A daughter’s love leads to danger in Pakistan

In Pakistani culture, arranged marriages are common.  So when the parents of Samia Shahid chose a husband for her, Samia agreed to the marriage. Despite being raised in England, Samia took her Pakistani heritage very seriously and would do anything to make her family proud.

But Samia’s arranged marriage to her first cousin, Choudhry Shakeel, was far from what she expected. Samia was determined to build a better life for herself, but at what cost?

Feared no one: The life and death of Qandeel Baloch

 

Qandeel Baloch–who was dubbed the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan–was strangled to death in 2016 by her brother Muhammad Waseem. The case was considered the most high-profile "honor killing" of recent years, where women are murdered by male relatives for purportedly bringing "shame" to the reputation of a family. Baloch first received recognition from the media in 2013, when she auditioned for Pakistan Idol. Her audition became popular and she became an Internet celebrity. She was one of the top 10 most searched-for persons on the internet in Pakistan and was both celebrated and criticized for the content of her videos and posts. 

Three months after Qandeel Baloch's death, Pakistan lawmakers responded to the public outcry and passed legislation against the controversial practice–a landmark ruling welcomed by rights activists and lawyers. However, Waseem has been freed by a Pakistan appeals court, three years after he was convicted of killing her for "bringing dishonor" to the family. In her posts, Qandeel Baloch had spoken of trying to change "the typical orthodox mindset" of people in Pakistan. She faced frequent abuse and death threats but continued to post pictures and videos seen as provocative. Nearly 1,000 Pakistani women are murdered by close relatives each year, in so-called honor killings, for violating conservative norms on love and marriage.

Honour Killing: Mother burned daughter alive in honour killing

Parveen Bibi threw kerosene on her daughter and set her alight in this story of shame and honor.

Exposing Britain's Honour Killings - Nina Aouilk Tells Her Story

How can any father do that to this daughter 💔. The powerful Nina Aouilk podcast live on James English YouTube channel

 

Uncle who murdered niece and dumped body 'like rubbish' jailed for life

 

 

An uncle who murdered his 20-year-old niece before dumping her body "like rubbish" has been ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years of a life sentence behind bars.

Repair man Mohammed Taroos Khan, 53, killed Somaiya Begum in an attack at her home in Binnie Street, Bradford, on June 25 last year, Bradford Crown Court was told.

Her decomposing body was found 11 days later wrapped in a rug, tied up with string, on land used as a dumping ground on Fitzwilliam Street, Bradford.

Prosecutor Jason Pitter KC  said she was “dumped and left to rot and decompose on wasteland like rubbish, such that she was not recognisable”.


He said her body was so decomposed it was not possible to find a cause of death but there was an 11cm long metal spike embedded in her chest which had punctured her lung.


Miss Begum had been living at the property with another of her uncles and her grandmother under the terms of a forced marriage protection order, following attempts by her father, Mohammed Yaseen Khan, to force her to marry a cousin from Pakistan “by threat of violence”, a jury heard.

However, the judge refused to speculate on the motive behind the brutal killing.

Khan had denied murder but admitted a charge of perverting the course of justice by disposing of Miss Begum’s body and burning her mobile telephone.


However, he was found guilty of murdering her on Tuesday.

Sentencing Khan to life in prison on Wednesday, Mr Justice Garnham said: “It is not possible to identify a motive for this dreadful attack by you on an innocent young woman.

“It is said you did not support her forced marriage to the cousin in Pakistan.

“It is said you did not share the view of your brother, Yaseen, about the role of women or the obligation of Somaiya to obey her father.


“Moreover, it is pure speculation to consider whether this murder was part of some appalling family agreement.”

He told Bradford Crown Court: “All that matters for present purposes is that the jury have found you guilty of the heinous crime of murder.

“I decline to speculate on your motive and I reject the prosecution’s suggestion that I should treat this as any form of so-called honour killing."

The grey-haired defendant sat in the glass-fronted dock wearing a grey fleece and a black body-warmer and flanked by two security officers as the judge outlined the callousness with which he disposed of his niece’s body.

Mr Justice Garnham told him: “You showed absolutely no respect for the dead body of your niece in the way you dumped it unceremoniously, wrapped in carpet and covered in scrap material, amongst rubbish on waste ground.

“You left it there to rot in the summer heat and, when it was found, Somaiya’s face had been eaten away by maggots.

“Inevitably the loss of this bright, vibrant young woman is felt acutely by other members of her family.”

The judge described Miss Begum as “an intelligent young woman of real spirit and courage” and recalled that her uncle, Dawood Khan, had referred to her in court as the “light of his life”.

The jury heard that Miss Begum’s family had already been split in two by a previous dispute before her father’s attempts to force her to marry when she was 16.

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Honor Killing from an Islamic Perspective

 

It’s a well-known fact that Islam maintains the protection of life and does not sanction any violation against it. In the Glorious Qur’an, Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93) `Abdullah ibn Mas`ud, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The blood of a Muslim may not be legally spilt other than in one of three [instances]: the married person who commits adultery; a life for a life; and one who forsakes his religion and abandons the community.” (Reported by Al-Bukhari and Muslim).

Sh.Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states: “There is no such concept in Islam that is called “honor killing”. Islam holds every soul in high esteem and does not allow any transgression upon it. It does not allow people to take the law in their own hands and administer justice, because doing so will be leading to chaos and lawlessness. Therefore, based on this, Islam does not permit such killings. First of all, in order to sanction killing, it must be through a binding verdict issued by an authoritative law court. Individuals themselves have no authority either to judge cases or pass judgments. 

Therefore, a Muslim should not sanction such killing because doing so will be leading to the rule of the law of the jungle. A civilized society cannot be run by such laws.” Shedding more light on it, Sheikh `Atiyyah Saqr, former head of Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, states: “Like all other religions, Islam strictly prohibits murder and killing without legal justification. Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93) The so-called “honor killing” is based on ignorance and disregard of morals and laws, which cannot be abolished except by disciplinary punishments. 

It goes without saying that people are not entitled to take the law in their own hands, for it’s the responsibility of the Muslim State and its concerned bodies to maintain peace, security, etc., and to prevent chaos and disorder from creeping into the Muslim society.” Moreover, the eminent Muslim scholar, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hanooti, member of the North American Fiqh Council, adds: “In Islam, there is no place for unjustifiable killing. Even in case of capital punishment, only the government can apply the law through the judicial procedures. No one has the authority to execute the law other than the officers who are in charge. Honor killing could be a wrong cultural tradition. It is unjust and inhumane action. The murderer of that type deserves punishment.”

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Naira Ashraf's murder must be the last: Egyptian women's rights activists

 

The gruesome murder of an Egyptian university student in daylight must be the last straw in a toxic male-dominated society where violence against women is not fully criminalised, a number of high-profile women's rights advocates in Egypt have said.

Earlier this week, a university student stabbed his classmate, Naira Ashraf,  to death and then slit her throat in broad daylight outside Mansoura University, located northwest of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. The victim was in her early twenties.

The perpetrator confessed to the murder to authorities and said the reason was that Ashraf had repeatedly turned down his marriage proposal.

"It may seem a crime of passion on the surface. But it, actually, revealed societal endemic ills," prominent political sociologist Said Sadek told The New Arab.

"The incident spotlighted the violence and injustice women are subjected to in the absence of deterring laws or religious and social awareness that could confront regressive thoughts," said Sadek, who is also a feminist.

Seham Ali, lawyer and board member of the Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance, agrees with Sadek.

"We witnessed some reactions to the murder that nobody could've ever imagined. This crime is the law straw, a warning that there must be a decisive action to protect women in the society," Ali told The New Arab.

"It is time for a law to be enacted to confront violence against women, socially and family-wise. There is no definite law on this purpose, only some articles within some laws," she added.

In the few days following the incident, a further debate erupted on social media regarding the victim not abiding by the Islamic hijab, whether she does not deserve God's mercy and whether those unveiled could meet the same fate for wearing ordinary or revealing outfits.

Mabrouk Attia, a preacher and professor of Islamic Sharia at Al-Azhar University, said in a video released on social media demanding women "to fully cover up" or else "meet the same fate" as the Mansoura University victim.


"The horrific incident highlighted the dreadfulness of the religious discourse of extremists and the masculine obsession of covering women up. So it's not OK to seek mercy for an unveiled woman, while at the same time, advocating for the culture of suppressing women in the name of religion," Sadek remarked about the preacher's comments.

A number of women's rights supporters as well as the National Council for Women were quick to condemn Attia's statements and filed official complaints before the prosecutor general, accusing him of several legal offences, among them were "inciting hate speech and violence against women."

"There is a citizen named Mabrouk Attia, who claims to be a sheikh, asking girls to wear 'tents' in order to preserve themselves. He justifies the murder of the Mansoura University girl that this is the nature of the Egyptian society," renowned lawyer Nehad Aboul-Komsan said in a video shared online addressing the prosecutor general and her followers.

"If women are required to protect themselves [as he said in the video], then there are no laws or a constitution," she said.

"We won't wear 'tents' or live in ones…I speak as a mother of two daughters and in my capacity as the head of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights," she added.

After being faced with widespread criticism, Attia, a common face on TV, appeared in another video and declared he will take an indefinite time off and may not even appear publicly ever again.

Azhar institution released a fatwa (religious edict) on Facebook in what seems to be a response to the ongoing debate in which it denounced any justification for killing women.

In the written fatwa, Azhar noted that "it is religiously prohibited to underestimate a woman, whether veiled or unveiled, and taking that as an excuse to assault her is a heinous crime."

"After this wake-up call, now what? Will laws be amended? Will those in charge consider threats ahead of women and work on the ailing male-dominated culture? Will TV channels quit hosting extremist Islamic preachers who talk about women for some time until fatwas against women are purged?" Sadek wondered.

Link

Murdered women: A history of ‘honour’ crimes

That sentence rang in my head throughout my career as a senior reporter at the Jordan Times and as an activist on this topic.

A few months later, I was assigned to cover court hearings on homicides in Jordan. Again, I came across dozens of stories of women who had been murdered by their male relatives for reasons related to so-called “family honour”. Some of these cases I investigated, including Kifaya’s.

To my surprise at that time, the majority of perpetrators would get away with little more than a slap on the wrist. Their sentences would range from three months to two years in prison.

But in Kifaya’s case, the court rejected the “rape excuse that was uttered by her brother and handed him a 15-year prison term for manslaughter”, as I wrote in my report for the Jordan Times. It was an unusually harsh sentence for its time.

But that sentence, like most of those relating to “honour” crimes, was later cut in half because the victim’s family dropped their legal claims against the defendant, who was, of course, also a family member. While sentencing has gradually become more severe over the years, it is still possible in Jordan for defendants to have their sentences cut in half if the victim’s family drops the charges.

My career has exposed me to another unjust consequence of women being threatened with harm or murder by their family members. In Jordan, dozens of women used to be locked up in prison, without charge, for indefinite periods in “administrative detention”. In other words, the state was imprisoning them to stop them from being killed or harmed. The logic, surely, should have been to imprison the person who threatened them. But that is not what happened.

I discovered that this practice also took place in Yemen, when I went there to visit a women’s prison for my work in the late 1990s. Thankfully, Jordan no longer locks women up for being at risk of an “honour” crime – they are now sent to a safe house known as “Dar Amneh” instead, but this cruel practice only came to an end in 2018.

My reporting and activism on this topic began with Kifaya’s story. And my resolve only grew with each new story I heard. I took it upon myself to become the voice of those women who were unable to tell their own stories and to examine and expose the root causes of these types of murders.

If a wife violates her duty, she shall be ‘devoured by dogs’
Violence against women has been documented throughout history. Most of the ancient civilisations – among them the Assyrian, Roman and Sumerian – had penal codes that condemned “women adulterers and their partners” while allowing men to publicly have mistresses with little or no punishment at all.

The late Dr Vivian Fox, a US university professor who specialised in family and women’s history, argued that Judeo-Christian religious ideas, Greek philosophy and the Common Law legal code have all influenced modern Western society’s views and treatment of women.

“All three traditions have, by and large, assumed patriarchy as natural – that is male domination stemming from the view of male superiority,” she wrote in the Journal of International Women’s Studies. “As part of the culture perpetuated by these ideologies, violence towards women was seen as a natural expression of male dominance.

“Ordained by the Gods, supported by the priests, implemented by the law, women came to accept and to psychologically internalise compliance as necessary. Violence towards women in all its forms has and still thrives in such an environment.”

Matthew A Goldstein, a historian who has studied honour killings in the Roman Empire, explains how at the root of such murders – and the concept of “honour” itself – was the desire of men to ensure the children their wives bore were their own. By placing the responsibility for this “honour” on the shoulders of women, those women could be more easily controlled and, therefore, men could be more certain of the progeny of their children. In essence, the simplest way to ensure that men produced offspring of their own lineage was the suppression and control of the sexuality of their female mates.


Anne Boleyn before her execution [Getty Images]
Fathers were in control of the life and death of their daughters. Once a woman married, her father’s authority over her was transferred to her husband. Adultery by women was considered a felony under Roman law – punishable by death – and the state prosecuted family members and others for not taking action against adulterous female relatives by confiscating their property, according to Goldstein.

The Romans were not the first to enshrine this concept of “honour” – as borne by women – in law. The Hammurabi Code, which was written in 1780 BC and made law by the Babylonian king, Hammurabi, who reigned in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) from 1792 to 1750 BC, was also severe when it came to penalising women adulterers. Their punishment was to be tied up and thrown into the river to die. There was no punishment at all for male adulterers in this Code.

The Laws of Manu of ancient India were written around 200 BC. They stated: “Though destitute of virtue or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife.” On the other hand: “If a wife, proud of the greatness of her relatives or [her own] excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, the king shall cause her to be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many.”

In the 1st century AD, chastity, virginity, and the “good behaviour” of women were highly prized across Europe. According to Jacob Burckhardt’s book, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, for example, German adulteresses were flogged and buried alive.




“It was common throughout Europe for men to murder their wives because they suspected infidelity and to kill their daughters because they eloped. It was also common for brothers to kill their sisters because they refused to marry the man their family had chosen for them,” Burckhardt writes.

The situation remained the same in Europe during the Middle Ages.

In 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII and queen of England in the 1530s, was executed on charges including adultery, witchcraft, incest and conspiracy against the king. The charges against her were highly suspect. One admission of adultery from her music teacher, Marc Smeaton, was extracted under torture. It is widely accepted by historians today that all Anne was really guilty of was failing to produce a male heir – she gave birth to one daughter and suffered multiple miscarriages, at least one of a male foetus – and having a strong personality. Therefore, the charges against her were likely to have been concocted by the king or his aides as a way to get rid of a troublesome woman and make way for a more compliant consort – Jane Seymour, who was one of Anne’s own ladies-in-waiting – who might be able to produce a son.

The late Egyptian activist and feminist Nawal el-Saadawi pointed out in much of her research that murdering and burning women in the West for adultery was a common practice in the 14th century as well.

In the Dark Ages, “wise and smart women” were considered sorceresses by the Church in Europe and were killed, burned or locked in hospitals for the “mentally ill”, Saadawi explained. The real reason for these heinous acts, she argued, was that male priests were afraid of losing power. Women with knowledge of plants and other methods of treating the sick, offered an alternative to the priests’ use of “holy water and God’s powers”.

There were other reasons why a woman in Europe might find herself murdered by her relatives. In 1546 in Italy, Isabella Morra, the 25-year-old daughter of the baron of Favale, was murdered by her brothers. The reason: She had exchanged poetry with a Spanish nobleman, Don Diego Sandoval de Castro, the governor of Cosenza. Isabella had already been locked away in the family castle before this because her love of poetry was deemed unseemly for a woman.

In Europe, penal codes that punished women for adultery but excused it in men continued throughout the centuries. In France in the early 1800s, four jurists drafted the Napoleonic Code, which placed women under male guardianship, explained Georgina Dopico Black in her book, Perfect Wives, Other Women: Adultery and Inquisition in Early Modern Spain.

The Napoleonic Code stipulated that wives had to obey their husbands, while husbands had the power to send them to solitary confinement for adultery and to divorce them – but not the other way round. If a man caught his wife in the act of adultery and killed her, he was excused by law, Black wrote.

The depiction of women as evil and immoral was also reflected in the world of the arts. In her book, The Second Sex, French philosopher, novelist, and essayist Simone de Beauvoir argued that popular European culture in the 1880s frequently portrayed women as sinners. De Beauvoir argued that plays and operas based on this theme often gave communities the right to punish evil women since their “misbehaviour is offensive to the entire community”.


The late Egyptian writer Nawal el-Saadawi during an interview with Reuters in Cairo on May 23, 2001 [Mona Sharaf/Reuters]
Meanwhile, Judy Mabro points out in her book, Veiled Half Truths: Western Travellers’ Perceptions of Middle Eastern Women, that in the Victorian era between 1837 and 1901, images of women in popular culture were frequently those of women who were “hysterical, mad and filled with mad diseases”.

Moving closer to our own time, in 1996, Jordanian scholar and feminist, Lama Abu Odeh tackled so-called “honour” killing. In particular, she addressed the issue of virginity, stating: “The hymen becomes the socio-physical sign that guarantees virginity and gives the woman a stamp of respectability and virtue.”

The writer during a 2020 protest in Amman following the killing of a Jordanian woman, Ahlam, allegedly by her father [Annie Sakkab/Al Jazeera]
Abu Odeh, who examined several court verdicts pertaining to “honour” crimes in Jordan, pointed out that a woman might suffer violence if she was spotted conversing with a man behind a fence or seen leaving the car of a man and that, in both instances, “the woman is seen as having jeopardised not her vaginal hymen, but her physical and social one. She moved with a body and in a space where she is not supposed to be”.

In 2002, former UN special rapporteur on violence against women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, described the term “honour” as a “magic word that can be used to cloak the most heinous of crimes”.

Much later, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime conducted a global study on homicide that was gender-related to women and girls for the year 2017.

The report indicated that a total of 87,000 women were intentionally killed that year, including 50,000 who were killed by intimate partners or family members, meaning that 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day.

Figures from the UN Population Fund from 2000 show that more than 5,000 women are killed annually for reasons related to “family honour”, although experts estimated the number to be much higher even back then.

In my own research, I found that many “honour” killings were not reported at all or were classified as suicide or accidents.

In Jordan, things started to take a positive turn in the late 2000s. It had been a long time coming.

In 1998, shortly after I had won the Reebok Human Rights Award for my activism and reporting on honour crimes, a Jordanian pharmacist approached me to suggest we form a group to tackle the problem at the grassroots level. I was excited by the idea. We emailed our friends and urged them to spread the word. The National Jordanian Committee to Eliminate So-called Crimes of Honor was founded the following year. We decided to hold our meetings in our houses. At the first one, 30 people turned up.

Within a few weeks, we had formed a core group of seven women and four men who would meet on a weekly basis to discuss the best means of raising awareness about the issue of “honour” killings and lobbying for the abolition of all laws that discriminate against women and afford the perpetrators of such crimes leniency.

We prepared a petition and collected 15,000 signatures. For the first time, Jordanians signed their names and gave their full contact details on a petition. In the past, people had always been reluctant to sign a petition for fear of being harassed by security agencies. The country had been under martial law from the 1950s to the 1980s, during which time political parties were banned and people were forbidden to distribute pamphlets or circulate petitions. Although these laws had ended in the late 1980s, people remained cautious for some time afterwards.

The writer speaking at a protest in downtown Amman in 2015 [Photo courtesy of Rana Husseini]
Our activities were also aimed at high school and university students because we hoped they would take up the cause. And they did.

It was clear that the public mood was in our favour. We used to take the petitions everywhere we went. We would encourage the (mostly male) waiting staff at restaurants and cafés we visited to sign, and most would after hearing our arguments. If we saw the chefs, we would also ask them to sign too. On one occasion, I saw a street cleaner and approached him with a pen. He grabbed it quickly and told me: “Of course I want to sign this petition. It is against our religion to kill a human being.”

On another occasion, we walked into a shop and identified ourselves. The shopkeeper replied, “I’ve been waiting for you,” and signed.

Of course, some people refused – either because the topic did not interest them or because they believed “honour” killings were justified.

We divided ourselves into teams and toured the governorates to talk to people from all walks of life. In general, we found most wanted to learn more and many signed.

Soon, the local dailies and other media outlets started reporting on our activities. With that came harassment from some conservative MPs and religious figures who accused us of being Western and Zionist agents whose ultimate goal was to destroy the morals of Jordanian families.

Columns and editorials were written attacking us. And one conservative member of the lower house of Parliament, Mahmoud Kharabsheh, told me in person: “Women adulterers cause a great threat to our society because they are the main reason that such acts [of adultery] happen. If men do not find women with whom to commit adultery, then they will become good on their own.”

The writer and fellow activist Sahar Aloul taking part in a demonstration against honour crimes in December 2016, in front of the Jordanian parliament [Photo courtesy of Rana Husseini]
He lobbied against us in the lower house and circulated a petition among his colleagues a few days before the reform of Article 340 – which allows reduced sentences for men who kill their wives or female members of their family for committing adultery – was due to be debated in November 1999. He criticised the government for allowing the debate, calling it an “invitation to obscenity”.

I was present in Parliament on the day Article 340 was debated. Kharabsheh was the first to speak. “This draft is one of the most dangerous legislation being reviewed by the House, because it is related to our women and society,” he told the assembly.




There were defenders of the proposal to abolish Article 340. Nash’at Hamarneh, a leftist from Madaba – a majority Christian town about an hour from the capital, Amman – argued that Jordanian society could not develop unless women were given their full rights. “This article has become a sword over the necks of our women. [Furthermore] we have never once heard of a man being killed in the name of honour,” he said, amidst vehement indignance from lawmakers.

At the end of the session, when it was time to vote, I took a peek from the balcony to see who might vote in favour of reforming the law. I was expecting a count of hands and for the names of the deputies and how they had voted to be called out. But, despite almost a dozen deputies speaking out against Article 340, one deputy asked: “Why are we wasting more time?”

The speaker asked who was against the proposed bill to reform the law. The majority of the deputies waved their hands and that was that. A decision had been taken and the bill had been rejected without even the pretence of a count of hands. Article 340 remains law to this day.

Jordanian tribal leaders attend a rally against honour killing outside parliament on February 14, 2000. Around 3,000 Jordanians gathered outside parliament to demand the cancellation of a law that gives lenient punishment to those who commit ‘honour’ crimes [File: Ali Jarekji/Reuters]
It was a blow, but during our activism, we also received signs of support from high-level officials, people who believed in the cause, and some columnists. The late Iyad Qatan, secretary-general of the Ministry of Information at the time, was a courageous man who helped us gain access to documents that facilitated our work. He also helped free some of our petition signature-collectors from police stations on a few occasions.

On another occasion, in February 2000, we organised a public march led by Prince Ali – the half brother of King Abdullah – and Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad to Parliament to demand an end to such crimes and the abolition of discriminatory laws, including Article 340.

Afterwards, Prince Ali posted on an internet chatroom: “Contrary to some opinions, the demonstrations were organised and carried out without any governmental or institutional help.


“In fact, the prime minister [Abdur-Raouf  Rawabdeh] stood against it. He contacted Jordan TV and the papers and asked them not to publicise the demonstration. When we moved to the government, the prime minister was supposed to meet us. However, he sneaked out before we arrived…

“In reality, forces both within the government and Parliament had never intended the bill [to amend Article 340] to pass in the first place… the reason behind it is not about the article itself but fear that the article will lead to reforms…reforms that would hold them accountable, loosen their grip on power, by allowing people to move creatively and freely in progressing our country.

Prince Ali, brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah, embraces Jordan’s Senate Speaker Zaid al-Refa’e outside parliament on February 14, 2000. Thousands of Jordanians gathered outside parliament to demand the abolition of Article 340 of Jordan’s Penal Code, which grants leniency to those who kill female relatives found or suspected of committing adultery.

“It is an old game where parliament and government oppose each other outwardly to give the image of democracy at the expense of the people and our progress, and meanwhile innocents are murdered and our country remains economically stagnant.”

More and more people started to speak out against these crimes and the unjust laws that allowed them to continue.

In the past, many Jordanian men would casually say they would kill their sisters if they did anything perceived to have damaged their family’s “honour”.

But for the past 10 years, I have found that men’s reactions to my lectures and to the topic, in general, have undergone a major shift. Many men have become much more interested in being part of the solution.

And there have been small changes along the way. In 2003, for example, a royal committee recommended changes to Article 98 of the Jordanian Penal Code that had been used as leeway for perpetrators of such murders by their lawyers. It stated: “Whoever commits a crime in a fit of fury which is the result of an unjustifiable and dangerous act committed by the victim, benefits from a mitigating excuse.”

The committee recommended that the principle be disallowed as an excuse for crimes against women unless a husband caught his wife in the act of adultery and it extended this right to women who caught their husbands in an act of adultery.

Lenient sentences against men accused of honour crimes have continued, of course. In 2014, for example, a court revoked the death sentence of a man convicted of shooting and killing his daughter, sentencing him to 10 years in prison instead. The daughter, who was in her late 20s, had left her marital home for several days, the court was told, and her father wanted to “cleanse the family’s honour”. His sentence was reduced after the family agreed to drop the charges against him.

But the changes that have taken place have filled me with hope. Still, the fight continues and demands dedication, commitment and patience.

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Sisters allegedly murdered by husbands in Pakistan ‘honour’ killing

 

Two sisters with dual Pakistani and Spanish citizenship were allegedly killed by their husbands, uncle and brother in a so-called “honour” killing a day after they were tricked into travelling to Pakistan.

Aneesa Abbas, 24, and Arooj Abbas, 21, were strangled and shot dead on Friday after arriving in the eastern city of Gujrat with their mother, Azra Bibi.

It is understood that, on arrival in Pakistan, the sisters were pressured to help their husbands, who they were forced to marry last year, apply for spouse visas so they could travel to Europe.

It is alleged Aneesa and Arooj were killed when they refused to help. Both women wanted to divorce their husbands, who were also their cousins, so that they could remarry in Spain.

“The investigations have confirmed that both the sisters were killed in the name of ‘honour’,” said investigating police officer Muhammad Akhtar.

Police said the women’s husbands, Hassan Aurengzeb and Atiq Hanif, their uncle, Hanif Goga, and their brother, Shehryar Abbas, have been arrested and confessed to the killing. Two other men have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Hundreds of women are murdered by family members in Pakistan each year in so-called “honour” killings for violating conservative norms governing women’s relationships, despite 2016 legislation ending the loopholes in the law that allowed culprits to walk free in the country’s deeply patriarchal society.

Earlier that year, the murder of Qandeel Baloch, known as “Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian”, by her brother Waseem Azeem sparked national outrage and demands for changes to the law. Azeem was sentenced to life imprisonment but was acquitted in February this year after his parents pardoned him.

Samar Minallah, a human rights activist, said: “This is yet another brutal murder of innocent girls raised in another culture valuing basic human rights, yet treated like inanimate objects by their own families.”

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights group, more than 470 cases of “honour” killings were reported in the country last year.

It is not uncommon for parents with dual citizenship to force their daughters to marry cousins in Pakistan to secure European visas. A report on forced marriage, published by the UK government in 2020, found almost 40% of cases involved British citizens being taken to Pakistan to marry against their wishes.

In 2016, Samia Shahid, a British Pakistani beautician from Bradford in the north of England, was raped and killed when she returned to Jhelum district after marrying a man from outside the family. She had previously left her first husband, a first cousin from their village in Pakistan. Her ex-husband and father were arrested for her murder. Six years later, the case is ongoing.

Source

Murdered women: A history of ‘honour’ crimes

On a hot summer day in late May 1994, I drove to an eastern suburb of Jordan’s capital, Amman, to investigate the reported murder of a 16-year-old schoolgirl by her own brother.

With limited information, questions roiled my mind as I drove up the hill towards the neighbourhood. Why had this girl’s life been cut short by her brother? What had her final thoughts been?

My questions would soon be partially answered by a man who was walking through the neighbourhood when I arrived. “Yes, I know why she was killed,” he answered calmly as if talking about the weather: “She was raped by one of her brothers and another sibling murdered her to cleanse his family’s honour.”

I asked him again if what he was saying was really true.

“Yes, it is true. That is why she was killed,” the man answered me, before ushering me to the house where the murder took place.

The same “justification” was used by the girl’s uncles when I sat with them to discuss the murder. Her name was Kifaya (“enough”) they told me. “She seduced her brother to sleep with her and she had to die for that,” they said.

That sentence rang in my head throughout my career as a senior reporter at the Jordan Times and as an activist on this topic.

A few months later, I was assigned to cover court hearings on homicides in Jordan. Again, I came across dozens of stories of women who had been murdered by their male relatives for reasons related to so-called “family honour”. Some of these cases I investigated, including Kifaya’s.

To my surprise at that time, the majority of perpetrators would get away with little more than a slap on the wrist. Their sentences would range from three months to two years in prison.

But in Kifaya’s case, the court rejected the “rape excuse that was uttered by her brother and handed him a 15-year prison term for manslaughter”, as I wrote in my report for the Jordan Times. It was an unusually harsh sentence for its time.

But that sentence, like most of those relating to “honour” crimes, was later cut in half because the victim’s family dropped their legal claims against the defendant, who was, of course, also a family member. While sentencing has gradually become more severe over the years, it is still possible in Jordan for defendants to have their sentences cut in half if the victim’s family drops the charges.

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Pakistan honour killing: warning - shocking content

Palestinian Woman Murdered in Honor Killing After Posting Instagram Video with Fiancé

A 21-year-old Palestinian woman died on Thursday in suspicious circumstances fueling speculation and causing massive outrage among activists and social media users across the Middle East and North Africa. Israa Gharib, a makeup artist from Bethlehem, died in a coma due to head trauma, in what activists and sources close to the victim are saying was a brutal honor killing. The culprits are believed to be her father and brothers.

It all began when Gharib went to meet a potential suitor in a public place and posted a video of the outing on her Instagram page. According to a friend of the victim’s, Gharib’s mother was fully aware of the meeting and the suitor’s sister was also in attendance.

According to sources online, Gharib’s cousin then showed the video to the victim’s father and brothers, allegedly urging them to act to prevent scandal and accusing Israa of dishonoring herself and bringing shame to the family by being seen in the company of a man outside the bonds of marriage.

Gharib’s friend claims that upon seeing the video, her brothers, Bahaa an Ihab, and brother-in-law, Sheikh Mohamed El Safy, began beating and torturing her, and proceeded to terminate the engagement. Other sources claim she fell from the 2nd floor while attempting to flee the brutal assault. She was later hospitalized due to a fractured spine.

Gharib’s father, brothers, and brother-in-law followed her to the hospital, her friend alleges, and resumed the beating, telling hospital staff they were performing an exorcism on the victim whom they believed was possessed by a demon. A harrowing audio recording of the assault was leaked by one of the nurses at the hospital that purportedly features Gharib’s repeated horrified screams.

She was then released from the hospital, after which she returned home, where she allegedly suffered a head injury at the hands of her brother, Ihab, a resident of Canada. Eye witnesses say he had threatened to kill her earlier that day, prompting some on social media to call on the Canadian government to take legal action against him. Gharib went into a coma, before her heart stopped.

In a Facebook statement, the victim’s family denied any wrongdoing, claiming she suffered mental and psychological disorders that led to her fall from the 2nd floor of their Bethlehem house.

Gharib’s story is now one of the top trending topics on social media, with thousands of users and activists calling for social, political, and legal reforms to protect women from violence in Palestine, including Palestinian human rights organization Adalah, which issued a statement calling the alleged murder “a heinous killing.”

Feminist blogger Fadumo Adan also weighed in, telling The New Arab, “as a survivor of an honor killing, Israa’s story triggered a deeply embedded fear of mine. …Honor killings will never be justifiable. We shouldn’t have to mitigate the risk of honor killings by limiting our own personal freedom, autonomy and self-determination.”

The Bethlehem prosecution office is currently investigating the murder and has ordered an autopsy, reports Youm7.

Despite a 2018 amendment to article 99 of the Palestinian penal code, which used to allow judges to reduce sentences for perpetrators of honor killings, reports show that the practice is on the rise in the West Bank, Gaza, and among Israel’s Palestinian community.

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Pakistan authorities record a dozen cases of 'honour' killing in a fortnight

The killer was unrepentant.

“I killed my sister because she brought [a] bad name for the family,” he told neighbours in the Kachi district of Balochistan, Pakistan.

“I killed her and her lover for family honour. I want it to be a lesson for all girls in the town.”

Locals believe other members of the man’s family may have been involved but, a fortnight after the bodies were found , no arrests have been made, although police are aware of the allegations.

On Tuesday, the Dawn newspaper reported that a woman from Lahore had been shot dead, allegedly by her son, brother and brother-in-law, after leaving her husband and taking refuge at the house of a friend.

Police said they found the body of Arooj Shahzad a day after she approached officers over fears that her family would come after her. Chutala police have registered a case against five suspects.

Shahzad’s killing was the 12th in a fortnight linked to “honour” recorded by the Pakistan authorities.

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Rape victims allegedly murdered by relatives in 'honour killing'

In a bid to restore the 'honour' of their tribe, two men in Bhong area of Rahim Yar Khan allegedly murdered two sisters after they had reportedly been abducted and subjected to rape by some influential landlords.

According to local police, the deceased sisters were first abducted and raped by a group of men and later fell victim to their own relatives' wrath when they returned home.

The abduction purportedly took place in Basti Gulab Khan of Mouza Muhammad Murad Dahir area on Sunday when Shah Mureed Kharu and Ali Dost Kharu, the two accused, allegedly kidnapped the siblings, one of whom was 18, and the other 20.

The victims' father claimed in the first information report (FIR) that the suspects had abducted his daughters and abused them before releasing them a day later.

The father said that he was also fearful that the members of their tribe could kill his daughters upon their return for having "smeared the tribe's name".

When the girls returned home following their ordeal, the father said, their uncle Muhammad Saleem and another relative Shah Nawaz allegedly strung a noose around their necks and dragged them to the nearby fields.

The father said that by the time he reached the crime scene, the girls had already been murdered.

The dead bodies were shifted to Sadiqabad THQ Hospital for autopsies.

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Faisalabad struggles with scourge of ‘honour’ killings

 Over 175 men and women have been killed in various disputes across Faisalabad district during the first six months of 2018, Express News has learnt. Most cases involved murders in the name of ‘honour’.

Besides honour killing, victims were murdered over land and family disputes, communal enmity and everyday brawls. The dead included 66 women and 111 men, statistics from 41 police stations in Faisalabad confirmed.

At least 13 women and 12 men were killed in January, 11 women and 15 men in February, eight women and 20 men in March, 11 women and 19 men in April, 17 women and 24 men in May, and six women and 21 men in June.


An on-duty bus hostess Mahwish and MPA seat candidate Waqar Ahmed Wahla were among those whose lives were cut short in recent incidents. Most of the women were reportedly killed in the name of ‘honour’ by their brothers, fathers or husbands.

The police told Express News that suspects in most of the cases remained at large. However, they claimed that complete efforts were being made to arrest those involved in such incidents. Meanwhile, a special homicide unit had also been set up to probe cases of murder in Faisalabad.

In recent years, honour killing cases have surged to an alarming level in Punjab, especially Faisalabad. The crime continues unabated and laws introduced to curb this menace seem ineffective.

The police records revealed that in 2017, at least 44 people, including 18 women and 26 men, were killed under the garb of so-called ‘honour’ across Faisalabad district. However, in 2016, comparatively fewer cases of such a nature were reported as 31 people were murdered over ‘honour’.

Earlier, the Punjab Assembly passed a new bill against honour killing with an objective to provide legal protection to women. As part of the bill, all forms of violence against women have been criminalised while centres would be established across the province to remove hurdles which complicate a woman’s quest for justice.

Under the new law, relatives of the victims would only be able to pardon the killer if he is sentenced to capital punishment. However, the culprit would still face a mandatory life sentence of 12-and-a-half years.

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