Robert Fisk has a brutal two part piece on the phenomenon — growing worldwide according to his investigation — of honor killing in the UK Independent. Part one lays out the problem and details many of the crimes and the justice (not least of which is protection) that is denied.
But the contagion of “honour” crimes has spread across the globe, including acid attacks on women in Bangladesh for refusing marriages. In one of the most terrible Hindu “honour” killings in India this year, an engaged couple, Yogesh Kumar and Asha Saini, were murdered by the 19-year-old bride-to-be’s family because her fiancée was of lower caste. They were apparently tied up and electrocuted to death.
A similar fate awaited 18-year-old Vishal Sharma, a Hindu Brahmin, who wanted to marry Sonu Singh, a 17- year-old Jat – an “inferior” caste which is usually Muslim. The couple were hanged and their bodies burned in Uttar Pradesh. Three years earlier, a New Delhi court had sentenced to death five men for killing another couple who were of the same sub-caste, which in the eyes of the local “caste council” made them brother and sister.
In Chechnya, Russia’s chosen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been positively encouraging men to kill for “honour”. When seven murdered women were found in Grozny, shot in the head and chest, Kadyrov announced – without any proof, but with obvious approval – that they had been killed for living “an immoral life”. Commenting on a report that a Chechen girl had called the police to complain of her abusive father, he suggested the man should be able to murder his daughter. “… if he doesn’t kill her, what kind of man is he? He brings shame on himself!”
And so to the “West”, as we like to call it, where immigrant families have sometimes brought amid their baggage the cruel traditions of their home villages: an Azeri immigrant charged in St Petersburg for hiring hitmen to kill his daughter because she “flouted national tradition” by wearing a miniskirt; near the Belgian city of Charleroi, Sadia Sheikh shot dead by her brother, Moussafa, because she refused to marry a Pakistani man chosen by her family; in the suburbs of Toronto, Kamikar Kaur Dhillon slashes his Punjabi daughter-in-law, Amandeep, across the throat because she wants to leave her arranged marriage, perhaps for another man. He told Canadian police that her separation would “disgrace the family name”.
And, of course, we should perhaps end this catalogue of crime in Britain, where only in the past few years have we ourselves woken to the reality of “honour” crimes; of Surjit Athwal, a Punjabi Sikh woman murdered on the orders of her London-based mother-in-law for trying to escape a violent marriage; of 15-year-old Tulay Goren, a Turkish Kurd from north London, tortured and murdered by her Shia Muslim father because she wished to marry a Sunni Muslim man; of Heshu Yones, 16, stabbed to death by her father in 2005 for going out with a Christian boy; of Caneze Riaz, burned alive by her husband in Accrington, along with their four children – the youngest 10 years old – because of their “Western ways”. Mohamed Riaz was a Muslim Pakistani from the North-West Frontier Province. He died of burns two days after the murders.
Scotland Yard long ago admitted it would have to review over a hundred deaths, some going back more than a decade, which now appear to have been “honour” killings.
Part two highlights how and why authorities often cover up such crimes. Go HERE.
In Ms Jilani’s office in Lahore, where fans whirl against the heat in small rooms crammed with legal files, faded documents and trilling telephones, an armed guard sits at the door. “The eight women from our shelter who were murdered – this has become a big scandal,” Ms Jilani says, her voice rising as her anger rekindles itself. “There is a law in this country – it’s always the family that conspires to kill, so if the father or brother kills, the family forgives him and there’s no charge. The law says there can be a ‘compromise’ at any stage without any evidence coming into court. The trial simply stops if there is a compromise. The court has to give its permission for a compromise – but it always gives permission. This means an automatic acquittal. This means that there is no stain on the murderers.”
Ms Jilani went to the police after Shagofta was killed by her brother on the Lahore bus. “We asked them what they were doing. They said the family had forgiven the brother. ‘We have no power now to investigate,’ they said. I sent this to the Commission on the Status of Women – and they took this case up with the Inspector General of Punjab. So far, there has been no response. I sent letters to the IG myself. Then he said that the ‘investigation’ was still going on. But there was no ‘evidence’ – of course not, because the girl was killed, as they say, ‘in the heart of the family’.”
Ms Jilani sighs, often. Sitting in the chair opposite her desk at the end of her office, listening to her furious indignation, I get the impression – indeed, I have the absolute conviction – that she faces a set of Islamist laws going back to the time of another dictator, Zia al-Haq, that are constantly undermining her lawyer’s soul.
“There was a girl here and she wanted to marry against her parents’ wishes. So her brother killed her husband-to-be. He went to jail after being sentenced to 14 years. He wanted to go after the girl, his sister. She sought shelter here with us. Her family blame her because her brother is in jail.
“To this day, we don’t know what to do with the girl. She is now doing secretarial work here in our office. She has enough economic independence. But her fiancé’s family have no sympathy with her because their son is dead. And her protection is the duty of the state – not mine. She’s been here in the office for two years now. Our office guard brings her here and back to the shelter every day.”
One of the most savage of all the “honour” murders was committed in the very office in which we are sitting. A decade ago, it brought world publicity and caused international outrage – which had not the slightest effect. The killing of Samia Sarwar still haunts Ms Jalani. “She was shot where you are sitting,” she said. “I saw the holes in her head. Her brains were on the wall behind you.”
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Its spread in the West is of little doubt; it’s the natural consequence of the rejection of assimilation and the exalted status of multiculturalism. When a custom clearly crosses a cultural boundary but we are supposed to just tolerate because said culture is ‘oppressed’, it was only a matter of time before it started crossing laws as well. With no fear of prosecution, how is this behavior to be stopped?
And the Professional Left (thanks Gibbs! As someone else stated, probably the first thing he ever said that resembled critical analysis) have exasperated this problem by making careers out of drawing lines across what is and is not acceptable culturally to the general public without reason or cause.
Well said, Mighty Skip!
Indeed.
At some point, we as a civilization have to decide what is more important: multiculturalism or human rights. For me, it’s a no-brainer. What say you, lefties?
Well said Skip.
The problem is the fact that if we, as Kafir or non hindus (Whatever they call those of us who are not nor ever would be hindu) point out that killing a girl because she thinks the guy you chose for her is gross, or because she is wearing lip stick or listening to Lady Gaga and wearing short skirts is not acceptable, we are ridiculed for being racist, or ethno centric. Damned right I am ethno centric. My ancestors at least those who came here to the USA never would have considered murdering a daughter, sister, niece or cousin because of some flawed cave man sense of honor. These people are BARBARIANS! I am sick of being told I have to be tolerant? Thomas Mann said, “tolerance becomes a crime, when applied to evil.” I will not tolerate a political system that allows for murder, and maiming.
This kind of stuff wholly disgusts me. If I recall correctly, there have been a few in the U.S. also (in New York City and Detroit, I think – fathers killing westernized daughters). How liberals and/or feminists can turn a blind eye to these things, as well as the general treatment of women (and children)overall in Islam is completely ridiculous and shows the true level of their cowardice.
Ditto, Tink. It’s especially appalling that the Western media does its best to cover this up when reporting on honor killings, similar to the omission of a violent crminal’s religion when it happens to be you-know-what.
If only some of our brave feminist leaders & politicians made this their crusade instead of bean counting women vs. men in sports, fighting childhood obesity, or performing detailed analysis whether or not conservative/Republican women can really call themselves feminists. I would support any Hollywood star brave enough take on this cause.
This was sent to me by a close friend. This person has received death threats because of the stand taken on Islam. As for the total truth of the writing, I can only assume I was not lied to by a friend. A bit off topic, but generally Islam.
Things Aren’t Always What They Seem…
I am a student finishing up my degree in forensic science. I am also a chapter leader for ACT! for America. In my search for a four year school in my area to finish my bachelor’s degree in science, I happened upon a lecture presented at a school I was looking to go to. A guy name Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation would be speaking September 7th.
I read the story that the University of Puget Sound had on their website about this guy. He is a member of the President’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. OK, impressive. He also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations… uh… hmmm…and he is on the board of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation USA… oh boy… He has started the “Interfaith Youth Core”, a Chicago based institution building the global interfaith youth movement. Now I am interested. There are certain words that are red flags to me: Interfaith, Global, Council on Foreign Relations, Chicago (when it involves Muslims since that is where the Muslim Brotherhood is headquartered).
Ok – so I decide to go to this, hoping that this guy was legit and really wanted to work to reform Islam to be a civil, fully integrated religion in our society like many others are. My studies, life experiences and involvement with ACT! for America were telling me otherwise but I decided to go and listen with an open mind.
Ya know, we have instincts for a reason… Patel opened his speech with an outright misleading statement. He started his speech with, “A Muslim cabbie was stabbed for being a Muslim. A future mosque site in Tennessee was recently firebombed…” He used some other so called “hate crime” against Muslims but after his first sentence, I already knew where this guy was going. Oh never mind the fact that the guy who stabbed the cabbie worked for the Cordoba Initiative and volunteered for an Interfaith charity. That would not fit his narrative. Nowhere did he talk about the fact that hate crimes against Jews are about 65% as compared with 7.7% for Muslims according to the FBI’s latest Hate Crime Statistics. But holy smokes, they way this guy opened his speech made it sound as if mobs of villagers were tracking down poor innocent Muslims and burning down their whole community (hmmm… but that does remind me of another group of people I have heard of doing that around the world).
So Patel opened his memorized speech implying that the majority of Americans were ignorant bigots and later implied that the “oh so enlightened” group of bright eyed and bushy tailed college students who were there (mainly coerced by faculty who gave extra credit or assignments as confirmed by several students I asked) were going to save the world from their ignorance.
He went on to talk about pluralism. I happened to know that pluralism is usually not encouraged in Islam. He claimed to want mosques “from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters” to encourage this acceptance of “all” religions. He compared anyone who did not agree with interfaith ideas to racist, intolerant and bigoted KKK members and Nazis. At this point I couldn’t decide if I wanted to get up and scream or throw up. He went on to say that our enemy is not all Muslims or Islam… our enemy is not his 11 month old son or his 5 year old son… Wow – this guy is good… I mean what kind of mean person would consider a child your enemy right? He has the crowd right where he wants them. They are eating out of the palm of his hand. I’m not buying his garbage. He said that our enemy was extremism. The way he presented it sounded like he was denouncing terrorists as we define terrorism but I know that how WE define something can be very different than how they define something. I thought he was referring to the extremists that were supposedly targeting the Ummah(Muslim community). I know that many Muslims do not consider Hamas or Hezbollah to be terrorist groups and consider Israel to be the terrorists. So without an agreed upon definition, we could not be sure that he was actually denouncing extremists that stone, hang, behead, burn down churches, villages, people etc or denouncing us, who do not want Sharia in our country or want to convert to Islam.
He went on to say we do not live in a Christian versus Muslim world and could not for the life of him understand why we would oppose the “community center” at Ground Zero. WHAT??? He said that when the towers came down, there were “whispers” that it was the Muslims, terrorists, it was Islam. (Well, yeah, because it WAS) He then likened this to what happened in World War II when the American government rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in internment camps. He stated that those people who brought down the towers stepped out of Islam. I have heard this argument before and I also know that if enough Muslims perform jihad, the whole Ummah gets credit for it. This allows plausible deniability for the rest of the Muslims who do not physically support jihad but might, with their Zakat (tithe), support it financially or morally. This allows those who do not strap bombs to their bodies to promote creeping Shariah (Islamic) law.
He also said that if there were an extremist with only one bullet in his gun and he had Patel and one of us against the wall, the extremist would shoot him first. Maybe because he said he had zero desire to see Shariah law implemented in the United States? Yes, he did say that.
He again, misleadingly, told the group of sponges, who were looking at him adoringly as a beacon of tolerance and light that Muslims have been in America for 400 years. He also stated that Keith Ellison, the 1st Muslim Congressman, used Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Qur’an. REALLY??? TJ had a Qu’ran? Wow… I guess Islam is ok!!! He failed to mention that TJ had a Qur’an to try to figure out a way to BEAT the Muslims in the Barbary Wars… Oh, yeah, well that doesn’t fit the agenda either so we’ll skip that.
Then the fun really began – Christian bashing… the new American past time. He stated that there were churches that would hold up the Bible from the pulpit and scream that we have to hate Muslims and take the “sword of Christ” to them. REALLY?? Wow! What churches are you going to Eboo? I have never ever heard anything like that and I have been in church since I was a baby. He said that preachers were preaching that we Christians should hate children. Holy Smokes!!! He must be thinking of the Hillsboro Baptist church that protests at soldier’s funerals because sincerely, I have never heard this kind of talk from any pulpit – and I come from a family of preachers. What I have heard, Eboo, is “love your enemy,” “pray for those who spitefully use you.” Pray for the souls of the lost. That is what I have heard from the churches I have been to. Boy, for a guy who claims to be so interfaithy – that sure sounds like the hateful rhetoric he is attributing to us.
He quoted many lovely, peaceful Suras – all from the Mecca section. He stated that “even President Bush said Islam meant “peace” and that bigotry was the antithesis of America. Then not missing an opportunity to take a swipe at Bush, he backtracked and said, “Well he probably didn’t use the word ‘antitheses.” The well indoctrinated students all laughed hysterically. He proselytized for awhile, talking about Ramadan. He later compared bad people that stone and behead to bad people who burn the Qur’an. Hmmm. Yes, I can see how two examples of murder compare to burning paper. While I don’t think that the burning of the Qur’an is going to do anything productive, I do understand people’s frustration. And while it may not be wise to do this, it is their right under the first amendment. (Hey, where have I heard that argument before?) He talked about Ramadan being a time for forgiveness and about Dr. Omar Abdullah who wrote A Place of Tolerance in Islam. Again, without agreed upon definitions, (and in all fairness, I have not read the book) we cannot know whether this “place of tolerance” is a place of Dhimmitude, living side by side with Muslims as long as we pay the Jizya tax, feel adequately subdued and live as 2nd class citizens. Is that the tolerance this book speaks of? But of course, the audience who was audibly cooing and aaaawing (really, they were) doesn’t understand that we do not have the same definitions. They listen with Western ears assuming that everyone understands as they do. BIG mistake!
He closed with a couple of things that I did agree with. Hate begets hate. Yes, it does. That is why I believe that in fighting this threat without hate, without burning Qur’ans or harassing Muslims. We must fight this fight in politics, policies, in the courtroom, in the media, and in the classrooms. We must remember that even though this group of people is capable of doing some of the most brutal and vile things, they are human beings and the only thing that changes people, really, is love. This is not to say we cannot stand up for ourselves and defend our society but we have to balance strength with common sense. The other thing he said was that “what we do is watched all over the world.” Indeed. He got a standing ovation from everyone but me and my group.
The question and answer time proved equally interesting. One older Japanese person asked if we should just get rid of all religions and have one global religion… WOW… CREEPY! And I don’t think so buddy.
Another well indoctrinated kiddy asked if American “Imperialism” would hurt the cause of pluralism… wow, who is teaching at UPS? Marx? Lenin? Stalin? I normally don’t hear those terms unless someone involved with Communism or Marxism.
A Muslim woman got up and began her diatribe bashing Christians saying the Jews pray and bow, the Muslims pray Allah Akbar but what do the Christians do? She went on to say that she couldn’t do drugs so she couldn’t be a Christian – HUH??? WHAT??? So, as you can see, this interfaith event was anything but.
One person asked how he could reconcile the violence in the name of Islam. He said that we must replace bad theology with good theology. Oh… now I understand why the extremist would shoot Patel first. He must be an apostate, a heretic. He talked about the two theologians he trusts who interpret the violence in the Qur’an. Imam al Fathum and Imam Feisal Rauf… Wait a minute – did I hear that right? RAUF??? The ground zero mosque guy? The one who thinks that America should be under Shariah law? He said that there was historical abrogation meaning that the violence was meant only for that time and that we all have free will and can CHOOSE what is ok in Islam. He said if you read the Qur’an with hate in your heart, you will see hate. This guy’s taqiyya(lying for the cause of Islam) is impressive! Unfortunately, the people wanted so badly to believe Patel that no one questioned his connection with Rauf. Rauf was recently was caught saying on mic (when he thought he was off mic) that the process of his Cordoba Initiative and of implementing Sharia Law was like a football game. Each down is made to gain ground until you are at the goal line. As Militant Islam Monitor.org warns, “motivated primarily by a sense of feel-goodism, Jewish and Christian groups are actually furthering the spread of Islamism because they are not exercising even a modicum of judgment before engaging in such phony interfaith exercises. At some point the Judeo-Christian community must take personal responsibility for the enabling of its mortal enemies.”
When I got home I did a little research on Ebrahim “Eboo” Patel and got confirmation of my suspicions. He is connected with Council on American and Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which are both fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood – a terrorist group out of Egypt who has since been banned from Egypt. Patel is listed on the ISNA’s website as an official speaker of their speaker’s bureau and is a member of the Islamic Society of North America. According to Brenda Elliot of World Net Daily, “ISNA through its affiliate, North American Islamic Trust – a Saudi government backed organization – reportedly holds the titles on 50-80% of the mosques in the US and Canada.” The problem with that is that Saudi Arabia is the exporter of the most extreme form of Islam – Wahibiism. The ISNA was founded by the Muslim Student Association which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood,
So my hopes of a truly moderate Muslim were once again dashed on the jagged rocks of reality. “Patel plays both sides as the kumbaya moderate who runs a da’wa (Islamic outreach) front under the guise of the Interfaith Youth Core. Interfaith is one of the most favored Islamist tactics used to sugarcoat da’wa in order to lure non Muslims with a “more in common then we think” feel good dynamic to bring them into contact with Islam. His participation in the CAIR annual event shows he is a stealth Islamist.’ (Militant Islam Monitor.org) . As one participant of Patel’s so called “Interfaith conference” put it,
“I attended the Interfaith Youth Core conference in October of 2007. This conference was lead by Eboo Patel, and I was very excited about it. That is, until the political agenda became very clear. The conference centered on the superiority of Islam. Every “interfaith” group or event carried this message. The keynote speaker was an Islamic convert, the interfaith prayer room was covered with Islamic prayer rugs, the keynote professors, one a Muslim convert, from the University of Chicago, claimed that there was no such thing or threat of “Islamofascism.” Eboo’s opening address talked about the faith line. He created this idea that there were 2 types of people, interfaith and fundamentalists. The implied message was that anyone who disagreed with Eboo and the conference agenda was a fundamentalist. The last event I attended was a panel of Jewish activists that were facilitating meetings with leaders of Hamas. To portray any of these leaders as “spiritual” guides with only a hard-line approach, is simply lies. No one questioned any of these programs because they were under this facade of “interfaith.” I found the entire event very disturbing. The next month, I received Eboo’s journal, “The Review of Faith and International Politics.” Same agenda. The topics included the weakness of Zionism, convincing Evangelicals not to support Israel, and extremism in Judaism. Patel even has blog post denouncing Ayaa Hirsi Ali as a money-grubbing capitalist! Well, at least she escaped the “infidel” charge. Quite a step up….”
Wow, now that is really showing your true colors Mr. Patel.
Yes Thomas Jeffreson had a copy of the Koran and the reason why he had one was a little issue with pirates and the Barbary coast taking money as tribute. He had problems with paying the muslim tribute called Jizya. Hence the words to the shores of Tripoli in the USMC’s song.
they aren’t barbarians…they are in thrall to a satanic cult, as were the Nazis, Pol Pot, Stalin, Castro and Mao. Barbarians just don’t have good table manners.