Follow up on the honor killing in Basra
June 1, 2008 by Laura | Trackback URI
Gabriel Malor follows up on the honor killing in Basra:
The story doesn’t end there. At the time, the girl’s mother, Leila, divorced from her monster husband, was fleeing from reprisals for denouncing the murder. She had been hiding in safehouses established by women’s rights movements in Basra where they had plotted an escape for her to Jordan. She didn’t make it. Leila was gunned down on the way to meet her contact.
… Mother and daughter were killed because of a stupid honor culture. Keep it in mind the next time some snob tells you that we must learn to respect other cultures.
I’m reminded of General Sir Charles Napier:
A story for which Napier is famous involves a delegation of Hindu locals approaching him and complaining about prohibition of Sati, often referred to at the time as suttee, by British authorities. This was the custom of burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The exact wording of his response varies somewhat in different reports, but the following version captures its essence: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
I had forgotten all about that.
The STOP HONORCIDE! campaign was launched on Mother’s Day 2008. The goal of the campaign is to prosecute honorcides to the fullest extent of the law. We want honorcide to be classified as a hate crime and we advocate for every existing hate crime legislation to be amended to include honorcide.
http://www.reformislam.org/honorcide/