were incapable of figuring it out," said the morgue employee. The DNA results showed that the father of the unborn baby was a police lieutenant colonel who reportedly supervised guards at the prison. In another society, the scientific evidence would have led to arrests and prosecution. But this being Iraq, the power wielded by men in uniform and the belief that a raped woman is better off dead combined to cloud the truth. Months passed after word leaked of the killing on a sweltering summer day. Just as it nagged at the morgue worker, it nagged at us. But how to tell a story that nobody wants told? Everyone had different, usually conflicting, versions of what had happened. Only the morgue worker's story remained the same, repeated in phone calls and e-mails as summer turned to fall and then winter. Then, it was time for one of us to leave Iraq. A colleague asked what the reporter's final story would be. There must be one after so long in the country, he insisted. "Isn't there a story that got away?" he asked. It became clear that this was it, even if we still didn't know the truth. About the only thing anyone agrees on is that a young woman was murdered, and that her last days were spent pregnant and worrying about what would happen if she were released into a society that would condemn her for it. According to a judge in the Tikrit court, the lieutenant colonel implicated by DNA and a police captain also accused in the case were arrested on rape charges but then released for lack of evidence. [LACK OF EVIDENCE? AS IF THE DNA EVIDENCE DID NOT EXIST!] The judge said a third defendant, a police lieutenant, remained in custody. (It is not uncommon in Iraq for police officers to serve as prison guards and supervisors.) Another Tikrit court official said the lieutenant colonel and captain remained in custody but were transferred from Tikrit to Baghdad. Col. Hatem Thabit, spokesman for the police in Salahuddin province, where the crime was committed, concurred with this account. Yet other accounts say the matter was settled through tribal justice. The clan of the accused lieutenant colonel paid the woman's family to drop charges, said some people in the area who are familiar with the case but fearful of discussing it openly. The morgue worker said those involved in the lab testing understood that all three of the police officers were freed. "I heard the dispute was solved by a tribal ransom," the employee said. "The issue bothers me a lot. I'm doing my job, and the bad guys are getting back on the street." There are conflicting reports on the brother's status. Some say he was jailed for killing his sister. Others say he was freed as part of the tribal deal. As for the slain woman, several accounts say she was in prison not because she was a convicted or accused criminal, but because police wanted to question her brother about something. They thought he would turn himself in to free Dalal. Nobody has been able to explain why police wanted to talk to the brother. The prison where she was held houses mainly men. There is a small section for female inmates, usually no more than a few at a time. A female guard is supposed to watch over them. No one could explain how the lieutenant colonel was able to do what he did. Nor could anyone say how Dalal's brother got into her cell with a loaded gun. "He was supposed to be searched," said Thabit, the police spokesman. "Where he got the weapon, we don't know." In Iraq, violence against women is a festering but rarely addressed problem. There are no readily available statistics on "honor" killings. The number of rapes reported to police averages five to 10 per month for the entire country, said an official at Baghdad's central morgue, who released the first details of the Tikrit case last summer. "The actual number of rapes is actually more than we know. There are so many rapes in the prisons, for example," he added before going on to cite the Tikrit case to an Iraqi working for The Times. Realizing he was discussing a case not intended for public consumption, the official urged the reporter not to translate the facts for his English-speaking colleague. But minutes later, another morgue official and then the lab worker confirmed the case. All asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs. Other workers interviewed during a daylong visit to the morgue, where rape victims are examined, said they had detected an increase in violent crimes against women since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion ushered in a religious conservatism and brought social and economic upheaval. [Oh yeah, blame everything on the Americans, not the cock-eyed culture where male beastiality is taught as the preferred way to have sex over having intercourse with a human woman]. Most are honor killings, said one morgue employee, who a day earlier had received the body of a pregnant woman with her throat slit. Human rights advocates say many of these homicides are made to look like honor killings to gain leniency for the perpetrators. "It's a lot worse now," said Ibtisam Hamody Azzawi, a former engineer who runs a small aid organization for abused women from her home in Baghdad. "Our society witnessed so much war, and this is reflected in the domestic abuse situation."Everything is violence. Even the kids love war," said Azzawi, whose husband, a university dean, was killed by extremists in 2007. [Baloney! This is a direct reflection of a religion that teaches and perpetuates intense hatred for and fear of females]. Much of her time is spent answering knocks on her door or phone calls from women looking for an escape from abusive homes. People find her by word of mouth. She does not tell her neighbors what she does, lest extremists attack her or one of her daughters. [Okay, reporters - how do you think you are protecting this woman by publishing her full name and city of residence in the newspaper? Do you not think Iraqi extremists have access to the internet? DUH! When she and/or her daughers are targeted and killed, will you feel any blood guilt?] Iraq has no shelters for battered or threatened women, and the war has splintered and displaced families who might have taken in female relatives. Amid the turmoil, homicide has become an easy out for husbands wanting to end their marriages, Azzawi said. It's cheaper than divorce. "Women get killed, but often it is reported that they are missing," she said. "It's all part of the chaos. Some husbands kill their wives and say maybe she was kidnapped, maybe she died in a bombing." A husband and wife will have domestic problems. All of a sudden, the wife will disappear. "At the women's prison in Tikrit, Saturday is visiting day. On a summer Saturday, a brother came to see his sister, her stomach swelling with her unborn child. She trusted him. Tina Susman recently returned to the U.S. after a two-year tour in Iraq. Times staff writers Usama Redha and Ned Parker in Baghdad, and special correspondents in Samarra and Tikrit contributed to this report.

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This is what the religion of Allah teaches: Women are not human beings. Women are worth less than mad dogs and can be exterminated with impunity. Muslim men prefer to have sex with goats and camels rather than women, because women are unclean. A follower of Allah can kill a woman, even a pregnant woman, with no consequences. Kill a woman, it's cheaper than divorcing her. Kill your daughter, kill your sister, who has been raped, and let the rapist go free with no punishment. No one will care - but maybe you can get some money out of the rapist's clan and buy yourself a flat-screen HDTV and satellite reception for a month or two.

Horror Stalks Women in Baluchistan

Legislators indifferent to sorry end of women buried alive Wednesday, August 27, 2008 By Rauf Klasra ISLAMABAD: As the government remained indifferent towards the sorry end of the five women who were buried alive in a desert of Balochistan last month, it has been revealed that the influential man who had killed the women is a "serial killer" and loves to kill women. The alleged serial killer had reportedly killed three persons, including one girl, before killing the five women. But he has never been captured or punished for his acts against humanity. Even parliamentarians who had raised hue and cry over the issue of Dr Aafia Siddiqui and passed a joint resolution in this regard remained silent on the sorry fate of the five women. The women were killed in a remote village Baba Kot, some 80 kilometres from Usta Mohammad, Jafferabad. It is believed that a PPP minister used his influence and position to hush up the matter. Information Minister Sherry Rehman only issued a one-line statement that the killers would be arrested, which never happened. The five women include Fatima, Jannat Bibi, Fauzia and two others girls, aged between 16 to 18 years. They were living at the house of one Chandio at Baba Kot village and were set to leave for a civil court at Usta Mohammad, so that three of them could marry the men of their choice. But news of their plan leaked out and Abdul Sattar Umrani, the brother of the PPP minister, came with more than six persons and abducted them at gun point. They were taken in a Land Cruiser jeep, bearing a registration number plate of the Balochistan government, to Nau Abadi, in the vicinity of Baba Kot. Abdul Sattar Umrani and his companions took the three girls out of the jeep and thrashed them before allegedly spraying them with bullets. The girls were seriously injured but still alive when they were buried. The two older women — one was an aunt of Fauzia while the other was the mother of one of the girls — were later buried along with the three girls when they resisted. After completing the burial, they fired several shots in the air. When The News contacted Sadiq Umrani, a provincial minister, he confirmed the incident, saying only three women were killed by unknown persons. He denied his or brother's involvement. He went on to say that the police would not disclose any information on the case as it would implicate them. There are reports that the alleged perpetrator, Abdul Sattar Umrani, was also involved in murder of three other persons, including one young woman, in January 2006. A school teacher, Mohammad Aslam, was going with his would-be wife in a taxi to a civil court to marry. They were intercepted at Manjo Shori, Tumboo, Naseerabad. The accused reportedly killed the two along with the taxi driver, Jabal Aidee. The police did not institute a murder case until the intervention of Iftikhar Chaudhry, the deposed chief justice, and also that of the deputy speaker of the Senate. But only one person was arrested and the accused Abdul Sattar Umrani remained at large. *************************** From The International Herald TribunePakistani lawmaker defends honor killings Associated Press August 30, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament this week to spare him their outrage. "These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, said Saturday. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch. They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according media reports and human rights activists, who said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing. Zehri told a packed and flabbergasted Parliament on Friday that Baluch tribal traditions helped stop obscenity and then asked fellow lawmakers not to make a big fuss about it. Many stood up in protest, saying the executions were "barbaric" and demanding that discussions continue Monday. But a handful said it was an internal matter of the deeply conservative province. "I was shocked," said lawmaker Nilofar Bakhtiar, who pushed for legislation calling for perpetrators of so-called honor killings to be punished when she served as minister of women's affairs under the last government. "I feel that we've gone back to the starting point again," she said. "It's really sad for me." The incident allegedly occurred one month ago in Baba Kot, a remote village in Jafferabad district, after the women decided to defy tribal elders and arrange marriages in a civil court, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission. They were said to have been abducted at gunpoint by six men, forced into a vehicle and taken to a remote field, where they were beaten, shot and then buried alive, it said, accusing local authorities of trying to hush up the killings. One of perpetrators was allegedly related to a top provincial official, it said. Accounts about the killings have varied, largely because police in the tribal region have been uncooperative. Activists and lawmakers said a more thorough investigation needed to be carried out. The Asian Human Rights Commission, however, said the two older women may have been related to some of the teenage girls and were apparently murdered because they were sympathetic to their wishes. ___ Associated Press reporter Munir Ahmad contributed to this report.