Religions > Bible > islam, the peaceful religion strikes again - 12/28/05
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Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" |
| Date: |
28 Dec 2005 10:06:49 PM |
| Object: |
islam, the peaceful religion strikes again - 12/28/05 |
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/pakistan.honor.ap/index.html
why couldn't an all-powerful creator save the children?
MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) -- Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he
recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their
25-year old stepsister to salvage his family's "honor" -- a crime that
shocked Pakistan.
The 40-year old laborer, speaking to The Associated Press in police
detention as he was being shifted to prison, confessed to just one regret --
that he didn't murder the stepsister's alleged lover, too.
Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives each year in this
conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said Wednesday such "honor
killings" will only stop when authorities get serious about punishing
perpetrators.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in more than
half of such cases that make it to court, most end with cash settlements
paid by relatives to the victims' families, although under a law passed last
year, the minimum penalty is 10 years, the maximum death by hanging.
Ahmed's actions -- witnessed by his wife, Rehmat Bibi, as she cradled their
3-month-old son -- happened Friday night at their home in the cotton-growing
village of Gago Mandi in eastern Punjab province.
It is the latest of more than 260 such honor killings documented by the
rights commission, mostly from media reports, during the first 11 months of
2005.
Bibi recounted how she was awakened by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the
mouth of his stepdaughter, Muqadas, and cut her throat with a machete. Bibi
looked helplessly on from the corner of the room as he then killed the three
girls -- Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4 -- pausing between the slayings
to brandish the bloodstained knife at his wife, warning her not to intervene
or raise alarm.
"I was shivering with fear. I did not know how to save my daughters," Bibi,
sobbing, told AP by phone from the village. "I begged my husband to spare my
daughters but he said, 'If you make a noise, I will kill you."'
"The whole night the bodies of my daughters lay in front of me," she said.
The next morning, Ahmed was arrested.
Speaking to AP from the back of a police pickup truck late Tuesday as he was
moved to a prison in the city of Multan, Ahmed showed no contrition.
Appearing disheveled but composed, he said he killed Muqadas because she had
committed adultery, and his daughters because he didn't want them to do the
same when they grew up.
He said he bought a butcher knife and a machete after midday prayers on
Friday and hid them in the house where he carried out the killings.
"I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so
they should be eliminated," he said, his hands cuffed, his face unshaven.
"We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor."
Despite Ahmed's contention that Muqadas had committed adultery -- a claim
made by her husband -- the rights commission reported that according to
local people, Muqadas had fled her husband because he had abused her and
forced her to work in a brick-making factory.
Police have said they do not know the identity or whereabouts of Muqadas'
alleged lover.
First marriage
Muqadas was Bibi's daughter by her first marriage to Ahmed's brother, who
died 14 years ago. Ahmed married his brother's widow, as is customary under
Islamic tradition.
"Women are treated as property and those committing crimes against them do
not get punished," said the rights commission's director, Kamla Hyat. "The
steps taken by our government have made no real difference."
Activists accuse President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a self-styled moderate
Muslim, of reluctance to reform outdated Islamized laws that make it
difficult to secure convictions in rape, acid attacks and other cases of
violence against women. They say police are often reluctant to prosecute,
regarding such crimes as family disputes.
Statistics on honor killings are confused and imprecise, but figures from
the rights commission's Web site and its officials show a marked reduction
in cases this year: 267 in the first 11 months of 2005, compared with 579
during all of 2004. The Ministry of Women's Development said it had no
reliable figures.
Ijaz Elahi, the ministry's joint secretary, said the violence was decreasing
and that increasing numbers of victims were reporting incidents to police or
the media. Laws, including one passed last year to beef up penalties for
honor killings, had been toughened, she said.
Police in Multan said they would complete their investigation into Ahmed's
case in the next two weeks and that he faces the death sentence if he is
convicted for the killings and terrorizing his neighborhood.
Ahmed, who did not resist arrest, was unrepentant.
"I told the police that I am an honorable father and I slaughtered my
dishonored daughter and the three other girls," he said. "I wish that I get
a chance to eliminate the boy she ran away with and set his home on fire."
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| User: "Melchizedek" |
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| Title: Re: islam, the peaceful religion strikes again - 12/28/05 |
29 Dec 2005 07:35:14 AM |
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"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <killgod@killgod.com> wrote in message
news:thJsf.11277$nm.9805@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
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