'We feel no shame' - the brothers who killed their sister for honour

[barb162]

Tragic tale highlights scale of beatings and murder of women in countryside

Declan Walsh in Donga Bonga, Pakistan
Wednesday February 7, 2007
The Guardian

Shackled together at the wrist, the two brothers awaited their fate at the lonely jail in Donga Bonga, a cotton-farming backwater near Pakistan's sealed border with India.

They were poor men, barefoot farm labourers with pinched cheeks and calloused hands. But when they spoke, their bloodshot eyes flashed with cold steel. Four days earlier Muhammad Aslam, 35, and Maqbool Ahmed, 40, had killed their younger sister and her lover. It was a crude, gruesome death: the pair were battered with a brick and strangled with an old rope. But the killers expressed not an ounce of remorse.
"We feel no shame. They had been warned," said Aslam, a slightly built father of eight. "We did it for honour," said Ahmed defiantly. "In our society a man without honour is nothing."

A man's pride exacts a high price in hidebound rural Pakistan. Almost every day a woman is beaten, clubbed or shot to death for what is euphemistically termed "adultery" - sex outside marriage. In most cases the killer is a father, brother or uncle.

snip
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2007384,00.html

[Adelante]

1. I can't stand this stuff

:mad:

[barb162]

3. Nor I

[Art_from_Ark]

5. I wonder if they still hit women over the head with their clubs

and drag them by the hair to their caves

[barb162]

7. This story is another version of that noise

[Skittles]

2. brainwashed sick religious freaks

it's the same thinking of suicide bombers

[barb162]

4. Yes they are

And did you see this one sentence buried in the article:
"An incident last week in which a woman was gang-raped and paraded half-naked through her village brought fresh revulsion."

It's 2007 (!) and this disgusting stuff is happening

[Cobalt-60]

6. They're truly worthy allies

For the Bush Crime Family!

[SharonAnn]

8. Can't understand how "their honor" is dependent on her.

[Bobbieo]

9. If they keep killing off their women like that

pretty soon no more Pakistani and it's all in the name of religion!!!

[rpannier]

13. The Great Chain of Being Theory

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

In a traditional family structure, the sins of one member shame the whole family. A criminal act committed by one member often falls on the whole family.

It's still fairly common throughout the world today.
You just don't see it in the west and in many places it's not that extreme.

[Bobbieo]

15. This chain is defined by the culture of the people -

in our culture the sins of the male are also reflected on the family.

[rpannier]

16. Yes

You are correct

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. I once had a discussion about this with a Middle Eastern man

His excuse was that a Muslim woman would not be "unchaste" unless she was out of her mind. When she realized what she had done, she would be so remorseful that she would commit suicide anyway for the "honor" of the family, and her male relatives were just sparing her the trouble.

I asked him if a family would kill a son who visited a prostitute.

He started stammering around.

[msongs]

10. fear is used to keep the women subservient - aint religion wonderful? nt

[Solo_in_MD]

11. The Sharia strikes again

and its not just limited to Pakistan...

[1620rock]

12. I hope this incident doesn't give the religiously insane in this...

...country any ideas. :puke:

[Bobbieo]

14. Whether these idiots understand it or not,

this is a subtle form of population control.

[Solo_in_MD]

17. I am more worried about Indonesia, Syria, and other places where Whabbi Islam is practiced

Based on my personal experience, the muslim fundies are much worse that the xtian fundies. Been There, Done That, Lived There. Some lump them together and fail to realize that breadth and depth of evil that is Whabbi Islam and its hard line Sharia approach.

Falwell is a PITA and Phelps disgusting, but they haven't stoned anyone recently. When xtian fundies get out of line a large number of other xtians rise up to publicly and vociferously disagree. The Assembly of God members don't riot and kill over cartoons. The voices of peace and reason in Islam are few and faint, at times in fear of their lives. Yes the xtian wing nuts have killed people here, but islamic fundies kill women for "honor" and commit other atrocities on a daily basis. I don't recall the last time the Baptists raided an Mormon neighborhood to kill and kidnap people. Sunni and Shias are killing each other daily in the ME. There are indeed degrees of bad.

Putting all things we disagree with or find disagreeable in the same box and considering them equivalent is intellectually dishonest. Not to be willing to look at and analyze the vast difference in risk and impact is abdication of adult responsibilities.

If such words upset people...so be it.

[LaBanty]

19. Amen!

[LaBanty]

18. Muslim Fundies

Pretty scary bunch of freaks. And more and more in places in the US groups of Fundie Muslims are demanding their ways be tolerated, excused, or otherwise made into (their own set of) law(s). They absolutely can't stand criticism or scrutiny. Take off the blinders and read the papers in the US and worldwide - this ain't anything new within the society of the truest of true believers.

Religion of Peace my ass. A Fundie is a Fundie is a Fundie. These just happen to be hyperviolent Fundies.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. Yes and no.

The Muslim lunatic fringe is both even more lunatic and much less fringe than their opposite numbers in other major religions, but they are still a fringe.

The majority of Muslims would be as revolted by this as you and I.

That said, I do worry about the extent to which many DUers are willing to leap to the defence of Islam - most forms of Islam *are* deeply unpleasant and conservative, and the ones that aren't tend to be fairly heterodox ones.

[necklace]

22. This is not a woman's right issue; this is a human rights issue!

While it can be argued that this is part of the culture, these are clearly crimes against humanity! As I see it, the only justification for killing someone is to protect your life/well-being or the life/well-being of someone in imminent danger.

This has nothing to do with the Islamic faith. This is taking the teachings of Allah, and twisting them to justify whatever crime it is you want to commit.

[noamnety]

23. Wow, that post made me sad

I'm not sure how to process that - I feel like I've been on a roadtrip that's taken weeks and months and years, and now I see we haven't even gotten out of the driveway yet.

Yes, when we talk about fighting for women's rights, we are talking about human rights.