In Iraq, a story of rape, shame and 'honor killing'
Alaa al-Marjani / Associated Press

After prison guards assaulted an Iraqi woman, she turned to her brother for help. But he and society failed her.
By Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmed
April 23, 2009
Reporting from Baghdad -- Sometimes, it's the forbidden stories, the ones people are afraid to tell in full, the ones that emerge only in fragments, that reveal the truth about a place.

This is such a story.
It's being told now not because the complete truth is known, but because the story nags at those familiar with its outlines, and because it says as much about Iraq's progress as it does about Iraq's resistance to change.

This much is known:

A young woman imprisoned in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, sent a letter to her brother last summer, appealing for help. The woman, named Dalal, wrote that she was pregnant after being raped by prison guards.
The brother asked to visit her. Guards obliged. The brother walked into her cell, drew a gun and shot his visibly pregnant sister dead.

His goal: to spare his family the taint of a pregnancy out of wedlock, a disgrace in Iraq often averted through so-called honor killings of women by their relatives.

For prison guards, the killing was also a relief.

"They believed that her death would end the case," said a lab worker at Baghdad's central morgue, where the victim's body -- still carrying the 5-month-old fetus -- was sent.

The case might have ended there were it not for the morgue employee, who was determined to see those responsible held to account.

At the employee's insistence, lab workers using freshly acquired DNA-testing equipment drew a sample from the fetus. The prison guards were ordered to submit DNA samples and did so, apparently unaware of the sophistication of the morgue equipment and the people trained to use it.

"They thought we were incapable of figuring it out," said the morgue employee.

The DNA results showed that the father of the unborn baby was a police lieutenant colonel who reportedly supervised guards at the prison.

In another society, the scientific evidence would have led to arrests and prosecution. But this being Iraq, the power wielded by men in uniform and the belief that a raped woman is better off dead combined to cloud the truth.

Months passed after word leaked of the killing on a sweltering summer day. Just as it nagged at the morgue worker, it nagged at us. But how to tell a story that nobody wants told? Everyone had different, usually conflicting, versions of what had happened.

Only the morgue worker's story remained the same, repeated in phone calls and e-mails as summer turned to fall and then winter.

Then, it was time for one of us to leave Iraq. A colleague asked what the reporter's final story would be. There must be one after so long in the country, he insisted.

"Isn't there a story that got away?" he asked.

It became clear that this was it, even if we still didn't know the truth.

About the only thing anyone agrees on is that a young woman was murdered, and that her last days were spent pregnant and worrying about what would happen if she were released into a society that would condemn her for it.

According to a judge in the Tikrit court, the lieutenant colonel implicated by DNA and a police captain also accused in the case were arrested on rape charges but then released for lack of evidence. The judge said a third defendant, a police lieutenant, remained in custody. (It is not uncommon in Iraq for police officers to serve as prison guards and supervisors.)

Another Tikrit court official said the lieutenant colonel and captain remained in custody but were transferred from Tikrit to Baghdad. Col. Hatem Thabit, spokesman for the police in Salahuddin province, where the crime was committed, concurred with this account.
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Yet other accounts say the matter was settled through tribal justice. The clan of the accused lieutenant colonel paid the woman's family to drop charges, said some people in the area who are familiar with the case but fearful of discussing it openly.

The morgue worker said those involved in the lab testing understood that all three of the police officers were freed.

"I heard the dispute was solved by a tribal ransom," the employee said.
"The issue bothers me a lot. I'm doing my job, and the bad guys are getting back on the street."

There are conflicting reports on the brother's status. Some say he was jailed for killing his sister. Others say he was freed as part of the tribal deal.

As for the slain woman, several accounts say she was in prison not because she was a convicted or accused criminal, but because police wanted to question her brother about something. They thought he would turn himself in to free Dalal. Nobody has been able to explain why police wanted to talk to the brother.

The prison where she was held houses mainly men. There is a small section for female inmates, usually no more than a few at a time. A female guard is supposed to watch over them. No one could explain how the lieutenant colonel was able to do what he did.

Nor could anyone say how Dalal's brother got into her cell with a loaded gun.

"He was supposed to be searched," said Thabit, the police spokesman. "Where he got the weapon, we don't know."

In Iraq, violence against women is a festering but rarely addressed problem. There are no readily available statistics on "honor" killings. The number of rapes reported to police averages five to 10 per month for the entire country, said an official at Baghdad's central morgue, who released the first details of the Tikrit case last summer.

"The actual number of rapes is actually more than we know. There are so many rapes in the prisons, for example," he added before going on to cite the Tikrit case to an Iraqi working for The Times. Realizing he was discussing a case not intended for public consumption, the official urged the reporter not to translate the facts for his English-speaking colleague.

But minutes later, another morgue official and then the lab worker confirmed the case. All asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs.

Other workers interviewed during a daylong visit to the morgue, where rape victims are examined, said they had detected an increase in violent crimes against women since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion ushered in a religious conservatism and brought social and economic upheaval.

Most are honor killings, said one morgue employee, who a day earlier had received the body of a pregnant woman with her throat slit.

Human rights advocates say many of these homicides are made to look like honor killings to gain leniency for the perpetrators.

"It's a lot worse now," said Ibtisam Hamody Azzawi, a former engineer who runs a small aid organization for abused women from her home in Baghdad.

"Our society witnessed so much war, and this is reflected in the domestic abuse situation.

"Everything is violence. Even the kids love war," said Azzawi, whose husband, a university dean, was killed by extremists in 2007.

Much of her time is spent answering knocks on her door or phone calls from women looking for an escape from abusive homes. People find her by word of mouth. She does not tell her neighbors what she does, lest extremists attack her or one of her daughters.

Iraq has no shelters for battered or threatened women, and the war has splintered and displaced families who might have taken in female relatives. Amid the turmoil, homicide has become an easy out for husbands wanting to end their marriages, Azzawi said. It's cheaper than divorce.

"Women get killed, but often it is reported that they are missing," she said. "It's all part of the chaos. Some husbands kill their wives and say maybe she was kidnapped, maybe she died in a bombing.

"A husband and wife will have domestic problems. All of a sudden, the wife will disappear."

At the women's prison in Tikrit, Saturday is visiting day. On a summer Saturday, a brother came to see his sister, her stomach swelling with her unborn child.

She trusted him.

tina.susman@latimes.com

Susman recently returned to the U.S. after a two-year tour in Iraq. Times staff writers Usama Redha and Ned Parker in Baghdad, and special correspondents in Samarra and Tikrit contributed to this report.
[source In Iraq, a story of rape, shame and 'honor killing', Alaa al-Marjani / Associated Press, and By Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmed, April 23, 2009, Los Angeles Times, retrieved fromhttp://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-iraq-w....?track=ntothtml on 4/23/2009]

To learn more, check out the following:

[1]http://religioustruths.proboards59.com/ An Educational Referral Forum

[2]http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209 A Forum Devoted to Exposing The False Religion of Islam

[3]http://jude3.proboards92.com/ A Free-Speech Forum For All

[4]http://www.freewebs.com/iris_the_preacher My web site.

Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Here is more on the actions of members of the wicked false religion of Islam and honor murder:

Murder of One's Daughter Tacitly Approved by Islam,

The World News proves that Islam even tacitly approves of murdering your daughter if she gets raped, can you imagine? Why penalize the victim? Let's look at the evidence.

<<"Turkey works to stop 'honor' killings <br> The government, under pressure from feminists and the European Union, responds at a level unheard of in the Islamic world.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writer
January 9, 2007
DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY - Desperately unhappy, 21-year-old Sahe Fidan left the husband she despised and sought refuge in her parents' home. They refused to take her in. A married woman can leave her husband only in a coffin, they told her.

Fidan returned to the husband, and she left him in a coffin. A few weeks ago, she was found hanged in the bathroom, her infant son strapped to her back with a sheet.

Her corpse was discovered when the baby, unharmed, began to cry. Fidan had committed suicide.

Or had she?

After her death in a village in southeastern Turkey, another version circulated. Some activists and officials suspect that Fidan may have joined the ranks of Turkish women forced to kill themselves, or whose slayings are disguised to look self-inflicted.

The killing of women and girls by male relatives who think the females have brought shame to the family's honor is an atrocity that has plagued Turkey and other Islamic countries for generations. Thousands of women have died, been attacked or compelled to commit suicide in so-called honor killings.

In Turkey, the government has finally taken action. Under pressure from an invigorated women's movement and eager to win approval from the European Union, the government has launched a major campaign against honor killings, at a level and with a breadth virtually unheard of in the Islamic world.

Turkish imams have joined pop music stars and soccer celebrities to produce TV spots and billboard ads condemning all forms of violence against women. Broaching a topic that remains largely taboo in many conservative societies, the nation's top Islamic authority has declared honor killing a sin.

Late last year, jail sentences for men and boys who commit the crime were stiffened, and new provisions in the penal code make it harder for a court to reduce sentences. (As recently as 10 months ago, in a typical case, the life sentence of a young man who had killed his sister was substantially reduced because the judges decided he had been "provoked." He had buried her up to her neck in rocks after she was impregnated in a rape.)

In cities and towns with the highest honor killing rates, officials working with advocacy groups are holding town hall meetings and setting up rescue teams and hotlines for endangered women and girls.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of a conservative, Islamist-rooted party, went before a gathering of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in November to argue for better treatment of women and to condemn honor killings as a scourge that must be eradicated from Islamic societies.

"We can say these murders are isolated incidents, yet we cannot turn a blind eye to such inhuman acts that are largely the product of ignorance," he said. "Discrimination against women is worse than racism. We must reject the treatment of women as second-class beings."

The challenge is enormous: fighting archaic customs based not so much on religion as on deep-seated tradition and feudal clan systems.

Many of the experts, social workers and officials involved speak of a new era of openness and willingness to confront the problem, but they caution that it will be a long time before attitudes are changed. There is no indication that the number of killings or forced suicides has dropped, though advocates say they feel they now have a better arsenal.

"On paper, we seem to have achieved a lot," Fatma Sahin, a lawmaker with the ruling party who oversaw the drafting of a 300-page report on honor killings, said in an interview in Ankara, the capital. "But when we go out into the field, we recognize that a lot more needs to be done."

A significant segment of the Turkish population defines all-important honor in terms of the chastity and obedience of each female member of a family. As "owners" of women, men must defend honor by safeguarding their bodies and sexuality.

In a United Nations poll conducted last year, 17% of Turkish men said they approved of honor killing. Many more approved of lesser punishments, one of the most common being the slicing off of a woman's nose.

Such attitudes persist in many segments of the Turkish population, especially in the Kurdish southeast. But local activism in behalf of women is also flourishing.

"This is a part of the country where it is not accepted that women work or travel, where they are not valued as individuals," said Canan Hancer Basturk, deputy governor of Diyarbakir. "But girls see the other side, modern Turkey, on TV or in the media, and with the rise in literacy, people's expectations are rising.

"So they want to break out of their shells, and that's where the clash comes between girls and their families, and for some boys too," she said. " 'Honor' is another way of clinging to values and resisting change."

Alarmed by the soaring number of women seeking help, the Diyarbakir government opened the region's first proper shelter for abused women in 2005.

Behind a metal gate on the forlorn northern outskirts of the city, the low-slung complex houses about 50 women. Its location is discreet and, theoretically at least, kept secret out of fear of attack by angry relatives. (The Times was given access on the condition that the women's names not be published.)

One resident was a tall, fair 16-year-old who said her father had ordered her to kill herself.

He had arranged for her marriage to a man she wanted nothing to do with, and she went along at first, long enough to become pregnant. Then she left her husband, hoping to join her true love. But he had married someone else. She returned to her parents' home.

Incensed, her father labeled her damaged goods and gave her a single option: suicide.

She fled to the police and was placed in the shelter, where she gave birth.

Many residents of the shelter were young, in their teens or early 20s, and had been raped; several were toting babies, the product of the rapes. A woman who is raped is often blamed for the crime and risks punishment, even death, at the hands of her relatives. Sometimes she is given the "option" of marrying her rapist, on the theory that no one else will want her and that the marriage wipes away the shame.

Only one of the rape victims interviewed said she thought she could go home again. "My parents know it wasn't my fault," she said. The woman was at the shelter under court order because the rapist was loose and considered a threat.

Sacide Akkaya, an official with KA-MER, the leading women's organization in southeastern Turkey, has seen a progression in the women she works with, from a resignation to violence as a part of their hard lives to a timid but growing willingness to challenge the status quo. It enables social workers to save more people, she said.

"I wouldn't say the volume of incidents has been reduced, but it is less secret now," Akkaya said. "The relatives of the women are often the ones who will tip off authorities, or maybe the neighbors will call. Even the men are starting to get it - many of the tipsters are men. That's what gives us so much hope."

Among the hundreds of honor killings in Turkey, it is impossible to quantify the forced suicides. A special U.N. rapporteur, Yakin Erturk, was dispatched to the country's south last year to investigate a rash of suicides. She concluded that some probably had been "instigated" and cited a host of contributing factors: forced and early marriages, denial of reproductive rights, poverty, migration and displacement, among others.

Victims say they've been ordered by relatives to kill themselves, locked in rooms with a gun or rope, watched over while they were expected to slit their wrists. The infraction can be as slight as a desire to work or the wearing of jeans, the sentence often decided in a family council.

Handan Coskun, a former journalist, started a women's center in Diyarbakir in response to suicides she began investigating several years ago, when the rate in southeastern Turkey was two to three times the national rate. There were dozens of cases, many not related to honor issues. One consistency was that far more females committed or attempted suicide than males, which is the opposite of the worldwide pattern.

Women typically feel isolation or alienation more acutely than men, Coskun said, especially if the family has been transplanted from its rural village to a city. Tens of thousands of families, primarily Kurds, were forced to move into southeastern cities during the Turkish army's fight against Kurdish guerrillas in the 1980s and '90s.

At not quite 5 feet tall, Coskun has had to shout down angry fathers as she rescued women and girls, or gone toe-to-toe with 17 armed clansmen who invaded her office looking for their female relative. She believes she and her team have prevented 17 killings in the last year.

"When we intervene with a family that seems likely to kill a daughter, we have to be very tough to show the same toughness that the family shows," she said.

Turkey's failure to improve the status of women has long been one of the impediments to its integration into Europe. Outsiders are watching to see whether the latest steps will bring real change.

"There is no evidence yet that we are changing the mentality," said Meltem Agduk, a Turkish expert on honor killings who works with the U.N. "The important thing is that people are not so quiet about the issue. And because of that, change will be more rapid than it has in the past.">>>.

This definitely is not in keeping with what Jesus (Yeshua) said at Matthew 22:37-40, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Authorized King James Bible; AV) .

And here is more on Muslim's feelings about women's rights - lack thereof:

Afghan leader accused of bid to 'legalise rape'
UN and women MPs say Karzai bowed to Islamic fundamentalists before poll
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Afghan women wearing burqas. Critics say President Hamid Karzai rushed through discriminatory legislation to appease fundamentalists
Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which "legalises" rape, women's groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.
In a massive blow for women's rights, the new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman's right to leave the home, according to UN papers seen by The Independent.
"It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century," fumed Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation. "It is totally against women's rights. This law makes women more vulnerable."
The law regulates personal matters like marriage, divorce, inheritance and sexual relations among Afghanistan's minority Shia community. "It's about votes," Ms Karokhail added. "Karzai is in a hurry to appease the Shia because the elections are on the way."
The provisions are reminiscent of the hardline Taliban regime, which banned women from leaving their homes without a male relative. But in a sign of Afghanistan's faltering steps towards gender equality, politicians who opposed it have been threatened.
"There are moderate views among the Shia, but unfortunately our MPs, the people who draft the laws, rely on extremists," Ms Karokhail said.
The bill lay dormant for more than a year, but in February it was rushed through parliament as President Karzai sought allies in a constitutional row over the upcoming election. Senator Humeira Namati claimed it wasn't even read out in the Upper House, let alone debated, before it was passed to the Supreme Court. "They accused me of being an unbeliever," she said.
Details of the law emerged after Mr Karzai was endorsed by Afghanistan's Supreme Court to stay in power until elections scheduled in August. Some MPs claimed President Karzai was under pressure from Iran, which maintains a close relationship with Afghanistan's Shias. The most controversial parts of the law deal explicitly with sexual relations. Article 132 requires women to obey their husband's sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least "once every four nights" when travelling, unless they are ill. The law also gives men preferential inheritance rights, easier access to divorce, and priority in court.
A report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Unifem, warned: "Article 132 legalises the rape of a wife by her husband".
Most of Afghanistan's Shias are ethnic Hazaras, descended from Genghis Khan's Mongol army which swept through the entire region around 700 years ago. They are Afghanistan's third largest ethnic group, and potential kingmakers, because their leaders will likely back a mainstream candidate.
Even the law's sponsors admit Mr Karzai rushed it through to win their votes. Ustad Mohammad Akbari, a prominent Shia political leader, said: "It's electioneering. Most of the Hazara people are unhappy with Mr Karzai."
A British Embassy spokesman said diplomats had raised concerns "at a senior level".
[source = Afghan leader accused of bid to 'legalise rape', The Independent, By Jerome Starkey in Kabul, independent.co.uk, retrieved fromhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 58049.html on 4/11/2009]

And more,

Muzzammil Hassan: Muslim TV Exec Accused Of Beheading Wife In NY May Have Committed "Honor Killing", stumble digg reddit , by CAROLYN THOMPSON | February 17, 2009 09:17 PM EST | , retrieved fromhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/1 ... 67772.html on 02/18/2009]
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of "honor killing" more common in countries half a world away, including the couple's native Pakistan.
Funeral services for Aasiya Hassan, 37, were Tuesday. Her 44-year-old husband is scheduled to appear for a felony hearing Wednesday.

The Hassans lived in Orchard Park _ a well-off Buffalo suburb that hadn't seen a homicide since 1986 _ and started Bridges TV there in 2004 with the message of developing understanding between North America and the Middle East and South Asia. The network, available across the U.S. and Canada, was believed to be the first English-language cable station aimed at the rapidly growing Muslim demographic.
Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said his officers had responded to domestic incidents involving the couple, most recently Feb. 6, the day Mo Hassan was served with the divorce papers and an order of protection.

"I've never heard him raise his voice," said Paul Moskal, who became friendly with the couple while he was chief counsel for the FBI in Buffalo. Moskal would answer questions in forums aired on Bridges TV that were intended to improve understanding between Muslim-Americans and law enforcement.

"His personal life kind of betrayed what he tried to portray publicly," Moskal said.
On Feb. 12, Hassan went to a police station and told officers his wife was dead at the TV studio.

"We found her laying in the hallway the offices were off of," Benz said. Aasiya Hassan's head was near her body.

"I don't know if (the method of death) does mean anything," said the chief, who would not discuss what weapon may have been used. "We certainly want to investigate anything that has any kind of merit. It's not a normal thing you would see."

Hassan was not represented by an attorney at an initial appearance on a charge of second-degree murder. Neither police nor the Erie County district attorney's office knew if he had hired a lawyer.

The New York president of the National Organization for Women, Marcia Pappas, condemned prosecutors for referring to the death as an apparent case of domestic violence.

"This was, apparently, a terroristic version of 'honor killing,'" a statement from NOW said.

Nadia Shahram, who teaches family law and Islam at the University at Buffalo Law School, explained honor killing as a practice still accepted among fanatical Muslim men who feel betrayed by their wives.

"If a woman breaks the law which the husband or father has placed for the wife or daughter, honor killing has been justified," said Shahram, who was a regular panelist on a law show produced by Bridges TV. "It happens all the time. It's been practiced in countries such as Pakistan and in India."

Acquaintances said Mo Hassan was not overtly religious _ co-workers did not see him pray, for instance. But he seemed to adhere to many traditional practices.
Nancy Sanders, the television station's news director for 2 1/2 years, remembers him asking her to move her feet during her job interview so he would not see her legs. She was wearing a skirt and stockings.

He also would not let women enter his office unless his wife was there, and he blocked the station from airing a story about the first Muslim woman to win the title of Miss England in 2005, Sanders said.

Acquaintances said Aasiya Hassan was trained as an architect. Sanders described her as obedient to her husband, and that she wore a traditional hijab for a time but later stopped without explanation.

"She was beautiful, small, delicately built," she said, "while Mo would fill up a door frame. I always thought of him as a gentle giant."

Sanders, who left Bridges TV a year ago, said co-workers traded stories about Hassan's apparent violent streak, including one which had him running his wife's car off the road while the couple's two young children were inside. Aasiya herself never spoke of it, she said.

"I just do not feel it was an honor killing," Sanders added. "I think it was domestic abuse that got out of control."

Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' request for a copy of the order of protection issued against Mo Hassan. Divorce records are sealed in New York state. Aasiya Hassan's lawyer would not reveal the reasons for the divorce filing.

Hassan graduated with an MBA from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester in 1996, according to the TV station's Web site. Bridges broadcasts all over the United States and in Canada on various cable providers and Verizon FiOS. As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, the network was not broadcasting in the Buffalo area.

There was no answer at the network on Tuesday and it's Web site has a message saying Bridges is shocked and saddened and requests privacy.
___
On the Net:
Bridges:http://www.bridgestv.com

Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Afghan leader accused of bid to 'legalise rape'
UN and women MPs say Karzai bowed to Islamic fundamentalists before poll
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Afghan women wearing burqas. Critics say President Hamid Karzai rushed through discriminatory legislation to appease fundamentalists
Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which "legalises" rape, women's groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.
In a massive blow for women's rights, the new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman's right to leave the home, according to UN papers seen by The Independent.
"It is one of the worst bills passed by the parliament this century," fumed Shinkai Karokhail, a woman MP who campaigned against the legislation. "It is totally against women's rights. This law makes women more vulnerable."
The law regulates personal matters like marriage, divorce, inheritance and sexual relations among Afghanistan's minority Shia community. "It's about votes," Ms Karokhail added. "Karzai is in a hurry to appease the Shia because the elections are on the way."
The provisions are reminiscent of the hardline Taliban regime, which banned women from leaving their homes without a male relative. But in a sign of Afghanistan's faltering steps towards gender equality, politicians who opposed it have been threatened.
"There are moderate views among the Shia, but unfortunately our MPs, the people who draft the laws, rely on extremists," Ms Karokhail said.
The bill lay dormant for more than a year, but in February it was rushed through parliament as President Karzai sought allies in a constitutional row over the upcoming election. Senator Humeira Namati claimed it wasn't even read out in the Upper House, let alone debated, before it was passed to the Supreme Court. "They accused me of being an unbeliever," she said.
Details of the law emerged after Mr Karzai was endorsed by Afghanistan's Supreme Court to stay in power until elections scheduled in August. Some MPs claimed President Karzai was under pressure from Iran, which maintains a close relationship with Afghanistan's Shias. The most controversial parts of the law deal explicitly with sexual relations. Article 132 requires women to obey their husband's sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least "once every four nights" when travelling, unless they are ill. The law also gives men preferential inheritance rights, easier access to divorce, and priority in court.
A report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Unifem, warned: "Article 132 legalises the rape of a wife by her husband".
Most of Afghanistan's Shias are ethnic Hazaras, descended from Genghis Khan's Mongol army which swept through the entire region around 700 years ago. They are Afghanistan's third largest ethnic group, and potential kingmakers, because their leaders will likely back a mainstream candidate.
Even the law's sponsors admit Mr Karzai rushed it through to win their votes. Ustad Mohammad Akbari, a prominent Shia political leader, said: "It's electioneering. Most of the Hazara people are unhappy with Mr Karzai."
A British Embassy spokesman said diplomats had raised concerns "at a senior level".
[source = Afghan leader accused of bid to 'legalise rape', The Independent, By Jerome Starkey in Kabul, independent.co.uk, retrieved fromhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 58049.html on 4/11/2009]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In Iraq, a story of rape, shame and 'honor killing'
Alaa al-Marjani / Associated Press

After prison guards assaulted an Iraqi woman, she turned to her brother for help. But he - and society - failed her.
By Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmed
April 23, 2009
Reporting from Baghdad -- Sometimes, it's the forbidden stories, the ones people are afraid to tell in full, the ones that emerge only in fragments, that reveal the truth about a place.

This is such a story.
It's being told now not because the complete truth is known, but because the story nags at those familiar with its outlines, and because it says as much about Iraq's progress as it does about Iraq's resistance to change.

This much is known:

A young woman imprisoned in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, sent a letter to her brother last summer, appealing for help. The woman, named Dalal, wrote that she was pregnant after being raped by prison guards.
The brother asked to visit her. Guards obliged. The brother walked into her cell, drew a gun and shot his visibly pregnant sister dead.

His goal: to spare his family the taint of a pregnancy out of wedlock, a disgrace in Iraq often averted through so-called honor killings of women by their relatives.

For prison guards, the killing was also a relief.

"They believed that her death would end the case," said a lab worker at Baghdad's central morgue, where the victim's body -- still carrying the 5-month-old fetus -- was sent.

The case might have ended there were it not for the morgue employee, who was determined to see those responsible held to account.

At the employee's insistence

And,

Afghan journalism student sentenced to 20 years [source -http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081021/ap_ ... list_trial on 10/21/2008]

* Top of Form 1
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer - Tue Oct 21, 12:22 pm ET
Kambakhsh, 24, an Afghan journalism student, right, listens as his defense lawyer Mohammad Afzal ...

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan appeals court overturned a death sentence Tuesday for a journalism student accused of blasphemy for asking questions in class about women's rights under Islam. But the judges still sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
The case against 24-year-old Parwez Kambakhsh, whose brother has angered Afghan warlords with his own writings, has come to symbolize Afghanistan's slide toward an ultraconservative view on religious and individual freedoms.
"I don't accept the court's decision," Kambakhsh told The Associated Press as he was leaving the courtroom. "It is an unfair decision."
The case can be appealed to the Supreme Court, the highest court in Afghanistan.
John Dempsey, a U.S. lawyer working for six years to reform the Afghan justice system, said Kambakhsh has yet to get a fair trial.
"Procedurally, he did not have many of his rights respected," said Dempsey, who attended the trial. "He was detained far longer than he should have been legally held. The defense lawyer was not even allowed to meet the witnesses until a night before the trial."
Kambakhsh was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for local newspapers when he was arrested in October 2007.
Besides the accusation that Kambakhsh disrupted class with his questions, prosecutors also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on the paper.
In January, a lower court sentenced him to death in a trial critics have called flawed in part because Kambakhsh had no lawyer representing him. Muslim clerics welcomed that court's decision and public demonstrations were held against the journalism student because of perceptions he had violated the tenets of Islam.
On Tuesday, five witnesses from Mazar-e-Sharif - two students and three teachers - appeared before the three-judge panel.
The first witness, a student who gave only one name, Hamid, told the court he had been forced into making a statement accusing Kambakhsh of blasphemy by members of Afghanistan's intelligence service and a professor. He said the professor threatened him with expulsion.
Other witnesses, however, testified that Kambakhsh had violated tenets of Islam.
The head of Tuesday's panel, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, struck down the lower court's death penalty and sentenced Kambakhsh to 20 years behind bars.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the sentence.
"Even though Kambakhsh's death penalty was overturned, today's sentencing is a great disappointment and a setback for the rights of free expression in Afghanistan," Bob Dietz, the Asia program coordinator for the committee, said in a statement.
The committee said earlier this year it was concerned that Kambakhsh may have been targeted because his brother, Yaqub Ibrahimi, had written about human rights violations and local politics.
Ibrahimi told the AP on Tuesday that his brother was sentenced because of the pressure from warlords and other strongmen in northern Afghanistan, whom he has criticized in his writings.
___
AP correspondent Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.
And,
Imam justifies rape of unveiled women
Australian cleric compares victims to 'uncovered meat' that attracts cats

October 26, 2006
(c) 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Australia's top Muslim cleric rationalized a series of gang rapes by Arab men, blaming women who "sway suggestively," wear make-up and don't cover themselves in the tradition of Islam.


Sheik Ibrahim Mogra with Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly. (Courtesy Sydney Daily Telegraph)

Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly's comments in a Ramadan sermon in a Sydney mosque have stirred a furor in the country with even Prime Minister John Howard weighing in with condemnation.

The cleric also said the judge in the case, who sentenced the rapists, had "no mercy."

"But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he said, referring to the women victims - whom he said were "weapons used by Satan."

The victims of the vicious gang rapes are leading the national outcry - with some calling for deportation of the sheik. In a Sydney Daily Telegraph online poll, 84 percent of people said the Egyptian-born sheik should be deported.

(Story continues below)


"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?" the sheik said in his sermon. "The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

A 16-year-old girl, whose gang rape investigation was the subject of a secret police report, issued an open letter yesterday.

"You are a sad person who has no understanding of what really happens when these people inflict harm and degrading acts upon me or any other young girl," she said.

Initially, the mufti of Australia would not back away from his comments. But today he apologized.

"I unreservedly apologize to any woman who is offended by my comments," he said in a statement. "I had only intended to protect women's honor."

Howard said the sheik's remarks were "appalling and reprehensible."
And,
www.rferl.org ^ | Saturday, 07 January 2006
Iran's "Etemad" newspaper reports today that an 18-year-old woman has been sentenced to death by hanging for killing a man she said was trying to rape her. The newspaper reported that the woman, identified only as Nazanin, testified during her trial that she and her niece were out with their boyfriends when they were accosted by two men who chased away the boyfriends then tried to rape the two young women. Nazanin admitted stabbing one of the men to prevent her and her niece from being assaulted. Nazanin was only 17 years old at the time, but under Iranian law...

[update] Iran clears teenage woman sentenced to deathAFP

January 15, 2007

TEHRAN -- An Iranian court has cleared of murder charges a 19-year-old woman who was originally sentenced to death for killing a man that she said tried to rape her, the press reported Monday.

Mahabad Fatehi, known as Nazanin, was cleared by a Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. provincial court of premeditated murder but still ordered to pay blood money of 260 million Iranian riyals ($30,600) to the victim's family, the Etemad newspaper reported.

Fatehi, whose case achieved international notoriety when it was taken up by a Canadian beauty queen of Iranian origin, said that she stabbed the man in an act of self-defense after he tried to rape her and her niece in March 2005.

In January last year, Fatehi was put on trial and sentenced to death by a criminal court, a verdict that was then quashed by in an unprecedented move, the report said.
And,

BBC ^ | 12-13-2005 | Ado Sale Kankiya
Nigerian women ignore bike ban Women say there is no public transport alternative Women in the northern Nigerian state of Kano are ignoring a ban stopping them travelling on public motorbike taxis. On Monday religious authorities began implementing the ban passed earlier this year. In accordance with Sharia law, men and women are not allowed to travel together on public transport. The women say there are not enough public transport alternatives in the state that adopted Sharia law in 2000. The BBC's Ado Sale Kankiya in the city of Kano says some 9,000 religious marshals are on the streets to...

And,

Recent developments
The Lahore high court ruled on 10 June 2005 that the rapists must be released. Just over two weeks later the supreme court suspended those acquittals and ruled that the men, along with six more who were acquitted at the original trial, would be retried. [1]
Also on 10 June 2005, shortly before she was scheduled to fly to London on the invitation of Amnesty International, Mukhtaran was put on Pakistan's Exit-Control List (ECL) [2], a list of people prohibited from traveling abroad, a move that prompted protest in Pakistan and around the world.
On 17 June 2005, Musharraf in a press conference in Auckland, New Zealand revealed that he had ordered the travel ban to protect Pakistan's image abroad.
Musharraf said Mukhtaran Mai was being taken to the United States by foreign non-government organisations ("NGOs") "to bad-mouth Pakistan" over the "terrible state" of the nation's women. He said NGOs are "Westernised fringe elements" which "are as bad as the Islamic extremists". [3]
On 15 June 2005, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered Mukhtaran's name removed from the ECL (Mukhtaran allowed to go abroad, NA told). However, it was reported on 19 June 2005, by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, that as Mai returned from the US embassy in Islamabad, after getting her passport stamped with a US visa, it was confiscated once again, rendering her unable to travel outside the country [4].
On 29 June 2005, on his personal web site [5] Musharraf wrote that "Mukhtaran Mai is free to go wherever she pleases, meet whoever she wants and say whatever she pleases."
On 2 August 2005, the Pakistani government awarded Mukhtaran the Fatima Jinnah gold medal for bravery and courage.
On 2 November 2005, The US magazine Glamour named Mukhtaran as their Woman Of The Year. Upon her visit to the United States, President Musharraf told the Washington Post that claiming rape had become a "moneymaking concern" in Pakistan. Musharraf denied making the comment, prompting the Post to issue a tape of the interview.[6]
On 12 January 2006, Mukhtaran Mai published her memoir with the collaboration of Marie-Thérèse Cuny under the title "Déshonorée". The originating publisher of the book is OH ! Editions in France and her book is published simultenaously in german by Droemer Verlag under the title "Die Schuld, eine Frau zu sein".
On 12 January 2006, To coincide with the publication of her memoir, Mukhtaran Mai will be in Paris (France) from the 12th to the 17th January. She will be attending a press conference on Thursday 12th, at the headquarters of The International Federation for Human Rights.
Mukhtaran was originally slated to speak at the United Nations on 20 January 2006, but the UN postponed the visit at the last minute after Pakistan complained that her appearance was scheduled for the same day as a visit by Aziz. The UN wanted to move it to sometime after 24 January, but since Mukhtaran was due to leave New York on 21 January, Islamabad's complaint effectively cancelled the visit. She claimed she was not going to say anything bad about Pakistan or its government. "I was just going to talk about my work and what people are doing," she told the Times. Aziz claimed he didn't know that Mukhtaran was due to appear. [note, no effective appeal mechanism in Shariah, had to go to secular court].

And,

For doubters with respect any case I have mentioned or those just wanting more information,
Contact Amnesty International, INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT, at 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW, UK

Telephone +44-20-74135500

Fax number +44-20-79561157

Or go to their web site www.amnesty.org

CONCLUSION:

No one has any need to educate himself/herself with regard to any unjust law to know that it is unjust, please get real. TRUE Justice is NOT suppression of women. LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT..[NOTE, I was actually accused by some of the deniers of claiming to be a scholar with regard Islam; however I am neither a scholar of Islam, nor do I claim to be. I am actually a Bible scholar and an individual out for true justice exercised in love, a quality apparently lacking in the Quran and Hadith].

Let's face it members of Islam get overly excited about little things with respect silly cartoons, but a big thing, an terrible injustice, they do not react to. In other words, they strongly react when they should NOT, but fail to react when they should.

This is a good point.
"While it's fair to remark that many Muslim associations, sheiks etc have condemned kidnappings and killings etc, I haven't seen millions of Muslims in the streets getting excited about this (let alone burning down the Embassies of the countries whose citizens are respondible for these crimes)" [source - another].

I find it strange that so far no one has addressed the Sharia case of newspaper women Carroll which of course is an extreme injustice. It can not be passed off by saying the judges are terrorist as first of all since they are invoking Sharia law they are Muslims. Remember per Hadith only members of Islam can invoke Sharia and act as judges in Sharia cases.
Let's face it members of Islam get overly excited about little things with respect silly cartoons, but a big things, such as terrible injustices, they do not react to and in many cases actually condone as shown by the news quotes in this article. In other words, as I previously said, they strongly react when they should NOT, but fail to react when they should. And this, when it is a salient violation of the principles expressed in Hadith. Something is rotten in Denmark so the saying goes, here!

One Muslim [Sunni, I believe] actually said this of Shariah and I am making it apart of my article so you can see the absurd thinking with respect Shariah:

"When we practice the rules of Shari`ah, we must keep in mind the objectives of Shari`ah; yet very often, we follow the rules but we ignore and overlook the spirit and real purpose of those rules. The following are examples:

1. The Qur'an speaks about taharah (purification), ghusl (purificatory bathing) and wudu' (ablution): We take these rules and apply them, but we do not take the objective of cleanliness very seriously.

2. We pray in jama`ah (congregation), but we have not learned the system of organization from our salah.

3. We give zakah, but we have not been able to establish a system of social justice.

4. We go for Hajj, but we have not been able to develop a unified Ummah, a community that transcends nationalistic divisions.

5. We recite the Qur'an many times, but we do not try to understand its meaning and message.

6. We talk of the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) but this is mostly related to appearances. We pay little attention to Prophet's character of love, kindness, honesty, truthfulness, sincerity, fulfilling promises, and so on."

It is our responsibility to know the rules of Allah and put them into practice with sincerity. But before anything, we should ask ourselves if we are really practicing justice. Are we really fair to others, to our spouses, to our relatives, to our neighbors, employees, employers, to Muslims, to other human beings, to animals, to anything and everything? Are we really compassionate people? Are we really increasing in compassion or are we becoming angry, hateful, arrogant, or complacent about ourselves? We must improve ourselves in justice and compassion. If we do not have `adl (justice) and ihsan (compassion) or rahmah (mercy), then we are not practicing the Shari`ah. Similarly, if we think that we are following the law of Allah but the result is injustice and lack of compassion, then it means that we have not properly understood the law of Allah or we are not interpreting it right."

Apparently there is no "light at the end of tunnel" in areas where Shariah is in force. Why? Simple Shariah Law turned off the light of true justice and love.
And,




by forfeiting the dowry - the prophet may marry her without a dowry, if he so wishes. However, her forfeiting of the dowry applies only to the prophet, and not to the other believers. We have already decreed their rights in regard to their spouses or what they already have. This is to spare you any embarrassment. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful." (RK).

Doubt due to fear of less money for selling pregnant slaves:

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri that while he was sitting with Allah's messenger we said, "Oh Allah's messenger, we got female captives as our booty, and we are interested in their prices, what is your opinion about coitus interruptus?" The prophet said, "Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it. No soul that which Allah has destined to exist, but will surely come into existence." (Sahih Bukhari, vol.3, # 432) (further reference Bukhari Vol. 3, #718)

About pregnancy:

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri that during the battle with Bani Al-Mustaliq they (Muslims) captured some females and intended to have sexual relations with them without impregnating them. So they asked the prophet about coitus interruptus. The prophet said, "It is better that you should not do it, for Allah has written whom He is going to create till the Day of Resurrection". (Sahih Bukhari, vol.9, #506) (further reference Bukhari 5: 459)

Lust or ransom:

Abu Sirma said to Abu Said al Khudri: "O Abu Said, did you hear Allah's messenger mentioning about al-azl (coitus interrupts)?" He said, "Yes", and added: "We went out with Allah's messenger on the expedition to the Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, (but at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing azl" (withdrawing the male sexual organ before emission of semen to avoid conception). But we said: "We are doing an act whereas Allah's messenger is amongst us; why not ask him?" So we asked Allah's messenger and he said: "It does not matter if you do not do it, for every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born". (Sahih Muslim vol.2, # 3371)

Doubts since their men were polytheists:

Abu Said al-Khudri reported that at the Battle of Hunain Allah's messenger sent an army to Autas and encountered the enemy and fought with them. Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of Allah's messenger seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah, Most High, sent down regarding that: "And women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (Quran - 4:24), (i.e. they were lawful for them when their Idda (menstrual) period came to and end). (Sahih Muslim, vol.2, #3432)

Doubt since their husbands watch them being raped:

Abu Said al-Khudri said: "The apostle of Allah sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the apostle of Allah were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Quranic verse, "And all married women (are forbidden) unto your save those (captives) whom your right hand possesses". That is to say, they are lawful for them when they complete their waiting period."" [The Quran verse is 4:24]. (Sunan of Abu Dawud, vol.2, #2150)

RECENT EXAMPLE OF MUSLIM MISTREATMENT OF WOMEN:

Some say Islam is a religion of violence and lack of compasion for women, but here is an example of the truth.

"MULTAN, Pakistan - 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 killing spree - witnessed by his wife Rehmat Bibi as she cradled their 3 month-old baby 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 woken 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.
And,

Masjed Soleymaani Hastam -
When I came out of prison I burned the Koran! The hell with their hate religion!"


These are the words of a young girl who called from Iran last night and talked on the air with NITV Satellite TV station located in Los Angeles.

"They killed my friend by inserting a baton into the body until it had reached the liver. God is my witness, these are not some tales, these are the realities of our lives in Iran about what they are doing to us! They won't even let us breathe here. The way they mistreatment us, has caused us to even hate ourselves. Although I was an "A" student, I intentionally failed my exam in retribution-law class of mine in the university because I couldn't agree with it. They whipped us if we didn't do the Islamic praying. They wanted me to respect their flag and I didn't want to because it was Arabic. I told them I'll respect the flag if they would put the word "Khoda" (god's name in Persian) on the flag instead of the "Allah" (the Arabic version of god's name). Thus, they lashed me over 70 times. You won't believe what this regime does to us. I was studying to be a judge but they ruined my life just because I held a flag with a "lion and sun" (Iranian ancient and historical flag) in my hand. After all that torturing and flogging, when they finally released me from prison, I burned the Koran. Although I love to have a child, I am not going to have one because I don't want my baby to be dictated their religion."


Some say, Iranians outside Iran are bunch of cowards and heartless who have their tails between their legs when it comes to defend and echo the voices of their compatriots inside Iran. Others say Iranians outside Iran have become heartless mechanical robots since they been neutered (aghim shodeh) by the regime?s supporters and cohorts outside Iran.

But I don't believe that. I believe most my compatriots are unaware of what really is going on in that country and more and more are becoming aware and active. I know every time more of my compatriots hear the outcries of Iran's sons and daughters within Iran such as this, it further awakens them and their conscience. I know soon my compatriots will rise in an unprecedented unity to liberate their motherland, free 70 million Iranian hostages and crush the tyrants and the anti-Iranian Islamic Regime.

If you have problems hearing the audio via your email browser, click on Masjed Soleymaani Hastam

sosiran97.home.comcast.ne...Hastam.mp3
"Doing good to others is not a duty, it is a joy, for it increases our own health and happiness."
-Gatha [sources - NITV Satellite TV station located in Los Angeles, on Masjed Soleymaani Hastam, and [FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great, and (in German) Iran/forum/viewtopic.php of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia' andhttp://sosiran97.home.comcast.net/Masje ... Hastam.mp3,]

Your Friend in Christ Iris89

Hi Everyone

Now lets look at more facts, the reality, with respect one good reason that Almighty God (YHWH) does NOT want his genuine true followers to remove rights from women as does the old middle east celestial god, 'Allah,' clearly does as proven by the following:

Beheading shines light on domestic abuse, By Erika Hayasaki, retrieved fromhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/....82.story?page=2 on April 24, 2009]
Aasiya Zubair Hassan died before help came. But other Muslim women in western New York may find refuge in local support.
By Erika Hayasaki
April 24, 2009
Reporting from Buffalo, N.Y. -- The mourners carried her severed body inside the white brick mosque on a frosty morning before the sun rose, before the children arrived for school.

Removing their shoes, wives and mothers shrouded in black passed through the women's prayer area, cordoned off from the men's with white drapes, and made their way to the washing room. Once inside, they slipped into sandals and, in observance of Islamic tradition, gently bathed her body on a bone-colored tile table the size of a casket to prepare it for burial.
From a distance, a woman named Samia, round-cheeked with thick eyebrows, who cooked meals at the mosque, watched the procession with horror in her heart.

Samia could not bring herself to enter the washing room or look at the victim, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, a woman she had known informally in life. She was too shaken to attend the funeral.

The two wives were connected by the close-knit Muslim community in western New York, including Buffalo, about 400 miles from New York City. But unbeknownst to each other, both shared a secret -- marriages stained by abuse.
Samia got help. Aasiya died before help came.

She was stabbed several times before being beheaded Feb. 12, inside a dull yellow warehouse that served as headquarters for the Muslim television station she founded with her husband, Muzzammil Hassan.

Muzzammil Hassan has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing, and last month pleaded not guilty.

Aasiya was 37 when she was killed -- the same age as Samia.

Early news reports, and gossip in the community, called it an "honor killing," a term that upset Muslims across the country for its implication that the abuse was tied to the couple's faith.

Samia, who did not want to use her last name for fear it would shame her family, remembers Aasiya, who had wavy black hair and a narrow nose, as appearing poised and professional in public, often wearing red lipstick.

Though some Muslim families in the community believe wives should stay home while husbands work, Samia said she considered Aasiya a modern career woman who wore blazers instead of a hijab and worked diligently on behalf of the television station.

For Samia, who accepted her husband back home in December after five years of on-and-off-again separation, a scary realization choked her thoughts: This could have been me.

'Happy bride'

Aasiya was raised in a well-off family in Pakistan, and although she was Muslim, she attended an all-girls convent school, St. Joseph's. She went on to study at one of the country's most prestigious colleges, the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi.

"She wanted to do architecture from the beginning. She idealized her father, a respected architect," said Asma Kumial, a childhood friend. She described Aasiya as a natural athlete, tall and slender, who played on the basketball team.

After college, Aasiya worked at several architecture firms in Karachi. One of her projects was an upscale cafe called Okra, which she designed from scratch.

She had a large wedding, friends said, but not overly elaborate by Karachi society standards. "She seemed like a happy bride," said Rana Tanivir, who attended convent school with Aasiya.

In 2000, Aasiya joined her husband in Orchard Park, N.Y., where he worked. Friends and colleagues from Pakistan lost touch after Aasiya moved to the United States. Only a few of her friends had met the groom before the wedding, and his past -- two previous marriages and two children -- raised eyebrows.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Aasiya proposed creating a television channel to give Muslims a fair portrayal in the media. With talk shows, game shows and documentaries, it would do for U.S. Muslims what "The Cosby Show" did for African Americans.
Muzzammil Hassan jumped on his wife's suggestion. He ambitiously built Bridges TV around her vision, soliciting investors and subscribers from the Muslim community throughout Buffalo and the U.S.

Hassan Shibley, a former producer at Bridges TV, said the kind and loving Aasiya represented the heart of Islam. She took the two children to pray at the mosque, but Shibley rarely saw her husband attend.
"The main priority for him was business; it wasn't the message of Islam," Shibley said.

Hassan was a "a very, very focused man," said Faizan Haq, a local professor of cultural studies who took part in the TV station's early stages. "It was Aasiya's dream, but it was his planning."

Hassan could also be stubborn, and his incessant questioning and difficult nature became too much for Haq to bear. Haq quit the station before it launched in 2004.
In public, Hassan credited his wife as the inspiration for the station. But few knew what was happening at home.

Police were called to the couple's home on reports of domestic violence more than a dozen times in 2 1/2 years, according to the Buffalo News, which obtained copies of police reports in which Aasiya said Hassan punched her in the nose, gave her a black eye and dragged her by her hands up a driveway. Police prepared orders of protection against him three times, the News said, but she refused to press charges.

"Both of them put on such show, it seemed like everything was OK . . . there was nothing wrong," Haq said. "But I guess a lot was wrong. I remember once Aasiya had a bruise on her face. We asked, and she said she fell from a horse. We didn't question it."

On Feb. 6, she filed for divorce and obtained an order barring him from their Orchard Park home. Six days later, Hassan reported his wife's death to police.

A month later, wet rose petals wilted in the bushes in front of the television station, which was lined with gray satellite dishes. An ink-smeared note plucked from the prickles of the shrub read: "Aasiya . . . May Allah be with you."



Turmoil at home

If anyone understands the fear of pressing charges against a husband, it is Samia.

She left him several times but always came back, partly out of guilt. She believed that, deep down, her husband was a good man with a sickness everyone but him seemed to see.

For Samia's husband, it was drugs and alcohol that drew out the monster within him. She married at 17, and they had four children. Over the years, she grew used to his rants: You can't do anything right. You are nothing without me.

She began to believe him.

One night in 2004, she remembers, he came home at 4 a.m. deliriously drunk, pounding the door, screaming threats. He kicked down the door and tackled Samia on the couch, choking her until the children ran to get him off.

He later promised to reform, but within six months he was back to his old ways. What followed was a blur: He tried to commit suicide, left the family home and spent 10 months in intensive counseling.

Three months ago, convinced that he had worked hard to better himself, Samia told her children: "Dad is going to come home, and we're going to support him."

"They looked at me like, 'You must be crazy,' " she said.

Samia says he has not returned to his destructive habits, and she is proud of him. When she learned of Aasiya's death, her husband was the first person she called for comfort. Although neither believed he could have gone so far, her husband at times got so high or drunk, she said, that he did not know what he was doing.

"He could have just taken my head off without even realizing it, and when he woke up he would have been like, 'What happened?' "

Aasiya's death motivated Samia and two other Muslims in abusive marriages to work with Rahama, or Resources and Help Against Marital Abuse. "Rahama" also means "mercy" in Arabic.
Kathy Ahmed, the principal of an Islamic school in Getzville, N.Y., started the group three years ago after a survey of Muslim women in the area found that domestic violence was a major concern.

Since Rahama began, it has guided two women through divorces, and it is working with Samia to keep her marriage violence-free.

But Ahmed feels guilt, as most of Aasiya's friends and acquaintances do, that she did not spot signs of abuse. Ahmed says she should have tried to get Aasiya to open up in the brief times they met.
"She always seemed sad," Ahmed said. "We should have pushed."

In a statement Feb. 16, Marcia Pappas, president of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, criticized the media for paying little attention to Aasiya's slaying. (Her death came to light the same day Continental Flight 3407 crashed in nearby Clarence, killing 49 people.)

"Is a Muslim woman's life not worth a five-minute report?" Pappas asked. "This was, apparently, a terroristic version of 'honor killing,' a murder rooted in cultural notions about women's subordination to men."

Muslims called on Pappas to retract the statement, saying it was offensive and stereotypical. Such a portrayal, Shibley said, goes against everything Aasiya worked to create with Bridges TV.

Domestic abuse is not only a Muslim problem, Samia said, but when a strong community of Muslims exists, as it does in Buffalo, victims should feel comfortable to turn to mosques, imams, counselors and other women without fear.

"There is help out there," Samia said, "Aasiya just didn't know how to get the right help."

On a recent gray day in March, Samia opened the door of the room inside the mosque where Aasiya's body was washed. Samia glanced at the tile table that held Aasiya's body a month earlier.

Samia turned away. She did not want to remember Aasiya that way. In three days, Muslim girls would gather at the mosque to talk about domestic violence; Samia had agreed to help organize it. She closed the door tightly before slipping into her black shoes and getting back to work.

Times staff writer Laura King in Pakistan contributed to this report.


To learn more, check out the following:

[1]http://religioustruths.proboards59.com/ An Educational Referral Forum

[2]http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209 A Forum Devoted to Exposing The False Religion of Islam

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Sunni Clerics Against Women's Rights - the Proof


Saudi clerics want women banned from TV, mediaTue Mar 24, 2:11 pm ET, by AFP, retrieved fromhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090324/lf_afp/saudireligionwomenrightsmedia on 3/24/2009]

RIYADH (AFP) Hardline Saudi clerics have called on the government to ban women from appearing on television and to prohibit their images in print media, which they called a sign of growing "deviant thought."

In a letter to new Information Minister Abdul Aziz al-Khoja that appeared on websites this week, the 35 Islamic clerics also condemned the increase of music and dancing on television, as well as images of women in popular newspapers and magazines that they labelled "obscene."

"Our faith in you is great to carry out media reform, for we have seen how perversity is rooted in the ministry of information and culture, on television, radio, in the press, literary clubs, and book fairs," the letter said.

It cited an alleged plan to "westernise" Saudi women by "reducing their rights to a question of removing veils, wearing makeup and mixing with men."

It added that the ministry had permitted the import of "obscene newspapers and magazines that are filled with deviant thought and pictures of beautiful women on its covers and inside."
"There should be no Saudi woman on television, in any case," they said.

"There is no doubt that this is religiously impermissible."
The clerics, including justice officials and academics from a conservative Islamic university, cited several cabinet-endorsed orders and policies from years past which they said supported their argument.

They appeared to be challenging a growing push for liberalisation of tough restrictions on women, including near-mandatory use of black, full-face veils, which are rooted in its ultra-conservative Wahhabi version of Islam.

Both Saudi television and print media increasingly feature women, while Arabic-language magazines showing women in Western garb and makeup are also widely sold in the country.
The letter came in the wake of an information ministry-sponsored book fair in Riyadh in early March at which religious conservatives complained that men and women were allowed to mix freely, and that some books on sale violated Islamic principles.

The book fair was marred by the muttawam, or Islamic morality police, harassing a woman author promoting her book and trying to prevent men from obtaining her autograph.

Courtesy of Your Friend in Christ Iris89