Jordanian Parliament Supports Impunity for "Honor Killings"

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from the Human Rights Watch
excerpt:

"Jordanian Parliament Supports Impunity For Honor Killings

(Washington DC, January 27, 2000) -- Human Rights Watch today condemned the failure of the Jordanian Lower House to end impunity for men who murder female family members in the name of preserving the "honor" of the family.

Related Material

Jordanian Law Excuses Murder, HRW Press Release, August 11,1999

HRW Letter to Jordanian Prime Minister

National Jordanian Campaign to eliminate the so called "Crimes of Honour"*


"This vote is a slap in the face of Jordanian women who have been organizing to stop the killings."

Regan E. Ralph
Director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch


"For too long, men in Jordan have been getting away with murder," said Regan Ralph, executive director of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. "This vote is a slap in the face of Jordanian women who have been organizing to stop the killings." Since August 1999, women's and human rights activists have gathered over 13,000 signatures calling for an end to honor killings. An estimated 25-30 women are killed in Jordan every year to protect family "honor."" end excerpt


http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/01/jord0127.htm

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Is the message here that Islam is a religion where violence and mayhem are an integral part? I know people can point to all of the killing done in the name of Christianity but I think it's fair to say that violence and mayhem go against the teachings of Christianity.

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It's more a continuation of discussions in recent threads with a focus on currently unfair and backwards laws and customs. Some might feel it inappropriate to point the finger at others when we ourselves are imperfect. However I think that when great injustices exist, there is nothing wrong with pointing them out. Islamic laws which brutalize and oppress women are backwards, unfair, and horribly unjust... and unfortunately, there are a great many such laws in a great many Islamic countries.

If Europe were to have loudly criticized the USA for slavery during the slave years, should Europe have then spoken out? Hell yes. Likewise the world should speak out against widespread and systematic Islamic subjugation and brutalization of women. There is a great deal of material easily searchable and readable on this subject, and it is deeply disturbing, to say the least.

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You make an ideal argument to your first comment and then backtrack. What these stories show is a CORRUPTION of Islam, just as Christianity has many times been corrupted for the benefit of those in power.

If you have any questions about Islam, I urge you to read the Qur'an and figure it out for yourself. Considering Islam is meant to be an extension/confirmation of the Bible and the Torah, it wouldn't really make sense that the ideals would be that different. As a quick example, Moses and his Comandments, including thou shallt not kill, are part of Islam. That pretty much denounces these honour killings outright.

That being said, I think the major problem in most Middle Eastern countries, is the implementation of the Shariah. Although, I'll admit my ignorance about the contents of it, I know a bit about it's history. It was created 3-4 hundred years after the birth of Islam, as a way of creating some structure in the growing Islamic empire. The first thing to note is that it was a political creation (based on religion, of course) and that it was built for it's time. Also, oddly enough, there are things that are apparently in the Shariah that are completely unIslamic. One recent example would be the stoning of the woman in Nigeria for adultery. The Qur'anic penalty for adultery (for men and women) is 100 lashes. Also, and this may surprise some people, the Qur'an makes no mention of the hijjab (veil that women are supposed to wear), so I don't how this could ever be legislated under "Islamic" law.

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I don't know why you seem to be presuming I am condemning Islam itself for these things. I'm speaking in the broader sense "Islamic" because some Muslims are not Arabs. The bad things we are discussing are all occurring in countries which are Islamic. Shariah is a big problem, Wahhabism is a big problem, and fundamental interpretations of either Islam or Christianity are fallacious and create problems. However, more people in the Islamic world than in the Western world believe in a fundamentalist-type approach to religion. I condemn ignorance, aggression, stupidity and backwards harmful customs wherever they exist--and they just happen to exist more in the Islamic world than in the West. As I noted before, that would be just something to gradually work through and let history take its course with a natural step-by-step progression towards modernity--except for one thing: the radical or "Islamist" elements in the Islamic world are fairly widesread, and so aggressive towards the West that they are probably going to cause the West to take drastic measures in defense against the radical elements' armed aggressions. So what I'm saying is that their ideology has become a major problem because they insist on attacking the West over it. Furthermore, any ideology which can only envision world peace when all share the same religion is essentially doomed to failure and to create great problems if they also believe in using force to establish their religious rule. Now, I'm not saying all of Islam is like that, but the number of people who do believe exactly that is too high to not create major problems for the rest of the world.

[tsherif]

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Sorry, I got the responses mixed up;-)

100 lashes can easily maim, disfigure or even kill. Some penalty.