Raped by brothers, killed by mother

[L@mplighterM]

Another 'honor' victim: Daughter, raped by brothers, killed by mother


Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Nov. 14, 2003 12:20 PM


ABU QASH, West Bank - Rofayda Qaoud - raped by her brothers and impregnated - refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.

Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick.

Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."

The guilty brothers are in jail.

Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a three-judge panel on Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied.

Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem.

Poverty and war have exacerbated the problem, says Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a social work and criminology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an expert on violence against women.

"Men do not have any power except over women," she says.

Police in Israel investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years.

Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002 - up from five during the first half of 1999 - the last time such incidents were counted before the current Palestinian uprising began, according to the center's study.

But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaoud's case. Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her past research showed the likely number to be 15 times higher than the number of reported cases.

Legal authority on the West Bank has been weakened by Israel's military crackdown, and the growing influence of militant Islamic factions has led clans to dole out their own justice. "In this chaotic situation, every man who thinks he knows a little bit of the Quran thinks honor issues are supposed to be resolved by killing," says Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who adds that leading Muslim clerics in Jerusalem and Jordan have denounced such killings.

Qaoud says her husband, Abdul Rahim, 52, told her the Quran forbade such killings. But neither his pleas nor those of Palestinian crisis counselors swayed her. "Why did she accept what happened to her?" Qaoud asks. "Even a wife can tell her husband 'no.' "

According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's three-room house. On Nov. 26, 2002, doctors at a nearby hospital who were treating Rofayda for an injured leg discovered she was eight months pregnant.

Palestinian authorities whisked her off to a women's shelter in Bethlehem, where she gave birth to a healthy boy on Dec. 23. He has since been adopted by another Palestinian family, court records show.

Rofayda, meanwhile, wanted to return to her parents in the Ramallah suburb of Abu Qash. Ramallah Gov. Mustafa Isa called a meeting with the family and village elders, demanding they pledge in writing not to harm the girl. "He asked me if everyone in the family and the village would promise not to bother this girl, but I told him I couldn't give him a guarantee," Abu Qash Mayor Faik Shalout says.

Rofayda returned home in late January without notifying the authorities.

The shame was unbearable, Qaoud said. Relatives and friends refused to speak to her family. Her elder daughters' husbands wouldn't allow them to visit because Rofayda had returned home.

On Jan. 27, Rofayda sent word that she was in danger to crisis counselors at Abu-Dayyeh's center in East Jerusalem. They, in turn, called Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash. The police said they couldn't get to the Qaoud home because of Israeli checkpoints.

Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Her three youngest children went to a cousin's house.

At 11:30 p.m. she killed Rofayda, court records show. Tarifi says he's convinced Qaoud had an accomplice, but Qaoud insists she acted alone.

Qaoud turned herself in and, after four months in jail, was released pending the resolution of her case.

While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment - for example, by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man - generally carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says. The fact she is a mother who was trying to protect her family's honor mitigates the crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under Palestinian law, he adds.

The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a relative, Tarifi says.

No trace of Rofayda or her brothers remains in the family home. Qaoud says she ripped up all of their photographs and burned their clothes. The bedroom in which she killed her daughter is now a storeroom.

Erasing the memories is harder, she admits. She eases her pain by doting on her three children still living at home, especially the youngest, Fatima, 9, whom she lavishes with kisses. The children say they've forgiven Qaoud and return her affection.

"My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...ling14-ON.html

Here we go once again Islamic love at work. I would disagree with the father that the Koran doesn’t approve with such killings.

Anyone could argue that she somehow acted lewd and that certainly spells out that kind of punishment in the Koran.

[Ruth]

Iwill never understand this type of "honor"...how horrible.

[L@mplighterM]

Originally posted by Ruth
Iwill never understand this type of "honor"...how horrible.

I should hope you don’t understand and to tell you the truth, neither do I. How someone could take the life of his or her own child?

Honor killing is just something that Muslims do; it’s sort of like the Mayans sacrificing a virgin to some g_d in the name of religion. Ritual human killing has taken place throughout history and I suppose that all Muslims haven’t left their savage ways in the past.

[NewsGuy]

This type of story shows a very important reality that is usually ignored by the media.

When the media reports on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it almost always portrays the Palestinians as "regular folks" who happen to be oppressed. It's presented as if there's an equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian societies.

There is not.

In fact, Palestinian society, like most Arab societies, is based on a primitive and often evil culture of hatred and murder. Violence is glorified, massacres applauded, mutilation of other human beings is acceptable, and murder of one's children is considered honorable.

Notice the murdering mother's statement that "she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would."

[L@mplighterM]

There never will be equivalence (I like that word) between the two societies their reasoning is as distinct as day and night and will remain so way beyond my lifetime.

As I was driving today I looked at the skyscrapers touching the sky and thought about all the technological advances that have been made during the last century. My thought shifted to the savage world of Islam where life is worthless and I realized that if there’s ever going to be change they have to change their extremely fanatic ways.

Will that happen? I doubt it!

Wherever Muslims go a certain percentage are fundamentalists that take their murderous ways with them. One significant difference between Jews and Christians versus Muslims is that the former don’t follow the Torah or the Old Testament as they were written, there are amendments.

Fundamentalist or fanatic Muslims do justify their behavior based on the Koran and that’s largely why they behave the way they do. In other words what is written in their holy book is written there, no buts or ifs.

[Kev]

Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem

Cultural relativism.
Isnt this what these Peace groups are often known for when it suits their agendas?

US invasion of Iraq, etc?

A cultural relativist is one who says that one culture (e.g., the U.S.) has no right dictating their values to another culture (e.g., African nations that practice female circumcision) because what one culture "believes" is wrong is not necessarily wrong, since that other culture believes it is right.

"In this chaotic situation, every man who thinks he knows a little bit of the Quran … thinks honor issues are supposed to be resolved by killing,"

It sounds as if to me that there are already FAR to many men that think they know a little bit about the Quran.
Funny how they can rationlize killing Jews, but not their own by the Quran.

[L@mplighterM]

Originally posted by Kev
Funny how they can rationlize killing Jews, but not their own by the Quran.

Actually they do rationalize killing their own according to the Koran.

[Frans_1]

Originally posted by NewsGuy
In fact, Palestinian society, like most Arab societies, is based on a primitive and often evil culture of hatred and murder. Violence is glorified, massacres applauded, mutilation of other human beings is acceptable, and murder of one's children is considered honorable.

Notice the murdering mother's statement that "she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would."

And they like themselves just the way they are. Other than that they don't have everything they want. Which is to say.....

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Frans_1
And they like themselves just the way they are. Other than that they don't have everything they want. Which is to say.....

Every time I see a story of ‘honor killing’ posted, I want to scream obscenities, and sometimes I do just that. It is all so damn malevolent, irrational, and immoral… and so forth: are these people truly human? I truly believe, they do not warrant to be called ‘human’.

[wellofvow]

Originally posted by L@mplighterM
Another 'honor' victim: Daughter, raped by brothers, killed by mother


Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem.

Poverty and war have exacerbated the problem, says Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a social work and criminology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an expert on violence against women.

Police in Israel investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years.

Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002 - up from five during the first half of 1999 - the last time such incidents were counted before the current Palestinian uprising began, according to the center's study.

But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaoud's case. Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her past research showed the likely number to be 15 times higher than the number of reported cases.

Legal authority on the West Bank has been weakened by Israel's military crackdown, and the growing influence of militant Islamic factions has led clans to dole out their own justice.

According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's three-room house. On Nov. 26, 2002, doctors at a nearby hospital who were treating Rofayda for an injured leg discovered she was eight months pregnant.

On Jan. 27, Rofayda sent word that she was in danger to crisis counselors at Abu-Dayyeh's center in East Jerusalem. They, in turn, called Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash. The police said they couldn't get to the Qaoud home because of Israeli checkpoints.

Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Her three youngest children went to a cousin's house.

"My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."

Of course, this demonstrates very well what a primitive society the PA is. How else could it have been so thoroughly brainwashed and robbed by Arafat for so long? And even now, they think he is next to Allah.

I think it pretty strange that a mother who is so very concerned with her female daughter's chastity didn't notice that said girl was 8 months pregnant!

Also, anyone notice how several times blame is subtly shifted to Israel? As in, the police claimed that they couldn't get through "Israeli roadblocks" to get to the family house, but the murderous mom sent her husband and children to neighboring villages....

And 9 year old Fatima loves her mother much more now than before she killed her older sister? That really got my stomach churning.

[andak01]

Originally posted by L@mplighterM
While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment - for example, by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man - generally carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says.

So these crimes, which are identical to crimes committed by American Christians everyday, go under the heading and into the statistics for "Honor Killings". No wonder the numbers are so high!

Not too many years ago in parts of America, the police looked the other way in circumstances like that.

But this article admits, first that the Palestinian courts give these people prison time, as they would in this country, and second that the Islamic clerics speak out against such acts, as I assume Christian clerics speak out against incest, rape and murder.

The fact she is a mother who was trying to protect her family's honor mitigates the crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under Palestinian law, he adds.

Here's the big difference, the sentencing, not whether it is legal or not, it is not.

The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a relative, Tarifi says.

And how would this compare with a similar crime in America?

"My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."

And how about the father, the one who truely defended the meaning of the Quran and told her not to do such a dasterdly act?

Here we go once again Islamic love at work. I would disagree with the father that the Koran doesn’t approve with such killings.

I think that says more about you than it does about the Quran.

[L@mplighterM]

Originally posted by andak01
So these crimes, which are identical to crimes committed by American Christians everyday, go under the heading and into the statistics for "Honor Killings". No wonder the numbers are so high!

Not too many years ago in parts of America, the police looked the other way in circumstances like that.

But this article admits, first that the Palestinian courts give these people prison time, as they would in this country, and second that the Islamic clerics speak out against such acts, as I assume Christian clerics speak out against incest, rape and murder.



Here's the big difference, the sentencing, not whether it is legal or not, it is not.



And how would this compare with a similar crime in America?



And how about the father, the one who truely defended the meaning of the Quran and told her not to do such a dasterdly act?



I think that says more about you than it does about the Quran.

Last time we discussed killing and the Koran you put your tail between your legs and ran away. I'm ready to show the passages in the Koran that can be used to support honor killings. I think you must have a Torah or Old Testament version of the Koran.

As bad as western societies can be, I've rarely read anything similar to this article in my lifetime.

[andak01]

Originally posted by L@mplighterM
I'm ready to show the passages in the Koran that can be used to support honor killings.

Be my guest. If taken sufficiently out of context, there are passages that support just about everything.

[jewbyc]

Originally posted by andak01
So these crimes, which are identical to crimes committed by American Christians everyday, go under the heading and into the statistics for "Honor Killings". No wonder the numbers are so high!

Not too many years ago in parts of America, the police looked the other way in circumstances like that.

But this article admits, first that the Palestinian courts give these people prison time, as they would in this country, and second that the Islamic clerics speak out against such acts, as I assume Christian clerics speak out against incest, rape and murder.



Here's the big difference, the sentencing, not whether it is legal or not, it is not.



And how would this compare with a similar crime in America?



And how about the father, the one who truely defended the meaning of the Quran and told her not to do such a dasterdly act?



I think that says more about you than it does about the Quran.

Excuses!!!!!! ALL YOU EVER DO IS MAKE EXCUSES

[andak01]

Originally posted by jewbyc
Excuses!!!!!! ALL YOU EVER DO IS MAKE EXCUSES

Excuses for what? Anyone who commits such a crime deserves to be in prison or executed. That's exactly what we do in America when people rape and kill. That's what they have done in this case as well.

If a member of a religion commits such an attrocity, then the clergy should speak out against it. According to the article, that's what local Muslim clerics have done. So where am I making excuses.

"In this chaotic situation, every man who thinks he knows a little bit of the Quran thinks honor issues are supposed to be resolved by killing," says Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who adds that leading Muslim clerics in Jerusalem and Jordan have denounced such killings.

How can you condemn a society that condemns such things and imprisons the perpetrators? Don't we have honor killings in our own society when a man walks in on his wife with another man?