<b>(2) Palestine:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another "honor" victim: Daughter, raped by brothers, killed by mother
Nov 21, 2003 - Knight Ridder Newspapers
ABU QASH, West Bank - <b>Rofayda Qaoud - raped by her brothers and impregnated - refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls</b>, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. <b>So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.</b>
Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."
<b>The guilty brothers are in jail.</b>
Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a three-judge panel on Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The above story is also discussed at Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings'
Apparently the faithful rapist brothers are only in jail. Their sister, who had done nothing, was punished with murder instead. Islam is a breeding ground for this disaster: with its doctrinal injunctions segregating men and women, it makes animals of men - who will never really be punished anyway - and makes women highly vulnerable, paying with their lives for the violations committed by others.
<b>(3) Jordan:</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Fresh 'honour killing' in Jordan
<b>Three brothers hacked their two sisters to death</b> in Jordan in an "honour killing", one day after parliament rejected tougher sentences for such crime, officials are quoted as saying.Â
The 27-year-old left her family home nearly two years ago to marry a man without her family's consent, the paper says. Her 20-year-old sister ran away three months ago to join her. Tipped on their whereabouts, the brothers went to their home with axes, and hacked their sisters to death, the paper says.
"It was a brutal scene. One victim's head was nearly cut clean off," an official is quoted as saying.
The older sister's 10-month-old baby and her husband escaped unharmed, according to the report.
<b>The killings bring to 12 the number of women reported killed for reasons of "family honour" in Jordan this year, the Jordan Times says.</b>
Under the existing law, <b>people found guilty of committing honour killings often receive sentences as light as six months in prison.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Muslim women though they marry Muslim men, as long as they marry without consent (and in Pakistan the background or 'caste' of the Islamic couple has to be the same), are targets for honour killings. And honour killing crimes are apparently not deserving of real punishment, though the women who married for true affection are.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another "honor" victim: Daughter, raped by brothers, killed by mother
Nov 21, 2003 - Knight Ridder Newspapers
ABU QASH, West Bank - <b>Rofayda Qaoud - raped by her brothers and impregnated - refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls</b>, even after she bought the unwed teenager a razor with which to slit her wrists. <b>So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through murder.</b>
Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."
<b>The guilty brothers are in jail.</b>
Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a three-judge panel on Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The above story is also discussed at Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings'
Apparently the faithful rapist brothers are only in jail. Their sister, who had done nothing, was punished with murder instead. Islam is a breeding ground for this disaster: with its doctrinal injunctions segregating men and women, it makes animals of men - who will never really be punished anyway - and makes women highly vulnerable, paying with their lives for the violations committed by others.
<b>(3) Jordan:</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Fresh 'honour killing' in Jordan
<b>Three brothers hacked their two sisters to death</b> in Jordan in an "honour killing", one day after parliament rejected tougher sentences for such crime, officials are quoted as saying.Â
The 27-year-old left her family home nearly two years ago to marry a man without her family's consent, the paper says. Her 20-year-old sister ran away three months ago to join her. Tipped on their whereabouts, the brothers went to their home with axes, and hacked their sisters to death, the paper says.
"It was a brutal scene. One victim's head was nearly cut clean off," an official is quoted as saying.
The older sister's 10-month-old baby and her husband escaped unharmed, according to the report.
<b>The killings bring to 12 the number of women reported killed for reasons of "family honour" in Jordan this year, the Jordan Times says.</b>
Under the existing law, <b>people found guilty of committing honour killings often receive sentences as light as six months in prison.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Muslim women though they marry Muslim men, as long as they marry without consent (and in Pakistan the background or 'caste' of the Islamic couple has to be the same), are targets for honour killings. And honour killing crimes are apparently not deserving of real punishment, though the women who married for true affection are.