(Bit of a read, but it is a well executed piece of journalism)
Rueters (UK): "A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an "honor killing" carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.
Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house.
Her badly decomposed body was found in April 2006, three months after the killing.
Last month a jury found her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari Mahmod, 51, guilty of murder after a three-month trial. Their associate Mohamad Hama, 30, had earlier admitted killing her.
...
Prosecutors said the three convicted men, along with two other suspects who are still at large, had carried out the killing fearing that the authorities were closing in on them.
They believed Banaz had brought shame on the family by leaving her husband, an Iraqi Kurd she had been forced to marry at 17, and falling in love with Rahmat Suleimani, an Iranian Kurd.
Her former unnamed partner had raped her as well as repeatedly beating her, the court heard."
And so you believe a young woman, who was forced to marry at the fragging ripe old age of 17, who left her coerced husband, who abused & beat her, to live with a man who she was in love with.
Ya know, in the western society, we have a thing called freedom. And the laws of the old world don't carry over to our society. Marriage should not be a forced decision, and that is final.
So she brought dishonor to her family by leaving, and so the solution? Brutally rape and then kill her.
And to top off the offenses, we have this recording from one of the men in prison, talking to a fellow convict.
""I was kicking and stamping on her neck to get the soul out. I saw her stark naked, only wearing pants or underwear," Hama is recorded as saying."
A religion of peace? This is not the first instance of an 'honor killing', nor unfortunately will it be the last in the free world. Just remember this young woman, Banaz Mahmod, next time you hear a politician refer to Islam as a Religion of Peace.
Posts
8 comments:
Read this article myself a couple of days ago. Disgusted to read about the bragging that went on in jail, but glad to read that these men are being prosecuted. Hopefully to the fullest extent of the law. (And therefore a lesson to the rest of them!)
wow.
you,a christian, merely disregarding the fact that she was living in sin while still married to another man?
this is, after all, the crux of the matter.
gino, does her living in sin somehow justify raping and killing her? I agree that she shouldn't have committed adultery, but the answer is not violence.
no, of coures not.
i've seen this posted on many blogs, and its all the same.
the sin is the reason.
not the love.
but they all leave that out.
in arabic culture, family honor is a primary value.
if thsi gal wasnt punished for flauting standards, her family would be seen as what we would call 'white trash'.
the family image follows you everywhere, even in business and employment, dating and looking for a spouse... you name it.
not saying it is right.
it just is.
and its not a muslim thing, its a arab thing.
but leaving out key facts in an effort to 'score points' against islam is patently dishonest, on an issue that isnt even islamic/religious but in fact cultural, which transcends any faith.
i can defeat islam on facts.
lies and distortions are not only not necessary, it is the equivilant of lowring yourself to them.
Gino, I'm confused. If you can identify where I erred factually, please point them out. I was careful not to overstate the situation, although I will admit it has been a very long time since I was so angry writing a post.
Is a forced marriage really a marriage? I understood that consent was required on both sides for the contract to be valid.
Charisse and Nate, hello.
first error: honor killing is anti-islamic and anti-koran. any muslim you meet in TX can tell you that. or a google search of sites that discuss honor killing.
arranged marriages are as islamic as they are christian. christians do it also, and have done it extensivley in the days of old europe.
of course, the bride must freely take the vows, and publically attest to the marriage. but sometimes, as in christian europe, social norms dictated a 'yes'.
if she was married by imam, she said yes to the imam.
this 'yes' was public, wether she wanted to do it or not, she willfully married the man.
and you left out: it wasnt her leaving the marriage that dishonored the family. is her taking up a life of sin.
her wanting out didnt get her killed. she was killed for swapping fluids with a man she wasnt married to.
as for validity of consent: being a catholic(likely the only one on your blog), we/i have a complex, yet simple, standard for validity of marriage. but we also view marriage differently than you do, also.
much of what decides validity can be a grey area when cultural and society norms are taken into the equation,making a black/white delineation difficult.
what may make a marriage nullable in western europe wont fly in jeruselam.
so the whole 'picture' sometimes needs to looked at rather just a few key actions.
anyway...
back to the arab gal: legalistically: she was bound in marriage, and would need to take her case up with an imam if she wanted out of it.
just keep in mind: she wasnt killed for being an unhappy wife. she was killed for being a joyful mistress.
and you totally left this point out of your post, prefering instead to post about the bad side of islam, when this bad stuff wasnt even a part of the religeon of islam, but outside of it.
dont get me wrong.
i'm not attacking you.
what i'm trying to do is explain that not all things muslims do are dictated by islam.
as christians in honest competition for the hearts of the God fearing and God loving, we need to be honest and informed about what it is we are combating, and the errors contained within.
we have a better product. of course, a muslim will say the same of his faith. i dialogue with muslims on a regular basis, and they love the Lord, and all humanity, as much as any christian.
stories such as these serve only to foment hatred and misundertsanding towards muslims and islam. i think the Lord is better served when we can speak to each other on the same plane of respect, eye to eye, in the name of the God we both love, though we may understand his will differently.
if you dont approach the muslim as his friend, he'll never listen to your message.
and what good would be served then?
keep the doors open, and you may reach somebody.
Point taken and recieved. I'll keep it in mind next time I post in this arena.
Post a Comment