gulfdaily - I fear for our lives, says divorced mum.
January 16, 2007 ◊ A Bahraini divorcee claims she has received more death threats against her and her children, since her dispute with her ex-husband was taken up by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR).
"I fear for my life and those of my children," said 29-year-old Suad Mohammed Fathalla, whose plight was first highlighed by the GDN in July last year.
She said the latest threats came by phone early hours of yesterday and on Monday night, almost immediately after she asked the BCHR for help over a hate campaign she says has gone on for months.
Ms Fathalla, originally from the UAE, said she had earlier been receiving threats via SMS and phone calls from mobile numbers in Saudi and Bahrain.
She said the calls started after she spoke out against the Sharia courts and accused judges of being politicised, for which she is facing charges of defamation.
"After I approached the BCHR, I was called from a Bahrain mobile number and told by a male caller to 'watch out'," said the mother of three.
The threats initially began when Ms Fathalla, who lives in Muharraq, was interviewed by Washignton-based Arabic television channel Al Hurra, in Dubai, on November 25 last year.
She spoke about her 10-year failed marriage to a Bahraini policeman, which ended in 2003 and the battle for custody of her children.
Speaking alongside her were Women's Petition Committee head Ghada Jamsheer and now defunct BCHR president Abdulhadi Al Khawaja
During the interview, Ms Fathalla criticised the Interior Ministry, allegedly politicised judges and the lack of a personal status law.
"I receive telephone calls at 3am and SMS from pre-paid numbers from Saudi and Bahrain.
"I filed a case at the Muharraq Police Station over a month ago, but no action has been taken yet.
Ms Fathalla got married in 1993 when she was 16, but alleged later that her ex-husband was a violent and abusive drunk.
Ms Fathalla temporarily lost custody of her children after he filed a case against her, accusing her of being a prostitute.
Even though she was acquitted, she said the Sharia Court granted custody of the two youngest children to their father.
She says she had been in jail for 42 days because of the false charges. "I am so desperate now for my children," said Ms Fathalla, adding they are now temporarily with her.
Ms Fathalla said her eldest son, 12-year-old Ahmed, had refused to stay with his father.
She said the younger two, Jameela, aged nine, and Mohammed, eight, had been told by the court to stay with their father, though it had ruled they could stay with her until February 13.
Ms Jamsheer said the committee would "not rest until Ms Fathalla gets justice".
The BCHR has also condemned the alleged campaign against her.
"We call on Bahraini officials to drop the defamation charges against her and to ensure that her children remain with her," said a BCHR official.
haaretz - Police unsurprised by 7th honor killing in Ramle family.
January 16, 2007 ◊ The discovery of the body of 19-year-old Hamda Abu-Ganem in her home in the Ramle neighborhood of Juarish didn't surprise Ramle Police Superintendent Yigal Ezra. Although many people, including Ezra, tried to help Abu-Ganem run from the fate that awaited her, she remained in her parents' house -- and became the seventh woman in her family to be murdered in an "honor killing" in as many years. Three youths were arrested for the crime yesterday and are expected to face a remand hearing today.
"A few young criminals in Juarish set up a group that decides which of the women has violated the honor of the family," said Ezra. "For instance, if a woman spoke to someone on a cell phone, or laughed with a man, that is sometimes considered a violation of the family honor, from their perspective. They plan how the murder will take place, who will carry it out and even find an alibi for the murderer. From the moment someone is marked, there is no way out."
Hamda Abu-Ganem did temporarily escape her fate. She left home at 16 to live in a battered women's shelter for two years, after her brother decided she had violated the family honor and severely beat her. The brother was arrested and indicted, but the court released him to house arrest.
"Since [Hamda] had become a helpless minor, and due to the concern that she would be hurt, we removed her from her home under court order and put her in a shelter," said Ezra.
But Hamda ran away from the shelter twice, and on the day she turned 18, she returned home. Police and municipal social services staff warned her that she was at risk, but they said Hamda told them she would stay at her parents' house anyway. Ezra said she refused an offer of an apartment where she could live in hiding, as well as an offer to help her leave the country. Hamda's younger sister is now hiding at a shelter in the wake of threats to her life.
Around noon yesterday, Hamda was killed in her bed by two bullets to the stomach. Police received a call reporting gunshots and learned she had been killed.
"After the fate of these young girls has been determined, no one does anything to help them," said Ezra. "I myself have had girls who were threatened stay at my house more than once. Every once in a while we try to organize some activity to raise awareness of the issue. Just a month ago there was a meeting in Juarish, and everyone talked about the importance of fighting against the phenomenon. But it's only nice on paper, because in practice the criminals who do this don't come to these meetings and don't listen to the people who participate in them."
But Aida Touma-Suleiman, director of the non-profit Women Against Violence, said police are largely to blame for the continued deaths of Arab women in honor killings.
"The murderers are criminals, and the police have to get their hands on them, but they tend to look away, not investigate and not reach the [stage of] indictments," she said. "In the last 20 years, there have been 24 instances in which women have been murdered in Ramle and Lod. How many of the murderers were captured? When people have no sense of security, it's clear they won't go and talk to the police, because afterward they'll be hurt."
The head of the Shfela region police, Commander Yifrah Duchovny, said it is outrageous to blame the police.
"The police invest tremendous effort in every such murder case, but the work involved is much harder because there is a phenomenon of silent consent to these murders -- whether from fear or because of worldview," he said. "The hardest part at these crime scenes is the quiet: Each time my stomach turns over in finding the body of a young girl, and around her the house is quiet. Everyone stands silent. There is no crying, there is no shouting and there is no cooperation."
Suleiman acknowledged that Arab society has not dealt with the issue of honor killings as much as it has with revenge killings. A rally is planned for next month in Ramle to protest the phenomenon, she said.
haaretz - Man who killed sister in honor killing had just been released.
January 17, 2007 ◊ Rashed Abu-Ghanem, the brother and key suspect in Tuesday's murder of Hamda Abu-Ghanem of Jawarish, who is in police custody, was released from house arrest two months ago for a previous assault against the victim.
The Magistrate's Court judge who released him, ignoring an explicit police request to the contrary, wrote in his decision that Hamda "did not seem to be afraid of him."
Yesterday, the suspect was brought to the same court house, where he was remanded in custody on suspicion of murdering Hamda in order to "protect" family honor. Another relative, Tawfik Abu-Ghanem, is also being held for his alleged role in the murder.
Two years ago, the police requested that Rashed Abu-Ghanem be held in custody until legal proceedings against him were completed, for allegedly assaulting his sister, then 17.
The prosecution claimed that Rashed felt his sister's behavior was inappropriate, and that he threatened her, "Do you want me to order them to kill you?"
After a few months in prison, the District Court released him to house arrest -- but not to his home in Jawarish.
Last October, his attorney asked the court in Ramle to release his client and allow him to return home. The defense lawyer argued that Hamda had made "false allegations" against his client and that she had "hospitalized herself a number of times for no reason."
The family backed Rashed's claims, saying that Hamda had "psychological problems."
During her appearence at court, Hamda said her brother had not assaulted her. Police maintained that she had been under family pressure to back her brother.
The prosecution insisted that Rashed posed a threat and that he had a criminal record, "which would result in a prison term."
During the two years since Rashed assaulted her, Hamda had lived in shelters for abused women.
turkishdaily - The new capital of 'honor killings'.
January 17, 2007 ◊ Milliyet yesterday featured a report on Istanbul's honor killing statistics in the past year.
According to the report, one woman every two weeks was victim to a murder caused by traditional beliefs about a woman's place in society in Turkey's largest city. Milliyet said, according to data from a Parliamentary commission, Istanbul ranks first in the number of crimes related to protecting family honor.
The same report found that violence against women and children was on the rise.
Police in Istanbul said 18 honor killings occurred in Istanbul in 2000. In the following years until 2005, 19, 16, 17 and 24 such crimes took place while 25 women were victims of honor killings last year.
According to police, two children were killed by their own parents in 2005.
Milliyet said authorities believed educating the people was the only way out of violence against women and children. Culprits of honor crimes were almost always people from eastern or southeast Turkey, the report said.
A lawyer from the Istanbul Governor's Human Rights Chair told Milliyet that the victims were usually women who risked getting caught and being murdered and ran away from domestic violence, almost always taking their children with them.
In Istanbul, the total number of murders, rapes and beatings of women and children was 3,670, according to police records.
newsyemen - Legislations deficiency encourages abuses against children.
January 17, 2007 ◊ Social and human rights advocators have condemned the lack of legislations that protect children and unwillingness of law-makers to bring laws into effect as well as the fragility of official media to reduce violations and abuses against children giving priority to covering activities of president and officials in the government. The official media is occasional. It is interested in covering just the official events, said chairperson of the Arab Association for Human Rights, Raja'a al-Musabei.
Al-Musabei said it is a problem to lack for a law that punishes those who abuse children including relatives. "We have never heard that a person was executed over raping children despite the phenomenon is widespread," said al-Musabei in a workshop on abuses against children, organized last week by the Center of Development and Gender Studies and Researches in Sana'a university.
She called for setting up reformatories instead of prisons that have bad impacts on girls who fall victims of such abuses, according to al-Musabei.
The family may accept to bring back girl from a reformatory, but they refuse to deal with prisons, said al-Musabei.
Vice head of Sana'a University said that taking care of children and protecting their rights should be a part of promises given in last election campaigns to move towards "new Yemen and better future".
"Education is very important to alleviate violations and abuses against children", said Ahmad al-Kebsi.
Meanwhile, a study, prepared by the center on crimes and abuses against children, was read in the workshop. It has revealed that honor crimes, early marriage and sexual exploitation of children are widespread in Yemeni society.
Although the study did not give accurate figures that show the spreading of killing for honor, many stories told have proved that such kind of crimes is still found in Yemeni society.
The study says that many girls have been killed for honor. It says that some girls are sometimes killed for just doubts they disgraced their family. "Some families believe that when a girl speaks to a man, she disgraces the honor of her family. So this leads to horrible violations against children under the pretext of protecting honor", says the study.
The study refers the cases of sexual abuses to high dower, late marriage, watching sexual films, drinking, drugs, unemployment and the going out of girls alone.
The study says that most of sexual abuse cases are committed by relatives like cousins and rarely by fathers and brothers and then comes the role of neighbors, friends and foreigners.
However, the study says that poverty and disability to pay high dower cannot push the person to do commit sexual abuse. "The abusers should not be poor and unable to pay high dowers. The abusers mostly suffer psychologically illness as they were abused during their childhood, says the study.
The study criticizes the deficiency of legislations to protect children rights. It says that the domination of men in decision-making positions, high rate of illiteracy among women, 70 percent, in addition to the traditional culture that women are among properties of men lead to insufficiency in brining laws into effect.
Some girls and boys, 12-18 years, who the study has targeted, said that the proper solutions for honor crimes, early marriage and sexual abuse is to extend education, religious awareness, the family following up to girls and boys with trust and decreasing marriage costs.
Most of girls have agreed that families should give girls more trust and some others saw that state should punish violators, male or female, and to establish more reformatories for children so that they can be in safe places and avoid offenses in public prisons.
Some people targeted by the study asked for alleviating poverty, specifying the legal age of marriage and making awareness campaigns about risks of early marriage by preachers in mosques and different media outlets as well as making a law preventing the marriage of young and stipulating punishments against outlaws.
Different ages, polled in Sana'a, Aden, Taiz, Hodeidah, Hadhramout and Ibb, married and single, in urban and rural areas, have agreed that such problems would not be solved by just a written law or by occasional campaigns, but by persistent efforts for years and getting benefit from experiences of other countries.
bloomberg - U.K. 'honor crimes,' cloaked in silence, stall police.
January 17, 2007 ◊ Samaira Nazir rejected Pakistani suitors chosen by her family and planned to elope with her Afghan boyfriend. The penalty for her defiance: death from 18 stab wounds inflicted by her brother and cousin at the family home in Southall, England.
More than a dozen women are killed for violating community standards each year in the U.K., according to police. While Nazir's killers were jailed for life, U.K. police ignore hundreds of "honor crimes" to avoid inflaming relations with Muslim enclaves as they work to head off homegrown terror plots, say lawmakers and women's rights advocates.
"There is a kid-gloves approach on the basis that you don't want to offend these communities," says Usha Sood, a lawyer and lecturer at Nottingham Trent University who specializes in forced marriage cases. "If you take into account the whole range of honor offenses, the number runs into the thousands."
Combating honor violence is one element of the U.K.'s struggle to assimilate its 1.6 million Muslims. Prime Minister Tony Blair recognized the clash of cultures during a Dec. 8 speech to educators in London titled "The Duty to Integrate."
"There can be no defense of forced marriage on cultural or any other grounds," Blair said. "We stand emphatically at all times for equality of respect and treatment for all citizens. Sometimes the cultural practice of one group contradicts this."
Police find it difficult to identify honor crimes because family members and neighbors often regard them as just punishment. Victims are often targeted because of sexual orientation or for relationships with outsiders.
Abduction, Repression
Honor violence includes abduction, forced abortion and rape, police say. Most incidents involve South Asian families, Sood says, adding that counselors also help victims with Kurdish, Afghan, Nigerian and Turkish backgrounds.
Steve Allen, a commander with London's Metropolitan Police who's charged with combating honor crimes, says U.K. law enforcement is tackling the issue. Beginning this year, Scotland Yard computers will register honor-based violence as a separate category of crime for the first time, helping police identify women at risk.
"There's nothing about political correctness in this," Allen says. "It's just about doing our duty."
Still, Allen says police were slow to recognize the problem. As an officer in the ethnically diverse city of Bristol in the 1990s, Allen says honor crime "just wasn't on our radar."
Murder Investigations
Growing awareness of honor killings prompted Scotland Yard to establish a task force in 2004 to reexamine 109 homicides over the previous decade to determine how many were honor-based.
So far, 22 cases have been analyzed and 18 have been classified as either "definite" or "suspected" honor killings, says a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police who asked not to be identified, citing department policy. The probe doesn't have a time limit.
Police will use the study's findings to train officers to spot women at risk of honor crimes when responding to domestic- violence cases, Allen says.
U.K. Muslim leaders say religion isn't a factor.
"Honor killing is un-Islamic; it is prohibited in Islam and is alien to Islam," says Shamiul Joarder of the Muslim Association of Britain. "It is a cultural issue, not a religious one, and that distinction must be made."
The Muslim Council of Britain says Islam rejects vigilantism.
"That said, it would be naive of us to bury our heads in the sand and deny that this pre-Islamic custom continues amongst some Muslims and those of other faith communities," the group says on its Web site.
Cultural Isolation
The notion that it is acceptable to use violence against family members has taken hold in communities that are isolated out of choice, says Gurmit Heer, a cultural criminologist at the University of Birmingham. Stepped-up police investigations would help prompt change.
"Lack of integration and segregation provokes this kind of insular thinking," Heer says. "Branching out from that would help to reduce these crimes, and the fear factor of the law."
The true impact of honor violence can't be measured by crime statistics alone, says Veena Raleigh, who teaches epidemiology and public health at the University of Surrey in Guilford, England. In Britain, the suicide rate among first-generation Asian women, aged 15 to 24, is more than twice the national average of 5.4 per 100,000 women, according to her research.
"The evidence suggests that these women found themselves trapped by social factors and not feeling there was an escape for them," Raleigh adds. "The family is a very strong unit in South Asian culture."
Forced Marriages
Javinder Sanghera, who ran away from a compelled marriage at the age of 15, says her sister Robina committed suicide by setting herself alight in 1987 after her parents sent her back to an abusive husband.
Sometimes violence stems from the desire to keep women isolated from the modern world.
"Girls are being beaten up for things like having a mobile phone," says Sanghera, 41, who runs the Karma Nirvana shelter for women in Derby, England. The group deals with seven forced marriages a week, and about four cases each month of people under the threat of murder, she says.
Typical of those seeking help is an 18-year-old who asked to be identified only as Serena. She says she sought help through Karma Nirvana after her father beat her repeatedly for six years. After a suicide attempt at 15, she was sent to Pakistan and kept there for a year before she returned to a hostile home.
'They Will Kill Me'
"The whole house was against me -- dad, mum, sisters, all of them," she says. "Then I took a big step and went for a fresh start." After four months on the run, Serena is taking classes and maintaining phone contact with her mother from the city where she's in hiding. "If my uncles find out where I am, they will kill me for sure," she says.
There are about 300 safe houses for abused women in the U.K., though many have only a handful of beds, says Diana Nammi, director of the International Campaign Against Honour Killings, a London-based group that represents victims. Her group counseled 186 people last year, and 14 of them were sent to the police because they were deemed in danger of being murdered, she says. Two men were included in the high-risk group.
Last year the Blair government established an agency to offer help to U.K. citizens whose parents are trying to compel them to marry partners from overseas. The Forced Marriage Unit's six officers deal with 250 to 300 cases each year. About 15 percent of the cases are initiated by men and two-thirds come from Britain's Pakistani community, says Peter Abbott, head of the unit, which is part of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
Marriage Age
Still, Blair's government in June dropped a proposal to ban forced marriage in the U.K. Patricia Scotland, a Home Office minister in the House of Lords, said such a law could drive the practice further underground. A Labour member of Parliament, Ann Cryer, is now gathering support for new legislation.
Other European countries have taken action to protect women. Denmark in 2002 set a minimum age of 24 for nationals marrying foreigners, and Sweden bans all marriages under the age of 18, regardless of the applicants' nationality.
In the U.K., the minimum age for foreign spouses and Britons seeking to sponsor them for entry to the U.K. is 18. Cryer, who represents a district with a large Asian population in northern England, has been campaigning to raise the minimum age for both bride and groom to 21.
Reluctant Sponsors
Cryer says her office receives an average of three confidential requests a month from constituents who want the government to reject visa applications for potential spouses chosen by their families. The Muslim community must do more to protect the rights of "reluctant sponsors," usually young women who feel trapped by familial expectations, she says.
"Communities would prefer to turn a blind eye, and anyone who raises the issue is either a racist or an Islamophobe," Cryer says at a tea lounge at the House of Parliament.
In addition to the murder of 25-year-old Samaira Nazir, police have sought prosecutions in other honor killings. Heshu Yones, a 17-year-old of Kurdish ancestry, had her throat slit in 2002 for having a boyfriend; her father was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The body of Banaz Babakir Agha, a 20-year-old Londoner of Kurdish descent, was found in a suitcase last year after she ended her arranged marriage. Four men have been charged in connection to the crime.
U.K. Issue
"When I came here in 1996 I thought honor killings only happened in other countries," says Nammi, a Kurd who was born in Iran and also lived in Iraq. "I thought that with the better education and more freedom here, it wouldn't be a problem, but soon after I came here I found honor killings happening here."
Blair said in his London speech that the government may back the latest proposal to ban forced marriages.
Cryer says that it may also be necessary to review the very language used to describe the horrors facing those caught in community-sanctioned violence.
The Labour lawmaker says such violence has nothing to do with honor. "I think it is a pack of lies," Cryer says. "It is about men controlling women."
