Honor Killings

[filkertom]

Another lift from AmericaBlog, this time of something going on in Pakistan:

A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament this week to spare him their outrage.

"These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, said Saturday. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch.

They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according media reports and human rights activists, who said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing.

Zehri told a packed and flabbergasted Parliament on Friday that Baluch tribal traditions helped stop obscenity and then asked fellow lawmakers not to make a big fuss about it.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Psychotic, misogynistic, shit-brained small petty terrified fucktards like this are the other.

Comments

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

Thanks Tom. Nothing gets my blood boiling like an honor killing in the morning. I swear, the very concept of the honor killing enrages me beyond words (hell, I'm having trouble saying what I want to say). It warms the cockles of my heart when some fucktard tries this in the West and is oh so shocked when the court either sentences him to fry or sends his worthless fucking ass to prison for the rest of his useless, pathetic life.

[kengr]

Yeah. Now consider the marked parallels between this and the "gay panic" or "trans panic" defenses when someone kills or tries to kill a gay or transgendered person.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

What I despise about the gay panic is the narcissistic sense that the people who use that defense have about themselves. "Oh, he was lookin' at me, I know he wuz gonna grab my dick...etc." Seriously, do you think that you matter that damn much? Furthermore, are you so insecure in your sexuality, not to mention your ability to say no, that you have to violently react...idiot.

Right now, I' must say, people are just pissing me off with their rabid stupidity.

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

If we still followed Judeo-Christian law here in the states, there would be numerous women (myself included) who'd be buried alive up to their necks, then have hot lead poured down their throats to "purify" them.
Traditions are one thing. Torture is quite another.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

How many instances can you think of in which "tradition" essentially means "no one called us on it before"?

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

Just goes to show that imperialism wasn't all bad:

Native Apologist: When a man dies, his possessions are burned, along with his widow. That is our custom.
British Judge: When a man burns a woman alive, we place a rope around his neck and hang him until he is dead. That is our custom.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

That's twice I've heard that stupid just-so story in three days. It'd be nice if it were true, but it isn't. The days of the Raj are long over, and the Indian government has been working for a long time (still!) to completely eradicate sati, and they've been largely successful (well, except ask Roop Kanwar (http://www.indiatime.com/2008/04/23/indian-government-decides-against-tougher-sati-law/) -- oh, you can't, she burned to death)...except that they've pretty much managed to have it be replaced with something worse (http://womennewsnetwork.net/2007/11/05/nothing-to-go-back-to-the-fate-of-the-widows-of-vrindavan-india/). By tradition, widows aren't allowed to remarry, can't find work, must shave their heads (because they're forbidden to "be beautiful"), and may be ostracised by their relatives as a drain on the family or simply because they're bad luck.

Basically, the deal is, if you're a woman, the best you can hope for is sorta-kinda being considered a human being most of the time, except when it's convenient for you to be an object. The worst hardly bears consideration.

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

More than I'd like. There are 'traditions' like this worldwide. I remember someone saying at one time that the Lost Boys of the Sudan were becoming a tradition, as well, as it has been going on for so many years. I getting so that I don't want to use the word "tradition" when referring to my family's customs, because every time I hear "tradition" in the news, it tends to refer to something negative and often painful for another person.
I think it's truly a matter of a shrinking globe. It's become easier for reporters from one region to have their stories printed worldwide. This may not have created true freedom of the press worldwide (look at the most recent issue in Russia, for example), but it has given many of these reporters the courage to report on issues that bother them. They know that they're not alone in the world, it's not just their immediate community who will pass judgement.

[fmh.livejournal.com]

"..at one time that the Lost Boys of the Sudan were becoming a tradition, as well, as it has been going on for so many years."

And that's how we get to this. You take a dumb-fuck-stupid idea and if you can get enough people to act on that idea long enough it'll get called policy and be mistaken for prudence. Get them to do it for a generation or two and it'll get called a tradition.
In the end it's still a dumb-fuck-stupid idea.

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

You won't hear any arguments from me.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Cite?

I haven't heard of that being done by either Jews or Christians. And if it's in any part of the bible, I think I'd have heard about it by now.

[ladyskada.livejournal.com]

I don't have my Pentateuch handy, but it is listed there and in the Talmud, based upon
And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father: she shall be burnt with fire. (Leviticus 21:9)
The Gemara in Sanhedrin discusses the four death penalties executed by the Beit Din. In order of severity, from the harshest punishment to the least harsh, they are: stoning, burning, killing by sword, and choking. The Gemara explains that for this crime of znut, prostitution, a Bat Kohen gets burning.

[batyatoon]

... provided she does it in front of qualified witnesses, i.e. male, adult, not related to her or to her lover or to each other. Who warn her first (a) that what she's doing is forbidden, (b) that they're watching, and (c) what the penalty is if she continues. And who then give precisely identical accounts of it in court. Which court must then declare her guilty by a majority but not unanimously, because a unanimous decision is automatically considered biased and thus disqualified.

And a court that handed down a death penalty as often as once in seventy years was considered tyrannical.

I think most of us would be pretty safe.

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

That isn't an honor killing, that's just excessive. I don't see why they call these things honor killings, because there isn't any honor involved.

To me, an honor killing is more something like a mutual duel. Society is mostly against that sort of thing as well, but I can understand it...This, I can't understand.

In Pakistan, women are the property of their men. Even taking that into consideration, there has to be other acceptable ways within their culture to keep them in check than the method this fellow took. At least, that's what I hope...

[saganth.livejournal.com]

I think I may be sick, and I feel this way every time I hear of a monstrosity like this. I try not to go to extremes in my opinions, but in cases like this I truly feel that some miserable excuses of so-called "human beings" need to be publicly killed for the good and safety of the rest of the species and as an example to others who would be monsters themselves, especially when the only so-called crime committed against these assholes is the crime of being different. Anyone willing to torture a fellow human being (and perhaps even torturing animals) at the very least deserves the same fate they dished out. I believe they sacrifice all rights upon committing such atrocities. And sadly I do not think there is a society or civil code yet invented that is willing to do this without wringing its hands over a slippery slope that no sane person would mistakenly go down in the first place. So one can only hope that the suffering of those women was short, and that there is some kind of existence beyond death where the terrors of this world can no longer touch them.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

And sadly I do not think there is a society or civil code yet invented that is willing to do this without wringing its hands over a slippery slope that no sane person would mistakenly go down in the first place.

But as things like this illustrate, a society is not the same as a sane person. The sanity of a society is influenced by the sanity of all its people, and while, unlike the intelligence of a crowd, it doesn't go by the lowest common denominator, it rarely reaches the higher levels. I don't know that there's one society in the world right now that would qualify as "sane." Well, maybe Switzerland, but I'm not betting on it.

There are those who say that all cultures have a right to exist and to follow their own paths. And there are those who say that only their way is right and everyone else's is wrong. It's a brave person who tries to characterise this situation as in any way simple or unambiguous.

Personally, I think the society that kills the smallest number of people is probably the sanest, but then what would I know about sanity.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Here's the thing.... I'm stupid. I can barely figure out day-to-day what the right thing is for *me* to do. I am awed by those who are smart enough that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt what *other* people should do. ('Awed' and 'dumbfounded' are pretty close to being synonyms, right?)

[armb.livejournal.com]

> I can barely figure out day-to-day what the right thing is for *me* to do.

Has "shoot someone, then bury them in a ditch while they are still breathing" ever been on the short list? Or had you got as far as working out that, while you might not be sure of the right thing, that was definitely wrong?

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

After a few "WTF"s, I think I got what you were reading into the comment. A little more explicitly: what stuns me is authoritarian types who will go to any extent, including murder to force their views of how to live onto others.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I apologise for my misreading

[saganth.livejournal.com]

Of course, one also hopes that the Pakistani Parliament will ignore those bastards' attorney and punish them forthwith.

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

"Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."
---
Only those who intend to commit atrocities need to hide behind such words.

(See? I can do it too!)

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately things like this aren't as rare as you might think. Over in Saudi Arabia, our "allies", converting out of Islam is punishable by death. It shocks the rest of the world but to many of the people who live in the Middle East this is par for course.

At least from what little I know of the area.

[kengr]

So is being a B'ahai even if you weren't a muslim to start with. It's considered a vile heresy.

You see, it violates the statement that Mohammed was the last prophet,

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

!!!! May their karma get them sooner than later.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

"These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, said Saturday. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."

In other words, "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to be afraid of"?

Gee, where have I heard that before?

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Honor. Riiight. When I tell people that things like this happen every day in the world, I've had them laugh at me.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

The best refutation of those Confederate-flag apologists I ever saw was the succinct sign wielded by a middle-aged black man: "Your 'Heritage' is My Slavery."

It's all in the POV.

Funny how often "it's our tradition" essentially translates into "women have the legal status of fuckable pack-animals."

No wonder so many women shudder when neocon men trumpet a return to Traditional Family Values. These are the traditions.