Hundreds of Germans Protest Honor Killings in Their Communities

[struggle4progress]

Hundred of protesters marched through Berlin's Turkish community at the beginning of March to protest the rise in so-called honor killings. The protesters called for an end to forced marriages, more protection for women against domestic violence, and an end to using multiculturalism as an excuse for ignoring problems within immigrant communities, such as the Turkish community, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine.

On February 2, a 23-year-old Turkish mother, Hatin Surucu, was killed by multiple bullet wounds in the head and chest in her neighborhood. Her own three brothers, ages 25, 24, and 18, were arrested six days after the attack and remain in custody.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Surucu was the sixth Muslim woman to have been killed by relatives to protect their “honor” in Berlin since October. Human rights organizations report that there have been 45 honor killings in Germany since 1996.

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=8963

[joeybee12]

1. Unbelievable...

..what do you say to that kind of mentality?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. My one encounter with that kind of mentality came

when I was at the University of Hawaii's East-West Center nearly 30 years ago.

I was part of a conversation with a young man from Sudan who was insisting that Islam didn't discriminate against women; it just gave them a different role.

I brought up the subject of honor killings, and his line was that a woman who violated the rules on chastity or who put herself in a position where she could be raped was not in her right mind, but if she WERE in her right mind, she would be so ashamed that she would commit suicide. Therefore, the family members who killed her were actually performing a mercy killing to save the woman the shame she would feel when she came to her senses.

:crazy:

I then asked him, "Does Islam approve of men visiting prostitutes?"

He assured me most emphatically that it did not.

"So if a father would kill his daughter just for flirting with a man, would he also kill his son for actually having sex with a prostitute?"

"Oh, no, of course not!" He was rather flustered at the question.

"Why not?" I asked. When he didn't answer, I said, "Could it be because men's lives are considered more important than women's lives?"

He mumbled something about having to write a paper and left the table.

[_TJ_]

2. This is just atavistic barbarism

Time to go to jail guys...

[MollyStark]

3. I hope the German women will embrace these Muslim women

and enocurage them to start respecting themselves and their rights, give them a soft place to land, so to speak.

[Senior citizen]

4. It happens here too, and not just among Moslems.

More commonly women considered to have dishonored or disgraced their families here were "put away" instead of being killed, but since Reagan emptied the nuthouses, they're usually just kicked out of their homes.

Teenage girls in this country who come from strict religious Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Mormon, and other patriarchal families, who are suspected of having sex with or simply flirting with a boy, or dressing "inappropriately" are called sluts and kicked out. Once homeless, with no means of support, they frequently have no choice but to turn to prostitution. And the upstanding male pillars of their community who enforce such barbaric standards, are their best customers.

Women whose boyfriends or husbands believe that they have cheated, flirted, or dressed inappropriately, are sometimes kicked out of their homes, but more often are beaten, and sometimes killed.

Patriarchal religions tend to consider sex unclean, women unclean, and killing to be God's glorious holy work to honor His name.

Family values is code for the subjugation of women and child molestation. Women and children who are not properly subordinate and obedient, must be punished.

It isn't them and there. It is here and it is us. It is everywhere. It is called patriarchy, and whether overt or subtle, it is still the same old chattel slavery. Even when the enforcement of chattel slavery doesn't end in death, but merely in "domestic violence," that doesn't make it a Moslem problem or a foreign problem. Look at the statistics of women murdered in this country, and you'll find that they are usually killed by a husband or boyfriend. We don't call those honor killings, but more often than not that's exactly what they are.

Saying that these women are victims of domestic violence or jealous boyfriends instead of victims of honor killings, doesn't make them any less dead, or dead for any different reasons. Wherever females are considered to be property of their parents until they marry, and property of their husband's thereafter, honor killings, i.e., the murder of females seeking freedom and equality, exist.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Having worked with street kids, I know that what you say is true

Girls are thrown out of the house for getting pregnant or (as in the case of one Hmong girl) for refusing as a 14-year-old to marry an older man chosen by her parents. They are thrown out for being lesbians or because their parents simply don't want them.

[Triana]

13. Senior Citizen, I'm bookmarking this thread for your post...

...thanks for putting it so well. I've struggled to find the right way to explain why patriarchy and patriarchal religions and societies are unacceptable. You found the words I could not. Thanks.

[TomPaine77]

7. Germany Is Also the Worst Sex Slave Nation....

Of the estimated 400,000 prostitutes in Germany 60-70% are estimated to be sex slaves, mostly from impoverished Eastern Europe, being held against their will, and raped beaten and tortured on a daily basis. This is the highest total in any industrialized nation. The Turkish mafia is heavily involved in this trade, with the knowledge and connivance of the heavily corrupt German government. The Turkish mobs also ship so many E. Euro sex slaves to Turkey that Turkish men largely just have sex with the slaves-"Natashas"-instead of Turkish women, and enraged Turkish women use motor vehicles to commit hit-and-run vehicle homicides against Slavic and Romanian women forced by their violent pimps to stand by the roadside and sell themselves to strangers. For more, see Viktor Malarek's book "The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade".

[Kellanved]

8. I'd like to see the basis to your claim that the legalization is at fault

As you seem to be a one-issue poster. Your numbers are clearly very funky. There are 400,000 registered prostitutes in Germany, so where does the "estimated" come from? Then the 60%-70% are questionable; the EU-wide number of East European women forced is currently estimated at 200,000.
Yes, that's by 200,000 higher than it should be.


Anyway; the traditional German position was to call prostitution "sittenwidrig" - "immoral". The perversity of that legal construction is, that prostitution was de-facto legal, while leaving prostitutes with no rights.

The current - rather new - legalized situation allows access to police, courts, social security, healthcare and unions. The hope is that this will help solving the slave trade problem - ironically the move also drew the attention of the American moral watchers.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpgray]

10. How does any of what you've said show that legalization is the problem?

I think that all the above poster is trying to say is that legalization allows more access to medical care, courts and the like. Not that sex slavery is great. :hi:

[Kellanved]

11. look,

I avoid such areas and do not frequent places associated with that inhumane industry.

My simple point is: legalization is a mean to make things better, not worse. The real problem was the half-legal de-facto legalization Germany had until 2001 (allowed, but no legal standing whatsoever).

Every woman forced is one too many; there can be no doubt about it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Herr Kellanved,

I cannot recall having ever met a person with more restraint than yourself.

Had I been the target of such slanderous (or is it libelous), rabid, unhinged insults, I'd be much less polite.

:thumbsup:

[Kipling]

14. Only because it borders much poorer nations.