Good news for Sakineh, also for Kurt - and no book burnings, please!

Three comments:

- Good news for Sakineh and other victims of Iranian sharia injustice and also

- Good news for freedom of expression and the peaceful resistance against Islamic censorship,

- and no to book burnings, please!

yet another victory for freedom of expression of political cartoonists: Kurt Westergaard, one of the Danish Muhammad Cartoonists has just been awarded a Press Freedom Prize in Germany, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel with her memories form the dictatorial, totalitarian DDR, has stated that at least one European government shall stand firm by the cartoonists’ rights to publish drawings containing criticism of religions including criticism of Islam! I admire Kurt also for his speech at the ceremony, and for his courage to take the heat and attention from the other Danish cartoonists under Islamic death threat - he always says, he does not mind to take the blame and the anger as he has lived long, implying the other younger cartoonists would hopefully be forgotten as targets for Islamic militants as they evade press attention. I wrote this regarding those advocating for Quran/Kuran burnings: Give amnesty to the book, sentence it to life on library bookshelf - criticize the content of the book by words, not by flames. Instead, bring the prophet and his tyrannical heir, the Islamic Imperialism, for the International Court of Justice and try them for their crimes against humanity. I was as a teenager involuntary witness to the Iranian Islamic Republic's book burnings on the streets in front of the University of Tehran, and since that time I've developed a kind of parental care for books - let's face it, it is not the book itself to blame for the inhumane and violent words of the writers of that book. Also to preserve a minimum of common diplomatic rules, no burnings of books, flags etc., please!

Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani, member elect of Fritiran, secular liberal minority

Merkel to honor Mohammed cartoonist at press award
Danish cartoonist Westergaard, who sparked anger in the Muslim world with his caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, arrives for a news conference befor Reuters – Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who sparked anger in the Muslim world with his caricatures of the …
By Stephen Brown and Knut Engelmann Stephen Brown And Knut Engelmann – 2 hrs 57 mins ago

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel risked angering Muslims by speaking at an awards ceremony on Wednesday for a Dane whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked sometimes violent protests by Muslims five years ago.

The 75-year-old cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose drawings of Mohammed that offended Muslims worldwide first appeared in Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, was due to receive a prize on Wednesday evening at a conference on freedom of the press.

At a time of fierce debate in Germany over disparaging remarks about Muslim immigrants made by a central bank member, some Muslims criticized the center-right chancellor and the media said she was taking a risk by honoring a man whom many Muslims believe insulted their faith.

Aiman Mazyek of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany said in a statement: "Merkel is honoring the cartoonist who in our view trampled on our Prophet and trampled on all Muslims."

"By having her photo taken next to Kurt Westergaard, Merkel is taking a huge risk," wrote the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung before the ceremony.

"It will probably be the most explosive appointment of her chancellorship so far."

The mass-circulation Bild, which has voiced admiration for Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin for depicting Turkish and Arab immigrants as welfare spongers who fail to integrate, praised Westergaard and said Merkel's presence showed Germany "does not back down in the face of threats from Islamist fanatics."

Organizers of the M100 Media Prize to be awarded at Potsdam near Berlin said the cartoons had "triggered an international controversy about freedom of speech and sparked worldwide, partly violent demonstrations of Muslims who felt insulted."

Most Muslims consider any depiction of the founder of Islam to be offensive, and the Danish cartoons portrayed Mohammed with a turban shaped like a bomb. At least 50 people died in ensuing riots by enraged Muslims in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Westergaard stood by his work "invoking the right to freedom of speech," said the M100 prize committee, praising the Dane's "courage to stand by these democratic values and defend them, notwithstanding threats of violence and death."

The Organizers issued a statement from Merkel saying that, at a time when Germany is marking 20 years of unity after the fall of East Germany's communist regime, her country was "still conscious of what the lack of freedom implies."

Conservatives in Berlin's city assembly threw out a member for inviting Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders to speak next month.

But Wilders said he would "of course" still speak in the German capital despite the action taken by Merkel's Christian Democrats against councilor Rene Stadtkewitz, telling Reuters in an email he had "respect for Rene Stadtkewitz!"

(Writing by Stephen Brown; additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz in Amsterdam; editing by Paul Taylor)


European pressure mounts on Iran over stoning case

By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer Raf Casert, Associated Press Writer – 28 mins ago

BRUSSELS – European Union nations and the continent's biggest human rights organization slammed Iran on Wednesday for its plans to stone a woman convicted of adultery, increasing the global pressure on Tehran over a case it has tried to frame as a criminal matter and not one of human rights.

The plight of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani , a 43-year-old mother of two, has cast a harsh light on Iran's version of Islamic justice and taken multiple twists. Iran says it has put the stoning on hold for now but has also indicated Ashtiani could be hanged for her conviction of playing a role in her husband's 2005 murder.

Even as Iran insists the case is a matter for its own courts and society, the global outcry has grown.

On Wednesday, the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, France, passed a resolution condemning Tehran, a move that comes on the heels of EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso calling stoning "barbaric." The vote passed by a huge 658-to-1 margin with 22 abstentions. The vote against was an error and was to be amended in the parliamentary records later.

Sweden summoned Iran's ambassador to protest the sentence.

"It is important that we are not passive in a case that - except for her own destiny - has become a symbol for the repression in Iran," Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said. "We are against the death penalty in all cases, but stoning is a specifically vile form of the death penalty."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle released a statement saying he is "deeply worried for Ms. Ashtiani's life."

"Iran has to respect human rights, especially because it committed to do so under international law," Westerwelle said. It is "not a question of religion, but a question of fundamental human dignity."

The sentiments were echoed by the 47-nation Council of Europe, the continent's biggest human rights organization. It called on the Islamic republic's parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, to do his utmost to fully repeal the sentence.

"This inhuman sentence and the mistreatment that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is suffering cast a tragic shadow on your country," wrote Mevlut Cavusoglu, President of the Council's Parliamentary Assembly.

On Iran's state-run Press TV, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast repeated previous statements that plans to carry out the stoning have been "stopped" while judiciary officials also study the punishment for Ashtiani's conviction of playing on role in her husband's 2005 murder.

Ashtiani's lawyer, Houtan Javid Kian, told The Associated Press there has been no change in her case and the stoning sentence was suspended but not officially canceled. He has said Ashtiani was never formally put on trial on the charge of being an accomplice to murder and was not allowed to mount a defense.

On Monday, Kian said he had received word that his client was lashed 99 times last week in a separate punishment after British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as Ashtiani. The newspaper, the Times of London, apologized for the error.

There has been no official Iranian confirmation of the new punishment.

The Vatican has hinted at the possibility of behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save Ashtiani. Some Western officials, including Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, have said they don't believe Iran will carry out the stoning following the international outcry.

But Iran has at times struck a defiant tone. Even an offer of asylum from Brazil - which is on friendly terms with Tehran - went nowhere.

Mehmanparast accused the United States and other Western countries of trying to "exploit" the case and turn it into a "political charade."

"Our country has been under a lot of political pressure by the U.S. and other Western countries over its nuclear work," he noted.

The European Parliament, however, insisted universal human rights were what was at stake.

In its resolution, it said that "a sentence of death by stoning can never be justified."

-------------

Associated Press Writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Malin Rising in Stockholm and Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to the story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_us/iran_stoning;_ylt=AssjOHxlV2ouMdnOH4_DlY5vaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTJkZGQ2dGZ2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwOTA4L2lyYW5fc3RvbmluZwRjcG9zAzIEcG9zAzQEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDZXVyb3BlYW5wcmVz

Religious honour killings - The honour killing files: Robert Fisk: The crimewave that shames the World - and spreads into every corner of the World

The honour killing files:
Robert Fisk: The crimewave that shames the world

It's one of the last great taboos: the murder of at least 20,000 women a year in the name of 'honour'. Nor is the problem confined to the Middle East: the contagion is spreading rapidly

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the "honour" of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women's groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations' latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but which now spans half the globe.

A 10-month investigation by The Independent in Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank has unearthed terrifying details of murder most foul. Men are also killed for "honour" and, despite its identification by journalists as a largely Muslim practice, Christian and Hindu communities have stooped to the same crimes. Indeed, the "honour" (or ird) of families, communities and tribes transcends religion and human mercy. But voluntary women's groups, human rights organisations, Amnesty International and news archives suggest that the slaughter of the innocent for "dishonouring" their families is increasing by the year.

Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey appear to be the worst offenders but media freedoms in these countries may over-compensate for the secrecy which surrounds "honour" killings in Egypt – which untruthfully claims there are none – and other Middle East nations in the Gulf and the Levant. But honour crimes long ago spread to Britain, Belgium, Russia and Canada and many other nations. Security authorities and courts across much of the Middle East have connived in reducing or abrogating prison sentences for the family murder of women, often classifying them as suicides to prevent prosecutions.
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It is difficult to remain unemotional at the vast and detailed catalogue of these crimes. How should one react to a man – this has happened in both Jordan and Egypt – who rapes his own daughter and then, when she becomes pregnant, kills her to save the "honour" of his family? Or the Turkish father and grandfather of a 16-year-old girl, Medine Mehmi, in the province of Adiyaman, who was buried alive beneath a chicken coop in February for "befriending boys"? Her body was found 40 days later, in a sitting position and with her hands tied.

Or Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, 13, who in Somalia in 2008, in front of a thousand people, was dragged to a hole in the ground – all the while screaming, "I'm not going – don't kill me" – then buried up to her neck and stoned by 50 men for adultery? After 10 minutes, she was dug up, found to be still alive and put back in the hole for further stoning. Her crime? She had been raped by three men and, fatally, her family decided to report the facts to the Al-Shabab militia that runs Kismayo. Or the Al-Shabab Islamic "judge" in the same country who announced the 2009 stoning to death of a woman – the second of its kind the same year – for having an affair? Her boyfriend received a mere 100 lashes.

Or the young woman found in a drainage ditch near Daharki in Pakistan, "honour" killed by her family as she gave birth to her second child, her nose, ears and lips chopped off before being axed to death, her first infant lying dead among her clothes, her newborn's torso still in her womb, its head already emerging from her body? She was badly decomposed; the local police were asked to bury her. Women carried the three to a grave, but a Muslim cleric refused to say prayers for her because it was "irreligious" to participate in the namaz-e-janaza prayers for "a cursed woman and her illegitimate children".

So terrible are the details of these "honour" killings, and so many are the women who have been slaughtered, that the story of each one might turn horror into banality. But lest these acts – and the names of the victims, when we are able to discover them – be forgotten, here are the sufferings of a mere handful of women over the past decade, selected at random, country by country, crime after crime.

Last March, Munawar Gul shot and killed his 20-year-old sister, Saanga, in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, along with the man he suspected was having "illicit relations" with her, Aslam Khan.

In August of 2008, five women were buried alive for "honour crimes" in Baluchistan by armed tribesmen; three of them – Hameeda, Raheema and Fauzia – were teenagers who, after being beaten and shot, were thrown still alive into a ditch where they were covered with stones and earth. When the two older women, aged 45 and 38, protested, they suffered the same fate. The three younger women had tried to choose their own husbands. In the Pakistani parliament, the MP Israrullah Zehri referred to the murders as part of a "centuries-old tradition" which he would "continue to defend".

In December 2003, a 23-year-old woman in Multan, identified only as Afsheen, was murdered by her father because, after an unhappy arranged marriage, she ran off with a man called Hassan who was from a rival, feuding tribe. Her family was educated – they included civil servants, engineers and lawyers. "I gave her sleeping pills in a cup of tea and then strangled her with a dapatta [a long scarf, part of a woman's traditional dress]," her father confessed. He told the police: "Honour is the only thing a man has. I can still hear her screams, she was my favourite daughter. I want to destroy my hands and end my life." The family had found Afsheen with Hassan in Rawalpindi and promised she would not be harmed if she returned home. They were lying.

Zakir Hussain Shah slit the throat of his daughter Sabiha, 18, at Bara Kau in June 2002 because she had "dishonoured" her family. But under Pakistan's notorious qisas law, heirs have powers to pardon a murderer. In this case, Sabiha's mother and brother "pardoned" the father and he was freed. When a man killed his four sisters in Mardan in the same year, because they wanted a share of his inheritance, his mother "pardoned" him under the same law. In Sarghoda around the same time, a man opened fire on female members of his family, killing two of his daughters. Yet again, his wife – and several other daughters wounded by him – "pardoned" the murderer because they were his heirs.

Outrageously, rape is also used as a punishment for "honour" crimes. In Meerwala village in the Punjab in 2002, a tribal "jury" claimed that an 11-year-old boy from the Gujar tribe, Abdul Shakoor, had been walking unchaperoned with a 30-year-old woman from the Mastoi tribe, which "dishonoured" the Mastois. The tribal elders decided that to "return" honour to the group, the boy's 18-year-old sister, Mukhtaran Bibi, should be gang-raped. Her father, warned that all the female members of his family would be raped if he did not bring Mukhtar to them, dutifully brought his daughter to this unholy "jury". Four men, including one of the "jury", immediately dragged the girl to a hut and raped her while up to a hundred men laughed and cheered outside. She was then forced to walk naked through the village to her home. It took a week before the police even registered the crime – as a "complaint".

Acid attacks also play their part in "honour" crime punishments. The Independent itself gave wide coverage in 2001 to a Karachi man called Bilal Khar who poured acid over his wife Fakhra Yunus's face after she left him and returned to her mother's home in the red-light area of the city. The acid fused her lips, burned off her hair, melted her breasts and an ear, and turned her face into "a look of melted rubber". That same year, a 20-year-old woman called Hafiza was shot twice by her brother, Asadullah, in front of a dozen policemen outside a Quetta courthouse because she had refused to follow the tradition of marrying her dead husband's elder brother. She had then married another man, Fayyaz Moon, but police arrested the girl and brought her back to her family in Quetta on the pretext that the couple could formally marry there. But she was forced to make a claim that Fayaz had kidnapped and raped her. It was when she went to court to announce that her statement was made under pressure – and that she still regarded Fayaz as her husband – that Asadullah murdered her. He handed his pistol to a police constable who had witnessed the killing.

One of the most terrible murders in 1999 was that of a mentally retarded 16-year-old, Lal Jamilla Mandokhel, who was reportedly raped by a junior civil servant in Parachinar in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Her uncle filed a complaint with the police but handed Lal over to her tribe, whose elders decided she should be killed to preserve tribal "honour". She was shot dead in front of them. Arbab Khatoon was raped by three men in the Jacobabad district. She filed a complaint with the police. Seven hours later, she was murdered by relatives who claimed she had "dishonoured" them by reporting the crime.

Over 10 years ago, Pakistan's Human Rights Commission was recording "honour" killings at the rate of a thousand a year. But if Pakistan seems to have the worst track record of "honour" crimes – and we must remember that many countries falsely claim to have none – Turkey might run a close second. According to police figures between 2000 and 2006, a reported 480 women – 20 per cent of them between the ages of 19 and 25 – were killed in "honour" crimes and feuds. Other Turkish statistics, drawn up more than five years ago by women's groups, suggest that at least 200 girls and women are murdered every year for "honour". These figures are now regarded as a vast underestimate. Many took place in Kurdish areas of the country; an opinion poll found that 37 per cent of Diyabakir's citizens approved of killing a woman for an extramarital affair. Medine Mehmi, the girl who was buried alive, lived in the Kurdish town of Kahta.

In 2006, authorities in the Kurdish area of South-east Anatolia were recording that a woman tried to commit suicide every few weeks on the orders of her family. Others were stoned to death, shot, buried alive or strangled. A 17-year-old woman called Derya who fell in love with a boy at her school received a text message from her uncle on her mobile phone. It read: "You have blackened our name. Kill yourself and clean our shame or we will kill you first." Derya's aunt had been killed by her grandfather for an identical reason. Her brothers also sent text messages, sometimes 15 a day. Derya tried to carry out her family's wishes. She jumped into the Tigris river, tried to hang herself and slashed her wrists – all to no avail. Then she ran away to a women's shelter.

It took 13 years before Murat Kara, 40, admitted in 2007 that he had fired seven bullets into his younger sister after his widowed mother and uncles told him to kill her for eloping with her boyfriend. Before he murdered his sister in the Kurdish city of Dyabakir, neighbours had refused to talk to Murat Kara and the imam said he was disobeying the word of God if he did not kill his sister. So he became a murderer. Honour restored.

In his book Women In The Grip Of Tribal Customs, a Turkish journalist, Mehmet Farac, records the "honour" killing of five girls in the late 1990s in the province of Sanliurfa. Two of them – one was only 12 – had their throats slit in public squares, two others had tractors driven over them, the fifth was shot dead by her younger brother. One of the women who had her throat cut was called Sevda Gok. Her brothers held her arms down as her adolescent cousin cut her throat.

But the "honour" killing of women is not a uniquely Kurdish crime, even if it is committed in rural areas of the country. In 2001, Sait Kina stabbed his 13-year-old daughter to death for talking to boys in the street. He attacked her in the bathroom with an axe and a kitchen knife. When the police discovered her corpse, they found the girl's head had been so mutilated that the family had tied it together with a scarf. Sait Kina told the police: "I have fulfilled my duty."

In the same year, an Istanbul court reduced a sentence against three brothers from life imprisonment to between four and 12 years after they threw their sister to her death from a bridge after accusing her of being a prostitute. The court concluded that her behaviour had "provoked" the murder. For centuries, virginity tests have been considered a normal part of rural tradition before a woman's marriage. In 1998, when five young women attempted suicide before these tests, the Turkish family affairs minister defended mandated medical examinations for girls in foster homes.

British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner Aso Kamal, of the Doaa Network Against Violence, believes that between 1991 and 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of "honour" in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq alone – 350 of them in the first seven months of 2007, for which there were only five convictions. Many women are ordered by their families to commit suicide by burning themselves with cooking oil. In Sulimaniya hospital in 2007, surgeons were treating many women for critical burns which could never have been caused by cooking "accidents" as the women claimed. One patient, Sirwa Hassan, was dying of 86 per cent burns. She was a Kurdish mother of three from a village near the Iranian border. In 2008, a medical officer in Sulimaniya told the AFP news agency that in May alone, 14 young women had been murdered for "honour" crimes in 10 days. In 2000, Kurdish authorities in Sulimaniya had decreed that "the killing or abuse of women under the pretext of cleansing 'shame' is not considered to be a mitigating excuse". The courts, they said, could not apply an old 1969 law "to reduce the penalty of the perpetrator". The new law, of course, made no difference.

But again, in Iraq, it is not only Kurds who believe in "honour" killings. In Tikrit, a young woman in the local prison sent a letter to her brother in 2008, telling him that she had become pregnant after being raped by a prison guard. The brother was permitted to visit the prison, walked into the cell where his now visibly pregnant sister was held, and shot her dead to spare his family "dishonour". The mortuary in Baghdad took DNA samples from the woman's foetus and also from guards at the Tikrit prison. The rapist was a police lieutenant-colonel. The reason for the woman's imprisonment was unclear. One report said the colonel's family had "paid off" the woman's relatives to escape punishment.

In Basra in 2008, police were reporting that 15 women a month were being murdered for breaching "Islamic dress codes". One 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was beaten to death by her father two years ago because she had become infatuated with a British soldier. Another, Shawbo Ali Rauf, 19, was taken by her family to a picnic in Dokan and shot seven times because they had found an unfamiliar number on her mobile phone.

In Nineveh, Du'a Khalil Aswad was 17 when she was stoned to death by a mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a man outside her tribe.

In Jordan, women's organisations say that per capita, the Christian minority in this country of just over five million people are involved in more "honour" killings than Muslims – often because Christian women want to marry Muslim men. But the Christian community is loath to discuss its crimes and the majority of known cases of murder are committed by Muslims. Their stories are wearily and sickeningly familiar. Here is Sirhan in 1999, boasting of the efficiency with which he killed his young sister, Suzanne. Three days after the 16-year-old had told police she had been raped, Sirhan shot her in the head four times. "She committed a mistake, even if it was against her will," he said. "Anyway, it's better to have one person die than to have the whole family die of shame." Since then, a deeply distressing pageant of "honour" crimes has been revealed to the Jordanian public, condemned by the royal family and slowly countered with ever tougher criminal penalties by the courts.

Yet in 2001, we find a 22-year-old Jordanian man strangling his 17-year-old married sister – the 12th murder of its kind in seven months – because he suspected her of having an affair. Her husband lived in Saudi Arabia. In 2002, Souad Mahmoud strangled his own sister for the same reason. She had been forced to marry her lover – but when the family found out she had been pregnant before her wedding, they decided to execute her.

In 2005, three Jordanians stabbed their 22-year-old married sister to death for taking a lover. After witnessing the man enter her home, the brothers stormed into the house and killed her. They did not harm her lover.

By March 2008, the Jordanian courts were still treating "honour" killings leniently. That month, the Jordanian Criminal Court sentenced two men for killing close female relatives "in a fit of fury" to a mere six months and three months in prison. In the first case, a husband had found a man in his home with his wife and suspected she was having an affair. In the second, a man shot dead his 29-year-old married sister for leaving home without her husband's consent and "talking to other men on her mobile phone". In 2009, a Jordanian man confessed to stabbing his pregnant sister to death because she had moved back to her family after an argument with her husband; the brother believed she was "seeing other men".

And so it goes on. Three men in Amman stabbing their 40-year-old divorced sister 15 times last year for taking a lover; a Jordanian man charged with stabbing to death his daughter, 22, with a sword because she was pregnant outside wedlock. Many of the Jordanian families were originally Palestinian. Nine months ago, a Palestinian stabbed his married sister to death because of her "bad behaviour". But last month, the Amman criminal court sentenced another sister-killer to 10 years in prison, rejecting his claim of an "honour" killing – but only because there were no witnesses to his claim that she had committed adultery.

In "Palestine" itself, Human Rights Watch has long blamed the Palestinian police and justice system for the near-total failure to protect women in Gaza and the West Bank from "honour" killings. Take, for example, the 17-year-old girl who was strangled by her older brother in 2005 for becoming pregnant – by her own father.

He was present during her murder. She had earlier reported her father to the police. They neither arrested nor interrogated him. In the same year, masked Hamas gunmen shot dead a 20-year-old, Yusra Azzami, for "immoral behaviour" as she spent a day out with her fiancée. Azzami was a Hamas member, her husband-to-be a member of Fatah. Hamas tried to apologise and called the dead woman a "martyr" – to the outrage of her family. Yet only last year, long after Hamas won the Palestinian elections and took over the Gaza Strip, a Gaza man was detained for bludgeoning his daughter to death with an iron chain because he discovered she owned a mobile phone on which he feared she was talking to a man outside the family. He was later released.

Even in liberal Lebanon, there are occasional "honour" killings, the most notorious that of a 31-year-old woman, Mona Kaham, whose father entered her bedroom and cut her throat after learning she had been made pregnant by her cousin. He walked to the police station in Roueiss in the southern suburbs of Beirut with the knife still in his hand. "My conscience is clear," he told the police. "I have killed to clean my honour." Unsurprisingly, a public opinion poll showed that 90.7 per cent of the Lebanese public opposed "honour" crimes. Of the few who approved of them, several believed that it helped to limit interreligious marriage.

Syria reflects the pattern of Lebanon. While civil rights groups are demanding a stiffening of the laws against women-killers, government legislation only raised the term of imprisonment for men who kill female relatives for extramarital sex to two years. Among the most recent cases was that of Lubna, a 17-year-old living in Homs, murdered by her family because she fled to her sister's house after refusing to marry a man they had chosen for her. They also believed – wrongly – that she was no longer a virgin.

Tribal feuds often provoke "honour" killings in Iran and Afghanistan. In Iran, for example, a governor's official in the ethnic Arab province of Khuzestan stated in 2003 that 45 young women under the age of 20 had been murdered in "honour" killings in just two months, none of which brought convictions. All were slaughtered because of the girl's refusal to agree to an arranged marriage, failing to abide by Islamic dress code or suspected of having contacts with men outside the family.

Through the dark veil of Afghanistan's village punishments, we glimpse just occasionally the terror of teenage executions. When Siddiqa, who was only 19, and her 25-year-old fiancé Khayyam were brought before a Taliban-approved religious court in Kunduz province this month, their last words were: "We love each other, no matter what happens." In the bazaar at Mulla Quli, a crowd – including members of both families – stoned to death first Siddiqa, then Khayyam.

A week earlier, a woman identified as Bibi Sanubar, a pregnant widow, was lashed a hundred times and then shot in the head by a Taliban commander. In April of last year, Taliban gunmen executed by firing squad a man and a girl in Nimruz for eloping when the young woman was already engaged to someone else. History may never disclose how many hundreds of women – and men – have suffered a similar fates at the hands of deeply traditional village families or the Taliban.

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.

These are just a few of the murders, a few names, a small selection of horror stories across the world to prove the pervasive, spreading infection of what must be recognised as a mass crime, a tradition of family savagery that brooks no merciful intervention, no state law, rarely any remorse.

Surjit Athwal

Murdered in 1998 by her in-laws on a trip to the Indian Punjab for daring to seek a divorce from an unhappy marriage

Du'a Khalil Aswad

Aged 17, she was stoned to death in Nineveh, Iraq, by a mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a man outside her tribe

Rand Abdel-Qader

The Iraqi 17-year-old was stabbed to death by her father two years ago after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra

Fakhra Khar

In 2001 in Karachi, her husband poured acid on her face, after she left him and returned to her mother's home in the red-light district of the city

Mukhtaran Bibi

The 18-year-old was gang-raped by four men in a hut in the Punjab in 2002, while up to 100 men laughed and cheered outside

Heshu Yones

The 16-year-old was stabbed to death by her Muslim father Abdullah, in west London in 2002, because he disapproved of her Christian boyfriend

Tasleem Solangi

The Pakistani village girl, 17, was falsely accused of immorality and had dogs set on her as a punishment before she was shot dead by in-laws

Shawbo Ali Rauf

Aged 19, she was taken by her family to a picnic in Dokan, Iraq, and shot seven times after they had found an unfamiliar number on her phone

Tulay Goren

The 15-year-old Kurdish girl was killed in north London by her father because the family objected to her choice of husband

Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha

The 20-year-old's father and uncle murdered her in 2007, after she fell in love with a man her family did not want her to marry

Ayesha Baloch

Accused of having sexual relations with another man before she married, her husband slit her lip and nostril with a knife in Pakistan in 2006

9/11 memorial 2010, Copenhagen: lay flowers at WTC statue at Soelvgade

Dear secular liberals,

Let's remember the passengers, civilians, rescue workers and officers who were killed by Islamic Imperialists' military attack on America 9/11-2001 - we lay flowers at Soelvgade Twin Tower memorial statue in Copenhagen, and hold 2 minutes silence in respect and reflection.

We shall never forget! And we shall never let it happen again. We shall stop Islamic Imperialism sooner rather than later.

Sincerely

Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani, independent secular liberal activist
Member elect of the board of Fritiran, secular liberal minority


For a photo and short description of the WTC Memorial statue in Copenhagen:
http://copenhageneye.blogspot.com/2009/08/world-trade-center.html

Black satire: Denmark at imminent risk for being re-occupied by totalitarian powers - 40000 troops on their way

Comment in Danish and English, on the risk of de facto re-occupation of Denmark by yet another totalitarian power...in 1940 Nazis did it, in 2015 Islamic Imperialists and their neo-Nazi axis probably would do it. If we go along with the new version of the "Collaboration Policy", meaning collaboration with and submission to totalitarian axis powers...

Danish:

2x stormoskeer i København 8000 kvadratmeter i alt, 1x i Roskilde, 2x i Aarhus…Odense har hidtil gjort modstand mod stormoskeer, men skal hjælpes at fastholde modstanden. 40000 kvadrat meter stormoske plus 115 moskeer er klare om et par år til at absorbere ca. 1 islamisk fundamentalist per kvadrat meter. En tanke-eksperiment: Tænk, at give Nazister og Fascister tilladelse til etablering af 40000 kvadratmeter Nazistisk Kulturcenter og Nazi-Jugendschule eller Fascist-rekrutteringsbase, eller Hirohitos Japan at bygge Japanske stortempler til forgudelse af Emperaturen Hirohito…lige ved selveste Pearl Harbour, anno 1939. Ville modstand mod sådanne fiktive projekter være betegnet ulogisk, anti-demokratisk eller tendentiøs? Nej, det ville være betegnet ganske i tråd med vores liberal, demokratiske Grundlov og humanistisk etik, samt militær fornuft. Hvis nogen synes sammenligningen er upassende, se Undercover Mosque (2007) og Undercover Mosque - the Return (2009) ved at søge Google video. Det er granskende journalistik, bedre end hemmelige PET rapporter, ved den Britiske TV kanal Channel Four og Hardcash Productions Ltd.

English

2x grand mosques in Copenhagen, 8000 square metre total, 1x in Roskilde, 2x in Aarhus…Odense has so far resisted grand mosque Trojan Horses, and would need national public support to stand the ground against the widespread Islamophilia among many political parties in Denmark. Estimated 40000 square metre grand mosques plus 115 existing small to mid size mosques, will in 1-2 years abosrb ca. 1 islamic fundamentalist per square metre. A historical thought experiment: Think, we had been giving the Nazies and Fascists permission to establish 40000 sqm Nazi Cultural Centres, Nazi-Jugend Schule or Fascist-recruitment bases, or Hirohito's Japan permission to build several Japanese grand temples to worship the Emperor Hirohito…adjacent to the Pearl Harbor, on the year 1939. Would resistance against those fictive projects be designated illogical, anti-democratic or biased? Nope! It would have been perceived as as civic resistance in accordance with liberal, democratic Constitutions of ours and humanistic ethics, as well as military common sense. Should anyone find this historical comparison irrelevant, I encourage viewing Undercover Mosque (2007) and Undercover Mosque - the Return (2009), respectively, via Google. It is investigative journalism at its best, better than secret police reports. Those two documentaries were originally aired by the British Channel Four Television, produced by Hardcash Productions Ltd.

Sincerely, Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani, member elect of board of Fritiran, secular, liberal minority

Political satire on a Semptember weekend

http://www.spicyjihad.com/?page=video&video_id=35


Bravo! You have exactly caught the essence of Mousavi the mass-murder accomplice of the Islamic state: He IS the Islamic state representative and his false fox face and talk of democracy is no good! I asked his ambassador to Europe Mohsen Makhmalbaf during a debate at a Copenhagen event in 2009: \"How can the Green movement of Mousavi talk about bringing democracy to Iran, while you proclaim still to be Islamists - Islam is undermining democracy in Europe, USA and elsewhere outside Iran, how could Islam possibly be compatible with democracy in a future Iran.\" After some disorientation pause Makhmalbaf used the usual Islamic trickery: \"Iran will become a secular state at some point in the future, Khatami told me in Prais\", he said. Yeah, well, after all oil, gas and other riches of Iran be robbed and deposited in Swiss or Lichtenstein bank accounts, and Iran burnt to ashes after an atomic war, Mousavi, Karoubi, Khatami, Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani and the rest of the Islamic state founders leave and Iranians might be allowed to create a secular state - in the year 2350 maybe? Only the minority secular dissidents of Iran deserve any support from the World outside - not Islamic state agents like Mousavi.
#1: Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani on 2010-09-04 08:06:51

http://www.spicyjihad.com/?page=video&video_id=26

This very funny and very educational debate deserves to be captioned in English, French, Spanish, German, Danish, Norwegian, etc. to let the people ot the World get a laugh and get wiser about Iran : ))

#1: Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani on 2010-09-04 10:43:33

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/anntelnaes/2010/05/free_speech_doesnt_come_easily.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy

http://www.google.dk/images?q=mohammad%20cartoons&oe=utf-8&rls=com.google:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=da&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=617

http://www.cagle.com/news/muhammad/

http://www.cagle.com/news/ObamaMosque/main.asp

http://iranholland.wordpress.com/

Lively self-criticism in Pakintani online media on dehaminization of Pakistan

Pakistan’s human cockroaches

The writer is a columnist, and TV and radio anchor fasi.zaka@tribune.com.pk

Pakistan, you are a failed state. Not because of Zardari. Not because of America. But because you are a failed people, all of us undeserving of sympathy. We are diseased, rotten to every brain stem, world please make an impenetrable fence around us, keep us all in so we don’t spread it to other people, other countries.

These were words I posted on a social networking website. I have an unusually negative mindset these days. It happened after I saw the video of the two teenage brothers brutally clubbed to death by a crowd frenzied with blood thirst in Sialkot. The police watched gleefully. The video has blurs at certain parts, but even this sensible sensitivity does not prevent one from seeing mists of blood flaying from the heads of these teens as they are hit relentlessly, and remorselessly, again and again.

The murderous crowd was truly representative of the richness of Pakistan. Some wear jeans, others shalwar kameez, some were bearded, others clean shaven. The Pakistanis had gotten together to have some fun.

Do not be shocked. This wasn’t isolated, it’s just that the crowd wanted to make sure their orgasmic moment could be captured for later viewing, at one’s pleasure. We blame our ill-educated brethren for the barbarity we witness, but that’s a self-serving lie.

The middle and upper classes are immune to education it seems. They hold opinions of everyday violence even if they have never raised their hand at anyone. If you believe Jews are the scum of the earth, all Ahmadis deserve to die or that Hindus are inferior, well why not two teenage boys?

I want Pakistanis to feel shame, in fact a substantial loss of self-esteem would be great. This is the only way for us to begin to doubt ourselves and the incessant excuses we make. Yes, the world is right to add restrictions on our visas, to see us as dangerous. If for even a while we felt we were the cockroaches of the human race, maybe we would get to the point we stopped the lies we tell ourselves and let this continue.

The fact is, if we had real democracy, there would be no internet in Pakistan, women would not be allowed out of their homes, education would come to a standstill and we would begin a programme of killing off every minority. Thank you corrupt generals and politicians, you keep this at bay with some sense of being answerable to a world that still has some humanity in it, even if you don’t.

And please, no excuses, no excuses. Don’t give us that, “If only there was true Islam they would be better”. I think a thousand years is enough, we can’t wait longer. And there was no America in existence for most of that, or even western colonialism.

You want to know just how sociopathic we are? In response to these killings some are happy to say we deserve earthquakes and floods. Typical. Don’t change yourself, but give credit to the indiscriminate and inhumane forces of nature. The floods are a tragedy, an atrocity and should never be used to bolster an argument that really only demands self-reflection.

And please, in your self-reflection don’t call us animals, most of them are benign vegetarians. Also don’t blame Sialkot; they were just unlucky because they are subject to scrutiny. There is so much more out there.

There is such a sense of sickening moral superiority in Pakistanis, it needs to be addressed. All we care about is foreign policy, eager to point out the hypocrisies of the world, silent on our domestic, or even local life. Why should the world take what you say seriously, why should you be a regional power, or a leader in the comity of Islamic nations?

Truth is, there is only one way to get change, and it’s not hanging the people who killed these boys. It is raising your voice to contradict people who advocate death for others, no matter who they are speaking of. To internalise that murder of any kind, for anyone is wrong. Sounds easy? Well just try it.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2010.
Min kommentar for en ordens skyld:

*

Dear secular, liberals, no human being should be called “cockroaches” not even for the sake of argument. Last time populations were called “cockraoches” on mass media was on Ruwandan state radio up to and during the genocide! Even Islamophiles and Islamists are human beings with rights and duties before International law and as a secular liberal activist for democracy and against re-introduction of Middle Ages theocarcy be it Islamic or Catholic, I say let’s bring all Islamic Imperialist leaders to the International Court for Crimes Against Humanity. We will be very busy for a long time as thousands of Mufties, Mullahs, heads of states etc. have to be tried now! As criminal human beings, not as “cockroaches”.
Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani 4 days ago
Indsendt af Pedram Kazemi-Esfarjani, secular liberal activist kl. 13.29

Nyhedsbrev om Sakineh's advokat som politisk flygtning i Norge

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/verden/1.7240833

Trodde aldri at jeg måtte flykte

Mohammad Mostafaei var lettet over at han kom seg velberget til Norge, og at ektefellen er sluppet fri av iransk etterretningstjeneste.
Foto: David Krekling/NRK

- Jeg er svært glad for å være i Norge, sier den iranske menneskerettsadvokaten Mohammad Mostafaei. Den største lettelsen er at hans kone er løslatt fra fengselet i Teheran.

Laila Ø. Bakken Laila.o.Bakken@nrk.no
David Vojislav Krekling David.Vojislav.Krekling@nrk.no
Publisert 08.08.2010 14:12. Oppdatert 08.08.2010 16:13.


Mohammad Mostafaei (35) har forsvart den dødsdømte iranske kvinnen Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani og en rekke andre dødsdømte i Iran.

Han kom i går fra Istanbul til Norge, etter at han i slutten av juli valgte å flykte fra sitt hjemland da det ble utstedt en arrestordre på ham.

- Jeg er svært glad for å være i Norge, åpner Mohammad Mostafaei på pressekonferansen som ble holdt i Oslo i dag.

Mostafaei ble i forrige uke pågrepet av tyrisk politi i Istanbul, etter flukten fra Iran. Norske myndigheter arbeidet aktivt sammen med andre land for å påvirke Tyrkia til ikke å utlevere ham til Iran, og i går kunne han sette seg på et fly til Stavanger - til sin egen og Amnesty Internationals store lettelse.

- Norsk UD hjalp meg mye, både i Iran og de var veldig behjelpelig da jeg kom til Tyrkia. Det er også en av grunnene til at jeg kom til Norge, forteller Mostafaei og legger til med et smil.

-Skjebnen brakte meg til Norge.
Kona fri

Han selv er likevel mest lettet over nyheten om ektefellen Fereshteh Halimi (33).
Mohammad Mostafaei (Foto: David Krekling, NRK)

Mohammad Mostafaei kom til Norge fra Tyrkia i går.
Foto: David Krekling, NRK
- Jeg fikk i går ettermiddag høre at hun var løslatt etter to uker i fengsel, sier Mostafaei.

Halimi ble pågrepet etter at mannen gikk i skjul og har sittet arrestert i det beryktede Evin-fengselet i Teheran, hvor blant annet politiske fanger plasseres.

- Min største bekymring de to siste ukene, var bekymringen for sikkerheten til kona. Den første natten jeg har sovet, var i natt da jeg visste at hun var i sikkerhet, forteller Mostafaei.

Parets sju år gamle datter Parmida har blitt tatt vare på av besteforeldrene etter at ektefellen ble arrestert. Nå gjenforenes familien trolig i Norge.
Stort press

Han forteller om et stort press de siste ukene han var i Iran.

Det var stor oppmerksomhet rundt de internasjonale kampanjene for å få omgjort dødsdommen til Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, som er dømt til døden ved steining for utroskap, og han visste at den iranske etteretningstjenesten var etter ham.

- Fem ganger dro jeg til fengselet for å overgi meg. Hver gang snudde jeg fordi jeg visste at kona mi ikke ville ha tilgitt meg dersom jeg hadde gjort det. Det var et voldsomt press, forteller han.

- Jeg har ikke dratt fra Iran for å benytte meg av asylinstituttet, men for å belyse situasjonen for utenomverdenen. Det er flere som er i min situasjon, sier han.

CNN fortalte da flukten ble kjent at advokaten hadde søkt om visum til Norge ved den norske ambassaden i Teheran før han forlot hjemlandet. Dette bekrefter han nå.
Mohammad Mostafaei (Foto: David Krekling, NRK)

Mohammad Mostafaei viste frem visumet i passet.
Foto: David Krekling, NRK
- I Iran søkte jeg om visum til Norge, og har fått innvilget dette både for meg selv og familien for ett år, sier han.

- Men norske myndigheter var ikke på noen måte involvert i avgjørelsen om å flykte, eller til gjennomføring av flukten. Jeg har hatt visum til Norge tidligere, og jeg søkte om fornyelse av dette. Det fikk jeg også, sier Mostafaei og forteller at han også har visum til Tyskland.

Flukten fra Iran gikk med hest, bil og til fots til Tyrkia. Etter at han ble løslatt av tyrkisk politi, fikk han bistand av den norske ambassaden i Ankara med å komme seg fra Istanbul til Stavanger.
- Dette er takken

Saken til tobarnsmoren Ashtiani, som er dømt til steining for utroskap, har vakt store protester internasjonalt.

- Jeg har, gjennom min forsvarergjerning, klart å redde livet til flere titalls mennesker. Også flere kvinner som har blitt dømt for utroskap. Det har jeg gjort for mitt land, og hva var takken? sier en kritisk Mostafaei.

Både han og kona Fereshteh Halimi har i mange år engasjert seg i saker som gjelder rettighetene til iranske borgere.

- Grunnen til at jeg startet med dette arbeidet, er blant annet at jeg kjenner igjen vanskelighetene jeg selv opplevde som liten. Og jeg har engasjert meg i kvinnenes rettigheter fordi jeg kjenner igjen mange av problemene min mor hadde da jeg vokste opp.

* Siste: Klient kan bli henrettet når som helst

Måtte bare dra

Advokaten forteller at han aldri hadde trodd han kom til å flykte fra sitt eget hjemland.

- Jeg trodde aldri at jeg skulle måtte forlate jobben min og Iran, men det var umulig å bli igjen etter hendelsene de to siste ukene. Noen ganger gjør skjebnen at man ikke vet hva som vil skje, sier Mohammad Mostafaei.

- Men jeg hadde aldri tenkt at jeg skulle rømme fra Iran gjennom Tyrkia for å sitte her i dag.

Han sier forholdene i Iran blir verre og verre, rettssikkerhetsmessig.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (Foto: Carl Court/Afp)

Saken til Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani vekker voldsomt internasjonalt engasjement.
Foto: Carl Court/Afp

- Situasjonen er blitt mye mer brutal og langt mer uforutsigbar. Og det var langt fra bra før. Regimet bryter til stadighet landets lover, sier Mostafaei.

Den iranske advokaten roser Norge og norske myndigheter.

- Norske myndigheter og utenriksstasjoner jobber hardt for menneskerettighetene i verden, ikke bare i Iran. Det er viktig for dem, og det er beundringsverdig. Spesielt når de reagerer, blant annet i Iran, så vet de at det kan skade forholdet mellom landene.

Mohammad Mostafaei sier at tankene hans fortsatt er hos hans klienter.

- Jeg skal gjøre mitt beste for å hjelpe dem fortsatt.

Ellers vil han bruke tiden i Norge på å skrive bok. Han har allerede forfattet to bøker og vil forsette å skrive sakprosa om det iranske rettssystemet - hovedsakelig myntet på borgerne i hjemlandet.

- Dessuten vil jeg bruke muligheten til å lære meg bedre engelsk, så kanskje det kommer en bok på engelsk også med tid og stunder, sier advokaten og smiler - før han alvorlig legger til:

- Jeg har så mange sterke historier om personene jeg har møtt og forsvart, som burde vært fortalt, sier han.

http://stopstonningnow.com/wpress/3569
Press Release 60: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is Held Incommunicado



Setptember 2, 2010

PR 60

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is Held Incommunicado

According to news sent to the International Committees against Execution and Stoning, responsible parties within Tabriz prison have told Mrs. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani that she is not allowed visits with her children or her lawyer.

Today, as last week, Sakineh's children have not been allowed to visit their mother. Prison authorities have informed them that their mother is no longer allowed to have contact with the outside world.

According to other received news, Mr. Houtan Kian, Mrs. Ashtiani's lawyer, is also under increasingly intense pressure.

The International Committees against Execution and Stoning condemn this attitude of the Islamic Republic and call upon the people of the world to increase their efforts to free Sakineh. Every reaction by the Islamic Republic bears a sign of the savagery of this regime, indicates the inhuman judiciary system, indicates that people of Iran are utterly bereft of their rights, and at the same time indicatjavascript:void(0)es the weakness and desperation of this regime in the face of increasing international pressure.