Honor killing: Muslim woman buried alive by her family, ‘Please brother, don’t kill me:’

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The numbers of honor killings are rising despite “increased awareness of the crime.” And why not? Honor killing and violence is in accordance with Islamic mores and tradition. Increased awareness would result in an increase in honor violence.

A recent survey showed that 91 percent of honor killings worldwide are committed by Muslims, and 84 percent of honor killings in the United States were done by Muslims. This is no surprise. A manual of Islamic law approved by Al-Azhar, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, stipulates that “retaliation is obligatory…against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” In other words, Islamic law sets no penalty for a parent who kills his child. Also, the legal codes of Jordan, Syria, and other Muslim countries have substantially reduced penalties for honor murders as compared to other murders, and Islamic clerics have resisted efforts to stiffen penalties for honor killings.

‘Please brother, don’t kill me:’ Iraqi woman buried alive by her family

Fazel Hawramy, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 3 July 2017

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One wintry night, a brown pick-up truck drove through the Kurdish highlands in northern Iraq with four men and a woman inside.

The oldest man in charge held a pistol to the woman’s right thigh, ordering her to be quiet as they approached a checkpoint.

After an hour of driving, the men arrived at a spring in the mountains where they beat the woman with sticks and forced her to walk for about a mile before stopping in an orchard.

“Please brother, don’t kill me, for the sake of Allah,” the woman — who asked to be identified as Lava to protect her identity — said she pleaded with her older brother Jamal on that night about two years ago.

But her pleas were ignored and she was forced to the ground, with her hands tied behind her back and her legs bound, while two of her other brothers dug a grave.

Lava knew well of the countless stories in the Kurdish press of women whose charred bodies are found in remote areas, suspected victims of so-called “honor” killings when women are strangled, stabbed or set on fire by their relatives and the authorities then notified of a suicide.

Once only common in rural areas, women’s rights campaigners are concerned the practice of murdering women for what some see as “immoral acts” has also become commonplace, and accepted, in Iraq’s cities and towns but the exact numbers are unknown.

Anecdotally it seems the numbers are rising despite increased awareness of the crime, educational policies and an expanded school system with campaigners calling for more action by the authorities to stop these murders.

“According to the official data from the government this year there were 24 cases of honor killing cases until the end of May,” said Khanim Rahim, director of the women’s rights group Asuda for Combating Violence against Women in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“But you need to bear in mind that there are cases that are not registered or reported to the authorities.”

In February 2015, figures reported from the Kurdistan Health Ministry showed in the last five years over 3,000 women had been killed as a result of domestic violence in the Kurdistan region. Campaigners say the real number is likely to be higher.
Crime and punishment

Lava, whose “crime” was to be seen in the car of a young man after leaving her job at a hotel in Dohuk in February 2015, said two of her three brothers and a cousin threw her into the newly-dug grave and covered her with soil so only her head stuck out.

“You dishonored us. This is your punishment in this world and you should expect worse in the other world,” she said her brother yelled before the men disappeared into the darkness.

The Iraq National Youth Survey in 2009 found 68 percent of young men accept the killing of a women for shaming a family.
Lava tried unsuccessfully to remove some soil off her chest to relieve the pressure on her lungs but believes she then must have fallen unconscious.

She was lucky, however, a rare case of a woman surviving such a murder bid.

Her brother-in-law, a respected lawyer, had heard her brothers plotting to kill her and managed to convince her father to reveal the location of her grave.

“It was evening of the following day when I saw my older sister coming toward the grave accompanied by her husband and my three brothers,” Lava told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a cafe in an undisclosed location in the Kurdish region.

“I never thought I would come out of that grave alive.”

Campaigners say Iraqi law is letting women down by not cracking down on those responsible for killing female relatives.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has taken some measures to protect women who fear for their lives by opening several protection centers and in 2009 launched the High Council of Women’s Affairs to promote and protect women’s rights.

In 2012, the KRG launched a five-year plan to combat violence against women which it described as an “urgent priority” to remove “violence against women and providing a quiet and a happy life for them in Kurdistan and preserving the stability of the community.”
Calls for legal changes

But in Iraq and Jordan, “honor” killings fall in a separate legal category with murderers getting lighter sentencing, although both countries are in the process of reforming the penal code that deals with violence against women.

The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner called on the Iraqi government in December 2015 to swiftly amend its Criminal Code that permit “honor” as a lawful defense in ciders against women and family members.

For while the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has repealed sections of the Criminal Code that permit reasons of honor as mitigation for crimes of violence committed against family members, these provisions remain in force in the Iraqi Criminal Code.

The US State Department said in a 2016 report on human rights practices that “honor” killings remain a serious problem throughout Iraq and this provision limited a sentence for murder to a maximum of three years in prison for such crimes.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq documented several cases of honor killings.

These included the murder in Basra of a 15-year-old girl who was decapitated, her head wrapped in a hijab, and thrown into a garbage can, and the case of a man never jailed after stabbing his 20-year-old daughter to death for dating a fellow university student.

Parwa Ali, a woman parliamentarian in Kurdistan who has dealt with a number of “honor” related cases, said the government has not done enough to stop these crimes.

“Unfortunately violence against women is deteriorating and most honor related cases are resolved through tribal agreement … and not at courts,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Sulaymaniyah.

Ali said the problem was complex due to the tribal nature of political parties and their interference in the judicial process to satisfy the tribal electorate as well as a patriarchal and tribal code of behavior for women.

She also criticized the special amnesties issued by the KRG presidency which often allow such killers to go free.

“We have not seen a killer of a woman serve his full sentence because they often get out under various pretexts,” said Ali who was voted into parliament in 2013.

Rezan Sheikh Dler, a member of the Iraq parliament’s Women and Children Affairs Committee, said Article 409 still applies in Iraqi penal code and men who kill their wives for “honor” are often sentenced to one year in prison.

“As women parliamentarians in the Iraqi parliament we are trying to amend this article but it is not easy and it’ll take time,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“In Jordan they have similar provisions.”

Pakistan’s parliament last year passed legislation against “honor killings,” removing a loophole in existing law that allowed killers to walk free after being pardoned by family members, after the murder of an outspoken social media star. Her brother was arrested after her death.

Although Lava was one of the lucky ones to survive her attempted murder, she does not feel safe.

She was not allowed to leave the family house for 18 months after the night she was rescued but in September 2016, one of her brothers asked her to go and work in a hotel.

She saw her chance and planned an escape, fleeing earlier this year.

Her future is uncertain but she is convinced that she will be killed by her brothers if she does not escape Kurdistan.

“I know they will kill me one day but let me breathe freely while I am still alive,” she said.

The Truth Must be Told

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Joel Bama Teague
Joel Bama Teague
6 years ago

What a barbaric ideology

SRN99
SRN99
6 years ago

Mohammad was a filthy pedophile and rapist

Scooby Doo
Scooby Doo
6 years ago

And to think they tell us to take this religion seriously!

Suresh
Suresh
6 years ago
Reply to  Scooby Doo

Left/liberal Loons want to bring in more of these savages and then act surprised at the increase in jihadi attacks, rapes, assaults.

Don’t be surprised when the Left/Liberals start honoring ISIS, hamas jihadis just the way Islamonazis in America are demanding Americans do http://bit.ly/2qvcHov

MSM will not talk about it ……nor will they be deported for insulting US military & supporting jihadis.

Deborahrsampson
Deborahrsampson
6 years ago
Reply to  Suresh

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SRN99
SRN99
6 years ago
Reply to  Scooby Doo

History has already shown that Islam was a failed religion.

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
6 years ago
Reply to  Scooby Doo

Quite the contrary, Scooby. Any ideological movement bent on murder needs to be taken seriously. Oddly, the left, does not take the teachings of Islam or the actions of all-too-many of its adherents seriously.

KitteeK
KitteeK
6 years ago
Reply to  Scooby Doo

But actually only the left don’t take them seriously, only we patriots do, as Pamela does and why she goes out of her way to help muslim females in danger.
We take them seriously enough to know they are the enemy, unlike the left!

Meoldfart Fartme
Meoldfart Fartme
6 years ago
Reply to  Scooby Doo

we do! – islamcomicbook.com – believe it or else –

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

This is islam as practiced today by muslims. This is the future of America under a democrat caliph. This is what linda sarsour and her mindless brood sows want for America’s women, lovely future is it not?

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

muslims do not understand anything, they only have subhuman instincts, which appeal to european women, as they have been exposed to the socialist clone of what a man, deprived of masculinity, should be. In essence, muslims are subhuman western europeans are stupid.

SRN99
SRN99
6 years ago

Muslims are pathetic hypocrites! Their men can have multiple wives, keep sex slaves and be rewarded with virgins in heaven. Is their Allah stupid?

Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
6 years ago
Reply to  SRN99

the moon god? the one who is impotent, not omnipotent, needs pesky sub-humans to do his dirty work?

SRN99
SRN99
6 years ago
Reply to  SRN99

Islam makes followers stupid.

tn_tea _ partyer_420
tn_tea _ partyer_420
6 years ago

I wonder if Nancy Pelosi’s hubby is Muslim?

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
6 years ago

Yes, yes, the murder of women thoroughout the Moslem world is unfortunate. But everybody knows the real human rights violation in the Middle East is among Palestinians, a people who never were, in Palestine, a country that never was.

AlgorithmicAnalystD
AlgorithmicAnalyst
6 years ago

That was a good billboard on the taxi roof. Did the left manage to ban it? Should be used again if possible.

Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
6 years ago

are there any men in islam?

JWM
JWM
6 years ago
Reply to  Halal Bacon

There are only savages.

wilypagan
wilypagan
6 years ago

Perhaps Lava should take the initiative and kill them first, in a most gruesome manner. Being killed and mutilated by a woman family member would send shivers down the jellyfish “spines” of these filthy followers of the pedophile. In fact, all of those Kurdish women soldiers should start a women’s self defense militia, wear Zorro masks and hunt down all honor killers let out of prison. A few hundred such killings and the “tribal councils” would have something to talk about.

IzlamIsTyranny
IzlamIsTyranny
6 years ago
Reply to  wilypagan

This is probably exactly the reason Iraq and Afghanistain ceased allowing female police officers — muslum man masters can’t afford to have their female livestock armed and trained.

wilypagan
wilypagan
6 years ago
Reply to  IzlamIsTyranny

They certainly made a big deal about female generals leading the Kurdish assault on ISIS in Iraq. I wonder how much of that is hype. The best disposition of Muslim males would be at the hands of the women they have oppressed for so long. That would be a real karmic balancing. Hope I live to see it. So sick of those bearded thugs.

Stefanie Daniella
Stefanie Daniella
6 years ago

honor? no, true honor was never at stake in such killings

but rather:
murder-killings to cover evidence (by killing the witness-victim) of criminal negligence of care by those having parenthood or guardianship duties

SHAMELESS murderous coverups of SHAMEFUL negligence … is the only appropriate term

IzlamIsTyranny
IzlamIsTyranny
6 years ago

Bu, buh, but Kurdish muslums are the good guys?

marlene
marlene
6 years ago

Honor killings are female genocide, nothing else.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago

And feminists kiss the ass of sarsour but will condemn western men at the drop of a hat for domestic violence as the iraqi agency refers to honor killing.

Bruce Atchison
Bruce Atchison
6 years ago

I sure miss Stephen Harper. When he was prime minister of Canada, he opposed this barbaric practice. Now we have a stupid boy in the PMO who is all in love with Islam. And who voted him in? The millennials who were thoroughly brainwashed by leftist lunatics voted for Trudeau because he looks young. Anybody who votes for politicians on looks alone is a fool.

All this to say that so-called honour killings are overlooked by twenty-something idiots. They lack the life experiences of older voters who were fooled in the past by Justin’s daddy when he was prime minister. These murders, no matter where they happen, should be rigorously opposed and condemned.

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