Women Are Being Beheaded for Taking Their Veil Off": Honor Killings On Rise in Iraq

[Afthab Ellath]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/83710/

Women Are Being Beheaded for Taking Their Veil Off": Honor Killings On Rise in Iraq

At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene.

The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone. Her "honor killing" is just one in a grotesque series emerging from Iraq, where activists speak of a "genocide" against women in the name of religion.

In the latest such case, it was reported yesterday that a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for becoming infatuated with a British soldier serving in southern Iraq.

In Basra alone, police acknowledge that 15 women a month are murdered for breaching Islamic dress codes. Campaigners insist it is a conservative figure.

Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase.

Du'a Khalil Aswad, 17, from Nineveh, was executed by stoning in front of mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a boy outside her Yazidi tribe. Mobile phone images of her broken body transmitted on the internet led to sectarian violence, international outrage and calls for reform. Her father, Khalil Aswad, speaking one year after her death in April last year, has revealed that none of those responsible had been prosecuted and his family remained "outcasts" in their own tribe.

"My daughter did nothing wrong," he said. "She fell in love with a Muslim and there is nothing wrong with that. I couldn't protect her because I got threats from my brother, the whole tribe. They insisted they were gong to kill us all, not only Du'a, if she was not killed. She was mutilated, her body dumped like rubbish.

"I want those who committed this act to be punished but so far they have not, they are free. Honor killing is murder. This is a barbaric act."

Despite the outrage, recent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. "Honor killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government," said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. "If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.

"In the past five years it is has got [much] worse. It is difficult to described how terrible it is, how badly we have been pushed back to the dark ages. Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off. Self immolation is rising -- women are left with no choice. There is no government body or institution to provide any sort of support. Sharia law is being used to underpin government rule, denying women their most basic human rights."

In August last year, the body of 11-year-old Sara Jaffar Nimat was found in Khanaqin, Kurdistan, after she had been stoned and burnt to death. Earlier this month, two brothers and a sister were kidnapped from their home near Kirkuk by gunmen in police uniforms. The brothers were beaten to death and the woman left in a critical condition after being informed that she must obey the rules of an "Islamic state". One week ago, a journalist, Begard Huseein, was murdered in her home in Arbil, northern Iraq. Her husband, Mohammed Mustafa, stabbed her because she was in love with another man, according to local reports.

The stoning death of Ms. Aswad led to the establishment of an Internal Ministry unit in Kurdistan to combat violence against women. It reported that last year in Sulaymaniyah, a city of 1 million people, there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through "family problems", and threats of honor killings. Rape is not included as most women are too fearful to report it for fear of retribution. Nevertheless, police in Karbala recently revealed 25 reports of rape.

The new Iraqi constitution, according to Mrs. Mahmoud, is a mass of confusing contradictions. While it states that men and women are equal under law it also decrees that sharia law -- which considers one male witness worth two females -- must be observed. The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone. The fundamentalists have sent out too many chilling messages. In Mosul two years ago, eight women were beheaded in a terror campaign.

"It was really, really horrifying," said Mrs. Mahmoud. "Honor killings and murder are widespread. Thousands [of people] … have become victims of murder, violence and rape -- all backed by laws, tribal customs and religious rules. We urge the international community, the government to condemn this barbaric practice, and help the women of Iraq."

[salimtk]

the poeple/ parties who proclaim saddam the champion of anti-imperialism should realize that this is the society and generations, he has been preserving intact underneath his iron fist 'modern/ secular' rule

[damodar prasad]

dear salim,

I really doubt whether anti-imperialism whether anti-imperialism is synonymous with secular and modern!!!

 

damodar

 

[salimtk]

it was to problemize the idea of great 'acting' of anti-imprerialst claims at intenrational scenario by the 'national' leaders of many countries and their portrayal as cult figure of anti-imperialism ignoring the brutal domestic affairs.

 

i too doubt...so the words 'secular' and 'moder' were in inverted comma.

 

[Murali K Warier]

Apparently not. That's why Ahmedinejad, the Hamas, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez all become front runners in the 'anti-imperialistic' struggle. After all, 'we were all Hezbollah' for a week or so, weren't we?

Best regards,
Murali

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 1:08 PM, damodar prasad <damodar...@gmail.com> wrote:

dear salim,

I really doubt whether anti-imperialism whether anti-imperialism is synonymous with secular and modern!!!

 

damodar

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear.

[salimtk]

but.....damodar was questioning the idea of being 'modern' and 'secular' for being anti-imperialism. and he was to problemize the words modern and secular.. (i believe).

 

that idea of anti-imperialism is as euro-centric as imperialsim. fancying of modern secular scientific grand universal marxist anti-imperialist movement is not 'really' anti-imperialist.

 

[Afthab Ellath]

Salim,

I think Traditional Islam is another grant narrative, placed against the enlightment ideals  that we have seen strengthening in the post marxist era ...  Islam that we know is deeply rooted in th Arab culture as well...  The very existence of the autocratic regimes in the Arab world (note the existence of more democratic governments in non-arab Islamic countries) has also to be problemized in this context... It is much more deeper than the macro power structures...It is deeply embeded in  the believe system...  Whether it is Saddam or Musharraf, the attempts made were to find solutions from the modern/secularist ideals... When Musharaff tried to revoke some provisions from the monstrous anti-blasphamy laws in 2004, there were big resistence and he had to revoke them...

 

There are some recent attempts to re-interpret Islam from other prespectives(mini narratives0.. Obviously one of them is the feminist reading... Works of Amina Wadud, Fatema Mernissi, Asra Nomani, Leila Ahmed etc. are to name a few..  One of the important attempt in India was Daud Sherifa's to build a women's only mosque in Tamil Nadu... The hate towards homosexuality within Islam, is also getting problemized...

 

I think the reforms will be coming from within... Any attempt to bring another grant narrative to replace it will be disastrous... The increase in violence both sectarian and that against women in post September 11 world, is the evidence

 

Regards

Afthab

[damodar prasad]

Dear Aftab,

I have a deep suspicicon about the idea of 'reform' no matter whether it happens from within or outside. By phrasing the ongoing dilaogues, intercactions, struggles, stunts or fights or whatever as 'reform' is in effect borrowing the idea of 'reformation' of a primitive order as being popularized in several 'civilizing' discourses. (By Reform, as I understand,  is an  intentional act to liberalize a highly regulated order and this regulation is done based on several constituent principles). When u say 'reforms' u r also unknowingly accpeting the notions of 'moderate'& 'extermist' islam. I think all these are nothing new.

 

2) I really didn't understand what u intended by "traditional islam" is another "grand narrative". (Grand narrative as used in explaining "marxism")

 

 

 

 

On 5/6/08, Afthab Ellath <afth...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Afthab Ellath]

I agree with you ... The phrasing of  reform is a wrong way of understanding the recent struggles in Islam for claiming space... 

2) The works of Islamist theorists like Maududi and Said Qutub,  the ideological framework that led to formation of the Islamic state of Iran , the Taliban regime etc,  and recent armed political struggles in many Islamic countries, the attempt is to define a structural alternative to Western liberalism and Marxism... This is something common in the mainstream Islamic thought... Islam is proposed as the solution to all the problems... I don't think it is as easy to gain political power(I mean government power), with evangelical Christianity or Hindu revivalism as  with  Islamism

[salimtk]

reforms will satisfy us with limited adjustments and interpretation will lead us to multiple narratives.  the attempts to (re)claim new spaces in islam are not 'intellectual' as such. they are from the down.

-- a group of hijaras from bhopal performed hajj this year with passionate/ spiritiual islamic urges

-- a woman openly declared herself single mother (extra-marital) came to do hajj this time with her child--

--as aftab said, even in india muslim woman came forward to build mosque for women--

 

modern, etheist and secular fancies are no longer the toys for muslims who have unstoppable urge to pray. they have to redefine and reclaim new spaces in islam.

[Afthab Ellath]

I don't know the reasons for Samir Amin to equate communitarian politics in general as another form of neo-liberal theocratic attempt... Probably it is another Marxist reductionism... I might agree with him a little bit in that this is likely to happen when and where Islam is the dominant discourse. But it can have an entirely different meaning in societies like India where it is in fight with other dominant discourses…. 

I have problems in generalizing Islamic politics as communitarian irrespective of space and time… We have seen its role changing from communitarian to conservative and autocratic forms in Muslim dominated societies… Compare its role in Iran in pre-revolution period with that in post revolution period… See how it raises the Sunni discourse In Iran and Iraq and Shiite one in Sunni dominated rest of the world… Sunni Islamic politics is dangerously hegemonic in Pakistan similar to Hindutwa in India…There I don't think it can be considered as communitarian. I would like to call it as conservative rather…

In India Islamic Politics raises the minority question for equal citizenship… Again I won't generalize it… I have entirely different opinions regarding political ideologies of Indian Jama'at –e –Islami and the likes… They were not identifying it as a minority discourse at all… Of course there is some change in stance after Babri Masjid demolition and recently after Gujarat riots…Even in this relatively subordinate role there are multiple discourses struggling within it for claiming space. We have to problemise Islamic politics with all these differences.

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:03 PM, C.K. Vishwanath <ck_vishw...@yahoo.com> wrote:

How do you  describe this  islamic-communitarian
attempt to capture power?As samir amin mentioned-Is it
just another neo-liberal theocratic attempt?

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[C.K. Vishwanath]

How do you describe this islamic-communitarian
attempt to capture power?As samir amin mentioned-Is it
just another neo-liberal theocratic attempt?
--- Afthab Ellath <afth...@gmail.com> wrote:

____________________________________________________________________________________

[C.K. Vishwanath]

Samir amin raised this point in his famous article
-political islam.
india-gujarath and other examples -give new reality of
pogroms.we have to analyse properly -the post jabalpur
riot(1962- Started the problems of nehruvian
secularism) to gujarat .

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