|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
|
 Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:24 am Post subject: Muslim father murders daughters in "honor killing" |
 |
|
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,437502,00.html
Sick, backwards interpretation of a "peaceful" religion by a majority of the people who follow it (Middle East, anyway).
| Quote: |
Almost a year after two teenage girls were found dead � allegedly executed by their father � in the back seat of a taxicab in Texas, the FBI is saying for the first time that the case may have been an "honor killing."
Sarah Said, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were killed on New Year's Day, but for nine months authorities deflected questions about whether their father � the prime suspect and the subject of a nationwide manhunt � may have targeted them because of a perceived slight upon his honor.
� Click here for photos.
The girls' great-aunt, Gail Gartrell, says the girls' father killed them both because he felt they disgraced the family by dating non-Muslims and acting too Western, and she called the girls' murders an honor killing from the start.
But the FBI held off on calling it an honor killing until just recently, when it made Yaser Abdel Said the "featured fugitive" on its Web site.
"That's what I've been trying to tell everybody all along," Gartrell told FOXNews.com. "I would say that's a victory."
But some Muslims say that calling the case an honor killing goes too far.
"As far as we're concerned, until the motive is proven in a court of law, this is [just] a homicide," Mustafaa Carroll, the executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Dallas, told FOXNews.com.
He said he worries that terms like "honor killing" may stigmatize the Islamic community. �We (Muslims) don�t have the market on jealous husbands ... or domestic violence,� Carroll said.
The United Nations estimates that 5,000 women are killed worldwide every year in honor killings � mostly in the Middle East, where many countries still have laws that protect men who murder female relatives they believe have engaged in inappropriate activity. A U.N. report includes chilling examples of such cases.
�On the order of clerics, an 18-year-old woman was flogged to death in Batsail, Bangladesh, for "immoral behavior,� the report reads. �In Egypt, a father paraded his daughter's severed head through the streets shouting, �I avenged my honor.��
But Islamic scripture in no way condones such actions, Carroll said.
"People have their own cultural nuances and norms from before they got their religion," he said. "This is not Islamic culture."
Regardless of whether religion itself is to blame, Gartrell said it is important that society recognizes the case as having a cultural element, just to prevent similar crimes in the future.
"That culture is so different," Gartrell said. "If people had been more educated about it, they would have known that when the girls told people, 'Dad wants to kill me' � they were serious."
Many of the threats against Sarah and Amina Said were known to their friends and classmates.
High school friends told the Dallas Morning News that the girls sometimes came in with welts and bruises, which they confided were inflicted by their father. One time, Yaser Said reportedly went into one daughter's bedroom waving a gun and making threats on her life.
After he threatened to kill one daughter in December 2007 � documented in text messages Sarah Said sent to a friend � the girls and their mother, Patricia, fled from their home in Lewisville, Texas, to Tulsa, Okla. But the mother soon had a change of heart and went back, leading to the tragedy on January 1. Some, including Gartrell, believe the mother may even have been complicit in the murders.
Dr. Phyllis Chasler, author of several books, including "The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom," said that the case fits the description of an honor killing.
"The premeditation, the family collaboration, and the particular rules (set for the girls) make this consistent with an honor killing � not just domestic violence,� she said.
She said she hoped that calling the case an "honor killing" might indicate a shift in attitude at the FBI.
"I think this may suggest that law enforcement is beginning to realize that they may have to treat these incidents differently if they are to either prevent or prosecute," Chasler told FOXNews.com.
She noted that the United Kingdom has a special police unit to deal with �honor-related violence,� and said that she hoped that the situation in the U.S. does not get to the point where that becomes necessary.
But an FBI spokesman played down the significance of the listing, saying that the change on the wanted listing was simply due to more information coming out about the case since it was first listed and that it shouldn't matter what the case is called.
"We're just looking at how do we find the guy?" said FBI special agent Mark White, media coordinator in the bureau's Dallas office.
Irving Police Department Public Information Officer David Tull agreed. "We just look at the facts. The man killed his two daughters. This is a domestic violence, multiple-capital murder case."
Tull said that, unfortunately, there have still been no sightings or major leads � a fact that distresses Gartrell.
"I'm very upset about it," said Gartrell, who argues that the case needs special consideration. "This is not a typical murder case. When a family member murders another family member to protect [the family] name � that's different." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
CAIR is an organization that is sounding too much of an apologist group.
Thousands of women are killed due to these so-called honor killings, and they are more worried about the reputation of Islam rather than saying that if it was an honor killing they condemn that, and it is against the religion, but they didn't quite say it that way. It is true it's against the religion to do so, and it is cultural, but it is partially because women don't have equal rights in a patriarchal religion, obviously. Of course, so many women are killed all over the world by men in India, America, and the Middle East. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
yingwenlaoshi
Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Location: ... location, location!
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
But it's their culture and you have to accept it. Many women are killed by their husbands in the U.S. and Korea. Canada, too.
Are we going to change it? What are you doing about it? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kimbop
Joined: 31 Mar 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
First, *yawn*. Another 'honor-killing muslims are evil' thread. Which is true, but we've already seen many threads on this topic.
| yingwenlaoshi wrote: |
| But it's their culture and you have to accept it. |
No we don't. It is evil, and we have to defeat it. Write your MP or congressman. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| In patriarchal societies the father has the right of life and death over his offspring, male and female. This practice has a long history in Europe as well. He probably gave his daughters plenty of warnings about their behaviour. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| yingwenlaoshi wrote: |
But it's their culture and you have to accept it. Many women are killed by their husbands in the U.S. and Korea. Canada, too.
Are we going to change it? What are you doing about it? |
The problem is that these murders are accepted.
Murders are done by a lot of people, but they are never acceptable. Accepting that blatant murder is just, opens the road for more murders to go unpunished.
Acceptance is the problem. At least in the West the husbands often kill themselves afterwards, because they know they will get punished.
No one is so naive as to think they can stop these murders. What can be prevented is that these things become acceptable, under any moral standard. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Koveras wrote: |
| In patriarchal societies the father has the right of life and death over his offspring, male and female. This practice has a long history in Europe as well. He probably gave his daughters plenty of warnings about their behaviour. |
Luckily a lot of us have evolved beyond that point. It is not because in the past such things did happen, that these things should be tolerated today.
Humanity is growing a conscious far above the individual one. It is this human consciousness that cannot allow for such blatant murders to happen.
It was okay in the middle ages to get rid of disabled people, if today parents do that, society will not accept this. Ergo Sum.
Giving warnings on their behaviour and then committing a murder are just not the same. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Sweet mother of. I think Mr. Carroll got lambasted in the quoting bit and was made out to sound a little too dismissive. I suspect this is a bit more of a cultural �nuance� than a religious trend: otherwise there would be no Islam to speak of today. However, as I was saying, sweet mother of. What do you do when you read this stuff? Thanks bassexpander, as miserable as it is, it is good to be informed. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
yingwenlaoshi
Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Location: ... location, location!
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Kimbop wrote: |
First, *yawn*. Another 'honor-killing muslims are evil' thread. Which is true, but we've already seen many threads on this topic.
| yingwenlaoshi wrote: |
| But it's their culture and you have to accept it. |
No we don't. It is evil, and we have to defeat it. Write your MP or congressman. |
I was trying, ironically yet failingly, to be an apologist. I don't condone such actions, but I'm not doing anything to stop them.
Why would I write my MP? You know, I'll have to admit that I don't care enough to write anyone about it. I'm just an ignant member of society. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jkamphof
Joined: 12 Apr 2008
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Most westerners in our fear to become racist are rather overly accepting and declare cultural relativism way before we assess things properly. Read the book by Dutch Somalian politician and advocate for womens rights; Ayaan Hirsi Ali called "Infidel: My Life"
You'll get a good insight to what this "peaceful" religion is truly like. Sure our western history and present history is full of nastiness too but this should not be an argument for acceptance of such brutal traditions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Moonshield
Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Location: The Pimp is back
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| I've said this before.....someone should drop a nuclear bomb on that part of the world and just turn it into the world's biggest golf course. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
browneyedgirl
Joined: 17 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
Speaking of honor killings...
The BBC erased all its honor killing stories from the UK from its main page search function--that's about 70 stories. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Moonshield wrote: |
| I've said this before.....someone should drop a nuclear bomb on that part of the world and just turn it into the world's biggest golf course. |
That would be like a massive honor killing by the U.S. in the name of a few hundred horrible honor killings occuring down there. So your solution is to kill all the women down there. Good plan! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
NilesQ
Joined: 27 Nov 2006
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
From the law enforcement end, it doesn't matter if these are called honor killings or not. This is two counts of homocide and will be charged as such. There is no such crime as an "honor killing". That designation is for other agencies, namely those in the social service and education fields, to be concerned with.
The police are a reactionary body. As much as people want to talk about "proactive policing", there isn't much the police can do unless a woman comes to them and says she fears for her safety. Even then, there isn't much they can do. Women in these groups need to be assured that they will be helped and protected by the government if they do come forward, and educated about the rights they have under their constitution.
This situation looks like the old story of a family that comes to the west. Their kids grow up as westerners, educated in a western system with the values of a western society. That is not what the parents usually have in mind when they immigrate.
This is a horrible crime. We need to keep in mind that it is a crime comitted by an individual and not indict a whole religion and the cultures that follow it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jkamphof
Joined: 12 Apr 2008
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| NilesQ wrote: |
This is a horrible crime. We need to keep in mind that it is a crime comitted by an individual and not indict a whole religion and the cultures that follow it. |
While I agree is seems unfair to indict a whole religion or culture over what statistically is a minor occurance it is more fair when realizes just how common it truly is and how blind and blase we are in the west for countering it. Honor killings are not rare in the west, but just like many suicides (usually by train) they are not recorded by the media nor given a seperate statistic.
It can be more unfair to say Islam is directly the cause of this when a lot of muslim cultures still practice old traditions (such as female excising; the cutting of partial or the whole outer vagina which is not Ilsamic but nearly all western-Ilsamic countries - mostly Africa still do this in the name of Allah) but the Quran has some pretty ruthless passages about the infidel, the jews, integration with the infidel, obedience, submission, and male stature (at this point many debaters throw in the Bible, the Bible has this too, the Bible is followed by a lot debatable characters and cultures etc. So to premeditate this being thrown out there, this never justifies anything, it's just throwing in a second disscussion and confusing the issue).
Our life is for the here and now and is always for the moment, but a for a muslim this life is a test, the afterlife is what you must seek, and when you fail that test, a punishment must follow. Family shame is terrible and usually blasphemy is always used to support it, so death must follow.
In Holland and now most of western Europe where the reality of non-integrating muslims is felt the stongest in the west (as there is less room, more friction and a much higher amount of radicalism due to the former reasons) they have now given honor killing a seperate statistic and found there is more than a few a year commited by "individuals." Usually a whole clan will support the father or brother's action and in all cases are some of the pushers for the action of killing. We cannot understand this clan mentality. This is not pressure from a few individuals with the same name, this is pressure from all those with the same bloodlines who may live all over the world - thousands of families. The clan name is sacred and can have histories that put our name's historty to shame. These killings are done in the name of this honor, and this honor worth preserving is right their in the Quran (Koran).
You have to understand that Islam was born from a very hard and durable people, it is still a true desert religion that demands submission above all else to their God and in the family to the father's or the male code of honor. Saudi Arabia which follows mostly Wahhabism - ultra-conservative, and very fanatical - is one of the fastest growing variants (or in good church speak like a denomination) due to their ability to fund Imams and schools globally.
It can be seen as a threat. When a majority remain ignorant, and uneducated, when the Quran is meant to only be read in Arabic and completely literally - actually many muslims believe it is blasphemy to translate the book into other languages (sortal ike the medival times when Christians followed the church when the Bible was Latin only and the church said all sorts of things).
So it is a battle against a culture and a religion that has no intention of bowing to our constitutions, freedoms or rules, and while the former first generation immigrants were fine, it's the new generations who are being edcucation in muslim schools out west, who take the Quran so literally, who will die for their lot in paradise. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
