23-year-old Yildiz A. from Turkey was stabbed in the stomach six or seven times and her nose and ears and part of her lip cut off, then she was dumped in a field. She managed to crawl to the side of the road where a passing motorist took her to hospital.
Friends, the other day I came across an article that really shocked me. It was written by Robert Fisk, a journalist who I greatly admire, and it appeared in The Independent on September 07, 2010. It concerned the deaths of an estimated 20,000 women who are killed each year in so-called ‘Honor Killings.’
I have included a few excerpts from the article just to give you an idea of the horror inflicted on people by those who are clearly deranged by religious extremism and a feudal mindset. Fisk says:
“It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the “honor” of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but which now spans half the globe.
Men are also killed for “honor” and, despite its identification by journalists as a largely Muslim practice, Christian and Hindu communities have stooped to the same crimes.
Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey appear to be the worst offenders. But honor crimes long ago spread to Britain, Belgium, Russia and Canada and many other nations. Security authorities and courts across much of the Middle East have connived in reducing or abrogating prison sentences for the family murder of women, often classifying them as suicides to prevent prosecutions.
It is difficult to remain unemotional at the vast and detailed catalog of these crimes. How should one react to a man – this has happened in both Jordan and Egypt – who rapes his own daughter and then, when she becomes pregnant, kills her to save the “honor” of his family?
Or the Turkish father and grandfather of a 16-year-old girl, Medine Mehmi, in the province of Adiyaman, who was buried alive beneath a chicken coop in February for “befriending boys”? Her body was found 40 days later, in a sitting position and with her hands tied.
Or the young woman found in a drainage ditch near Daharki in Pakistan, “honor” killed by her family as she gave birth to her second child, her nose, ears and lips chopped off before being axed to death, her first infant lying dead among her clothes, her newborn’s torso still in her womb, its head already emerging from her body? “
The excerpts here are few but, be warned; to read the whole article takes a strong stomach. What does this say about our world, about humans? How can people carry out these crimes against their own children or spouses?
I find it difficult to draw any conclusions. They are simply too horrible to contemplate!
Mans inhumanity to man in the name of religion.
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David G Reply:
September 9th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
The people who carry out these atrocities still live in the Stone Ages, 76-water. But then people from ‘sophisticated’ countries also carry out atrocities using bombs and missiles and they kill a lot more people than 20,000.
The truth is that we live in a barbaric world where violence and brutality is considered to be normal and religion is used to give it some credence.
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Tahera Reply:
October 1st, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Help stop honor killings! Please sign the online petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-honor-killings.html
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David G Reply:
October 2nd, 2010 at 1:24 am
Tahera, I hope everyone on our blog signs the petition. Keep up your good work!
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Grace Reply:
October 2nd, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Thanks, Tahera! I signed it.
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David- Your last paragraph said it all! These multitudes of false doctrines mascarading as religions around the world are hindering everyone from their full potential. A little education can do wonders. The J-W’s condemned me to burn in hell for seeking knowledge outside of the bible. You can’t help anybody who wont heip themselves.
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David G Reply:
September 9th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
76-water, it’s amazing how threats of hell and damnation cower many people, force them into subjugation.
Asking the religious to provide one item of scientific proof to support their claims usually sends them scattering.
And if they say no one can prove that God doesn’t exist, tell them you can’t prove that flying camels don’t exist either but commonsense would suggest that they don’t!
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Its heartbreaking what humans are able to do to each other. I hope to live to see the day where love is all there is.
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76-water Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 2:39 am
I agree, where’s the forgivness, where’s the compassion?
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Kathy, love is a scarce commodity on our planet. But hatred and violence is everywhere!
76-water, forgiveness and compassion, like love, are scarce. The irony of the situation is that we associate the cruelty of honor killings with backward, unsophisticated people but the majority of killings are done by uniformed, educated people from advanced civilizations.
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I read that article too and what I found so disturbing was the mothers of the victims forgiving the men who had done such vile, evil deeds. Those women are so brainwashed by their religion that even the love they would have for their children cannot overcome it.
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Killing one’s own children is one of those Unspeakable acts – that nobody talks about. How many terrorized children grow up and then at some point terrorize their children? I was born into a traumatized family. Ten years before I was born, my aunt was murdered. One week before her wedding, her fiance shot her, then shot himself. Everything he ever told her was a lie. I, in turn, was traumatized by my family – and the Unspeakable Act. I have some sense of the sick family dynamics – that must go on in these murders.
We have to talk about these crimes. That is what they are. One bad does not justify the other.
Families and communities that murder their own, should be shunned and made to feel ashamed.
Thank you David for shining the light of day on the dark night of the human condition.
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The killers and the ones cheering on, or silently acquiescing, should feel ashamed of the Murder they commit.. – and yet – to stop the cycle – we have to move out of the simply toxic, not talked about, shame. As a society we must condemn all forms of killing – Including the State sanctioned Death Penalty. Live and let live.
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Overpopulation will only fuel this fire. As resources become more scarce, more mouths to feed, this is a problem that may get worse – unless it is faced head on.
Oh God, please help us. It is really hypocritical when murder is sanctioned by men of God and every day mothers. How dare they teach us that God will judge us and that God is Love.
Shame needs to make a big comeback. Healthy shame, that is. : )
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Jeannie, it does show the power of indoctrination and the inability of most humans to escape from it!
Grace, shining the light is an irksome task. The more I discover the more sickened I become, the more afraid I am of humans. Fortunately, the people who frequent this blog keep me on an even keel.
Regarding killing, I have to give it to the Buddhists. Their policy of killing nothing seems to give them a serenity that is enviable.
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Grace Reply:
September 12th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
I have a love-hate relationship with humans, David. On the one hand I see the good, but then I read the news about how we treat others, and I am left despairing again.
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“Regarding killing, I have to give it to the Buddhists. Their policy of killing nothing seems to give them a serenity that is enviable”
The Tibetan Buddhists knew of the wheel, but chose not to use it because it caused too much destruction.
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76-water Reply:
September 11th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
I suppose there is a way around this, but living matter consumes living matter and that includes us. Ah, but for the karmic wheel!
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I also have a love-hate relationship with humans, Grace. Sometimes the love part struggles.
The karmic wheel, 76-water, may be a way of trying to see less evil!
Cheers.
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Even though Hindu’s and Christians (rarely christians) have ‘stooped to this level’ you twisted it so that the media reporting this as a LARGELY MUSLIM PRACTICE is the truth. It has always been known that women in India were burned alive by their inlaws or husband if the dowery was not sufficient. But under islam the MAN pays a bride price. The little girls are sold into marriage by their fathers by making a contract the girl is not allowed to break. If she refuses the marriage THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. And it happens not only in every muslim country, but in Europe and North America a well (canada and U.S.). I live in Sweden the most laid back place on earth. But since the influx of muslims HONOR KILLINGS are rampant. When SWEDEN has to form a group called STOP HONOR KILLINGS IN SWEDEN there is a damned problem. A father was just convicted 2 DAYS ago for stabbing his 21 year old daughter 53 times after her husband divorced her, simply because of a RUMOUR that infidelity was involved. ISLAM is the number one perpetrator of this disgusting practice, as the woman’s ONLY value is submission, purity, and baby machine. GET UR FACTS STRAIGHT MAN, quit falling for the media blitz of the innocence of islam.
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Also love how they leave out IRAQI’s, IRANIANS, AFGHANISTANI’s (who are amongst the very WORST) This man is empathetic and disgusted, but not very informed.
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Maybe that is why the Muslim world has abandoned the Palestinians? They are not like other Muslims? They come from a part of the World that has for a long time been a cross roads of religions. They looked like such a happy society before 1947-48. Since the brutal takeover by Israelis, I don’t think they have practiced honor killing. I have not heard of one instance.
In modern Egypt, I don’t think the women tolerate that either. I have been there and met educated women. Maybe it is prevalent where ignorance flourishes.
The men with money that live in Sweden are probably from one of the ruling dynasty families or connected to one somehow. Otherwise they would be villagers from the kingdom of a corrupt ruler. Not necessarily the people out in the streets crying for democracy and non corrupt leaders.
We have to all be careful not to lump all Muslim people into one lump. Hey, there are Americans who would still burn “witches” at the stake, hang colored people from trees, shoot immigrants like dogs, if there wasn’t a law against it!!
It is good that Swedens are crying out to stop “Honor killings!” (Such an oxymoron). We all have to educate each other. Evolve as a species.
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