Aqsa Parvez, the tragic sixteen year old slain by her father in an honor killing in Canada, was buried secretly and privately. Her teenage friends arrived hours too late at the Islamic Center where they had been told her funeral would take place. The kind of family and culture capable of honor murder (she and her family are all Pakistani immigrants) is also quite capable of denying her Canadian friends the opportunity of paying their last respects.
Perhaps Aqsa’s family did not want a western-style “scene” at her funeral. Perhaps they viewed Aqsa’s westernized friends as enemies who stole their daughter from them. No doubt, as Pakistani immigrants, they are deeply invested in the subordination of women as the very sign and symbol of their religious and cultural identity–the bedrock of which consists of female obedience to male authority. Obviously, from Aqsa’s father’s point of view, he had no choice. A Muslim girl whose hair or face is uncovered is viewed as a prostitute or as an out-of-control female who, for the sake of her family’s honor, must be killed.
Thus, while I understand the wrenching, cultural conflict involved, including the rejection of a shallow secular culture which condemns women in yet another way–I must, on behalf of the martyred Aqsa and on behalf of so many other girls who have suffered her fate, still say: Enough! We will not allow such criminal barbarism to gain a foothold in the West.
Now is the time for all good multi-culturalists to reconsider their views and for everyone who judges Israel and America harshly for its alleged human rights abuses of Palestinians and terrorists, to begin to judge Islam just as harshly for its criminal subordination of Muslim girls and women.
Aqsa Parvez could have been saved. Apparently, she had twice fled her home and had moved into a shelter. However, following a classic pattern, her family wrote to her, claimed that they could not “sleep without her home,” told her that she would not have to wear the hijab, and persuaded her to return home.
In The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom, I recount examples of Muslim families both in the West and in the Islamic East who trick their daughters into returning home so that they can kill them.
In Aqsa’s case, within weeks, she ran away from home a second time.
At this point, she really might have been saved–but only if the western shelter had understood that Aqsa needed the equivalent of a federal witness protection program to protect her from her family for the rest of her life. Nothing less would do since her father and brother would have murderously stalked her for the rest of her life. And, Aqsa would also have needed a warm and understanding alternative family to adopt her. Yes–adopt her. Life without a protective family is not a life most Muslim immigrants would deem worth living.
Is Canada prepared to invest in such programs? Are America or Europe?
While we may or may not be able to abolish honor killings in Muslim lands, we are absolutely responsible for the proliferation of Islamic gender Apartheid–or its abolition–in the West.
Honor murders, daughter- and wife-beating, female genital mutilation, female illiteracy, and polygamy are crimes in the West and must be prosecuted as such.
Yes, I favor cultural “sensitivity.” Therefore, I know that Islam is a political and military movement and not just a religion. Yes, I understand that Islamic religious beliefs may seemingly be at odds with modernity and women’s rights, but I also know that other great religions have managed to find a way to straddle the Great Divide between religious belief and modern, democratic public life. Islam must do no less if its followers wish to live in the West or in the modern world. The “sensitivity” must be in both directions.
According to the Toronto Star, Aqsa Parvez’s friends attended an anti-violence vigil at the Mississauga Civic Centre which was organized by the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations. (In my experience, in the United States, and as one commentator has pointed out, CAIR essentially fights for civil rights for shar’ia law. ) At the CAIR event, “One speaker explained they would say a prayer to comfort those who weren’t able to attend the funeral.’Take mercy on Aqsa,’ the prayer went, ‘and on us who are left behind.’ ”
Canadians might consider creating an Aqsa Parvez Shelter for Muslim women who are being battered or threatened with honor killing.
I would go further. It is time for Western democracies to start screening potential immigrants in their home countries as to their views about women. If we did so, at the very least, we might have an opportunity to educate would-be immigrants in the ways of the West long before they actually take up residence amongst us.
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39 Comments
Sylvia:Agree with everything you say. Will pray that Aqsa’s non-Muslim friends do not allow themselves to be silenced, fobbed off, or bamboozled into thinking that Aqsa’s death was a ‘one-off’ incident that had nothing whatever to do with anything within Islam itself.
An Aqsa Parvez Shelter in Canada would be great. So would a family adoption program - you would need brave people - a sort of Underground Railway.
Our police and domestic violence shelters, not only in Canada, but in all other free countries, such as Australia, need to be fully informed about the Quranic, Hadith, Sira texts and teachings that justify - that even command and approve - all kinds of acts of violence against women. They need to know exactly where this stuff is coming from, so they can ‘call’ Muslim apologists on their lies and spin.
They also need to know about the ‘apostasy’ and ‘blasphemy’ laws in Islam, and that even in non-Muslim countries many Muslims feel themselves compelled to enforce Sharia law by murdering those of their community, female OR male, who try to leave it, or who seriously question or criticise its tenets.
To put it bluntly: this is a religion that behaves like the Mafia. The police and domestic violence shelters have to recognise that unpleasant fact - then they might be able to muster an adequate response.
Dec 17, 2007 - 2:54 pm greenconsciousness:Yes, screening out the misogynists but also assisting the entry of women running from them by classifying all Muslim women as victims of political persecution if they renounce their right to bring their male family members here with them.
Dec 17, 2007 - 2:59 pm heather:Roger Simon in PJM talks about Lawrence O’Donnell’s self admitted cowardice in the face of Islamic violence… he would rather go after Mormons. And this, of course, is why the intellectual leadership of Canada does not want to discuss this ‘problem’, and certainly does not want to deal with it in an open manner. One of the more apolitical people I know said that the issue of Canada’s religious schools has become an issue because there is a divide, a large divide, between Jewish/Catholic on the one hand and Muslim on the other. But there is no politician in North America who will state that reality.
I am learning, I must say, something of what must have happened in Europe in the 1930s, among the urban Jewish populations… they were like most of us…even though the Nazis were very upfront about their war against ANYONE with Jewish ‘blood’… the reaction was to keep their head down and you may be safe, and they can’t REALLY mean all of that nonsense. They were wrong, and so are we.
Anyway, I have been interested in the responses to your previous column on this issue, Ms Chesler, and will follow it up after the Christmas vacation (I am away from my home and computer.) It seems that there are a lot of women out there who are outraged at the treatment of Muslim women throughout the world.
I want also to say that this is a clan/tribal issue, and at the core of the poverty and ignorance so obvious among Muslim areas. If we are to see a ‘moderate’ Islam, this misogyny must be confronted and destroyed… and interestingly, I believe that it is the weakest front in Islam’s current attack on Western Civilization.
And, if Canada were on the ball about Aqsa, EVERYONE IN THAT HOUSEHOLD INCLUDING HER MOTHER AND SISTERS, would be in jail and charged with murder. I would not be surprised to learn that it was her mother and brothers who held her down, while her father strangled her.
Dec 17, 2007 - 3:14 pm Phyllis S.:I am amazed that the same people who call themselves feminists or advocate gay rights, turn their backs on the inhumanity in Muslim countries, and even on inhumane practices imported into their own countries. My only quiibble with this article is with the phrase “the rejection of a shallow secular culture which condemns women in yet another way.” There seems to be a confusion between two meanings of the word “condemn,” the literal and the metaphorical. The young girl murdered for being westernized is condemned and executed quite litereally. The raised eyebrows or social rejection that might befall a young woman in the West who breaks with secular culture is not condemnation in the same sense at all; it is the price that in any society, even the most civilized, has often been paid by those who are truly independent in their thoughts and actions. Some people thrive and become stronger in the face of such “condemnation.” The negative images of women in the western media while unfortunate are not directly lethal and can be overcome by people of independent mind. Honor killing destroys all chance for independence by destroyng life.
Dec 17, 2007 - 3:22 pm heather:There is another interesting fact about facing down a theology that harms democracy: back in the 19th century, Mormon polygamy and Mormon rules were enforced by an often murderous Mormon vigilante group (I think they were called “Sons of Dan.”) The American government, and more importantly, the ordinary person, forced a change in the LDS rule about polygamy. Utah joined the other states of the union when it formally renounced polygamy. In other words, the pressures brought were both social AND legal.
Our problem with Islam is that the law supports sharia, or at least the (as yet) unofficial sharia. The real battle, then, is against our countrys’ legal and media elites.
Dec 17, 2007 - 4:02 pm Gloria:“an anti-violence vigil…was organized by the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.”
That’s CAIR of Canada! CAIR is an Islamist organization founded in the U.S. by Hamas in 1992. CAIR trys to pass themselves off as a benign civil rights group for Muslims living in the West but, in fact, in addition to supporting terrorists in the Middle East, they are actively and persistently working to replace our Constitution with Sharia law.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was CAIR who advised Aqsa’s parents to have the ’secret and private’ burial so as not to bring more attention to this atrocious act. I can just hear them telling her parents that “infidels” don’t understand the way of Allah and CAIR would provide a memorial for her infidel friends to attend.
If we in the West continue to be blind to organizations like CAIR who are responsible for “sharia creep” — footbaths here, madrassas there — we will soon find all of us women wearing hijabs.
Educating yourself about Islam is fine but it’s far more important to learn about CAIR. There are several websites where you can begin: CAIR Watch, Anti-CAIR, and Daniel Pipes.
Dec 17, 2007 - 4:32 pm greenconsciousness:Thank You Gloria - I missed that about who sponsored the vigil.
Dec 17, 2007 - 5:37 pm Judith Antonelli:Phyllis, you write “Therefore, I know that Islam is a political and military movement and not just a religion.”
It is more nuanced and accurate to refer to the political and military movement as Islamism (adjective: Islamist).
Islam, the religion (adjective: Islamic or Muslim), needs a Reformation to bring it into the modern age; it is currently in its 15th century. Think about what Christianity was doing in its 15th century, and you will see what I mean!
Dec 17, 2007 - 6:06 pm Bruce:Thank, you Dr. Chesler, for banging the drum on this horror. As you have written before, this violence against women is part of the violence that we see expressed ultimately in political terrorism. We must take a stand against such violence at least here in the West, protecting women and children living under threat of violence, to prevent the violence of traditional Muslim lands from taking root here.
Dec 17, 2007 - 6:57 pm greenconsciousness:More FAST Links
I was looking for a way to contact Ellen R Sheeley who wrote Reclaiming Honor in Jordon to send her over here when I found this wonderful site by a man doing excellent work on Sharia Law
http://mywindowintheworld.blogspot.com/2007/12/women-in-muslim-world-chapter-ii-sharia_03.html
I told him to come on over here and you all should check out his blog too.
Dec 17, 2007 - 7:15 pm heather:Kathy Shaidle, at ‘fivefeetoffury’ quote Stanley Kurtz, who thinks that Mark Steyn is doomed in Canada, that his only supporters are political outliers. Which is true.
Wouldn’t it be amusing if Canada became Islamic BEFORE Europe?? At least us refugees will not have to get on boats to get south of the border.
Dec 17, 2007 - 7:39 pm greenconsciousness:Another FAST Link:
Stop Honor Killings International
Dec 17, 2007 - 8:56 pm Helene Aylon:http://www.stophonourkillings.com/
Phyllis, you are offering some logical suggestions about how to cope with this epidemic in a non-violent way before it comes west.
Dec 17, 2007 - 9:30 pm Gloria:Germany probably has the highest number of Islamic honor killings in Western Europe. As of 2005, there were 45 honor killings in Germany within an eight-year period — and that’s only the known cases.
Following is an excerpt from “The New Berlin Wall” by Peter Schneider in the NYTimes Magazine:
“On the night of Feb. 7, 2005, Hatun Surucu, 23, was killed on her way to a bus stop in Berlin-Tempelhof by several shots to the head and upper body, fired at point-blank range…
Hatun Surucu grew up in Berlin as the daughter of Turkish Kurds. When she finished eighth grade, her parents took her out of school. Shortly after that she was taken to Turkey and married to a cousin. Later she separated from her husband and returned to Berlin, pregnant. At age 17 she gave birth to a son, Can. She moved into a women’s shelter and completed the work for her middle-school certificate. By 2004 she had finished a vocational-training program to become an electrician. The young mother who had escaped her family’s constraints began to enjoy herself. She put on makeup, wore her hair unbound, went dancing and adorned herself with rings, necklaces and bracelets. Then, just days before she was to receive her journeyman’s diploma, her life was cut short.
Evidently, in the eyes of her brothers, Hatun Surucu’s capital crime was that, living in Germany, she had begun living like a German.”
If you want to read the entire article go to:
Dec 17, 2007 - 11:31 pm Mark Rogers:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/magazine/04berlin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
I have never quite understood why even the most determined foes of the Islamic terror war are so fastidious as to maintain a distinction between Islamofascism on the one hand and “ordinary Muslims” on the other. Even if the latter do not advocate or take part in the terror war on Judaeo-Christian values, they are still immersed in cultural attitudes that are deeply at odds with those values, none more pertinently so in domestic terms than the degradation of women. Sophisticated Saudis as much as rude barbarians from the Pakistani mountains - killing unsatisfactory female relations is completely normal. It took the London bombings for the police here in the U.K. to consider re-opening the files on over a hundred suspicious deaths of young Muslim women. Where is multicultural sensitivity? We should go on the offensive: white western women who support Islam in the name of such sensitivity must be branded as, amongst other things, racists. They accept treatment of non-white women that they would not tolerate for a nano-second amongst their own kind, presumably because darkies can’t be expected to know better….
Dec 18, 2007 - 6:24 am greenconsciousness:Real feminists working outside of the major organizations have never stopped advocating for Muslim women and they are the reason the right has been activated on this issue.
Condelisa Rice
Paula Dombrouski
Phyllis Chesler
Donna Huges
Myself
The women at the links I have given you
Elinor Burkett
Women Against Fundamentalism in Iran
All the Muslim feminist
So when you are condemning be sure to put the word “organization” in your condemnation. You can say present day feminist organizations are racist - women study curriculum’s are racist — To just condemn all feminist women is misogynist and ignores the contributions of western women in advocating for Muslim women when we were all alone.
When the battle is won, each fighter thinks the war was theirs alone - we cannot make that mistake or it will divide and conquer us at the expense of Muslim women.
Dec 18, 2007 - 12:12 pm SheilaG:The idea that Islam can have a reformation in the way Christianity did is, in my opinion, a naive fantasy. Islam, at its heart, is anti-rationalist and thus anti-modern.
In Christianity, we believe in certain absolutes. God cannot lie. He created a universe with certain order. The ten commandments are always applicable. God, in other words, is consistent and logical, and thus scientific inquiry and progress is possible because we believe in scientific laws.
Islam has no Ten Commandments. According to Muslims, to lie to another muslim is wrong, to lie to a non-Muslim is okay. Ditto with murder. And God? He isn’t bound in the same way the Christian God is. He may ask you to do something that contravenes the Ten Commandments. He isn’t consistent. And if God isn’t consistent; if values aren’t consistent; if morals aren’t consistent; then there are no absolute laws. You can’t move forward.
Islam’s age of englightenment, in the 10th-12th centuries, when science flourished, was largely caused because the Ottomans had Christian slaves running all the educational establishments. It was Christians within the Muslim empire who were working on scientific discoveries, not mainly Muslims.
So I’m not sure that Islam can enter the modern world without renouncing large portions of its belief. It isn’t the same as Christianity, and to say that Christianity modernized, so Islam can too, does not necessarily follow.
Dec 18, 2007 - 1:03 pm David Thomson:“…and to say that Christianity modernized, so Islam can too, does not necessarily follow.”
That is correct. The Judeo-Christian worldview is almost the total opposite from that of the Muslims. They do indeed believe that God may change the rules of the game at any given time. On a practical basis, this mindset discourages intellectual inquiry and economic advancement.
Islam is inherently hostile to life on this Earth. This is the central reason why its adherents so often tend to be nihilistic. The war on terror will not be ending anytime in the near future. Only the shedding of much blood will likely resolve the crisis.
Dec 18, 2007 - 3:27 pm Fern Sidman:You should be lauded for having the courage to present yet another horrific, yet poignant and heartbreaking story of honor killings of Muslim girls and women in the West.
You say, “Now is the time for all good multi-culturalists to reconsider their views and for everyone who judges Israel and America harshly for its alleged human rights abuses of Palestinians and terrorists, to begin to judge Islam just as harshly for its criminal subordination of Muslim girls and women.”
Perhaps those multi-cultural relativists in the media, such as WBAI’s Amy Goodman should be presented with this challenge. There is no question that Goodman is an advocacy journalist, however her daily radio programs and cable television shows, are for the most part, solely dedicated to spewing forth incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric, while couching it in terms of championing Palestinian rights. Ms. Goodman and her guests which include MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Phyllis Benis, Ilan Pappe, Robert Fiske, Norman Finkelstein and other renowned western intellectuals and academics are in reality nothing short of Israel bashers, purveyors of gross inaccuracies, half truths and outright Big Lies. These personalities graphically illustrate the prime example of the Palestinianization of the academy, with a precise political agenda in toe.
By constantly extolling the alleged suffering of the Palestinian people, while equating Israel with an apartheid regime, they conveniently neglect to present the truth behind the barbarism of Islamic societies towards women. Ms. Goodman and her ilk have never presented a program on the individual personal tragedies of Muslim girls being subjected to wholesale murder and I surmise that they never will, as persenting the truth is in direct contravention to their pro-Muslim, anti-Israel agenda.
I challenge Ms. Goodman and others like her to join us here at this blog to read about the truth, to hear voices of courage and compassion and to be inspired to use her position in the media to take real action on behalf of Muslim women being subjected to abuse and murder.
Dec 18, 2007 - 4:43 pm Marion L:As greencounsciousness points out, WAFI is indeed a real feminist organization that does very important work on behalf of womens human rights. It also works with at least one “major organization” –Amnesty International[AI] - as posts to WAFI’s website show. Therefore it does not follow that there is always a strict dichotomy between the “major organizations” and other feminist organiztions. Here are some examples of how WAFI fruitfully draws on the work of Amnesty, as posted to WAFI’s current website, with links on WAFI’s website to the actual articles and/or documents:
AI: Women’s Activist Arrested Read More >>
Amnesty International 2007 report on Iran Read More >>
Amnesty: Human rights violations continue “unabated” in Iran Read More >>
Amnesty International Authorities maintain pressure on women’s rights activists as anniversary of demonstration approaches Read more >>
Dec 18, 2007 - 5:38 pm Mark Rogers:The replacement of moral reasoning by “multiculturalism” raises the question: by what principled criterion are we supposed to accept, respect, tolerate, even promote (the Mayor of London endorsed an ideologue of wife-beating, his guest at a rally held at public expense, in order to demonstrate his solidarity with Islam): (a) violent male chauvinism (b) Nazism, simply because they are practised by Muslims?
Dec 18, 2007 - 6:41 pm Mark Rogers:In agreement with SheilaG and David Thomson, it should also be borne in mind that the Reformation was a return to origins, an objection to the wealth and corruption of the Papcy in the light of the simplicities of early Christian teaching. What is called Islamofascism is, therefore, in fact, a re-formation: a return to the pristine military origins and objectives of Islam’s founder. Muhammad was a warrior, Islam the only major world religion to be spread by the sword BY ITS FOUNDER. It’s also true to say that Islam is, strictly defined, a sect: a botched amalgam of bits and pieces of not-quite-understood Christianity and Judaism (plus a bit of paganism thrown in, i.e. the retention of that animist totem the Ka’abaa) - and a lot of vanity. Imagine L.Ron Hubbard - with guns. Sorry, folks, but this IS the Islamic Reformation.
Dec 18, 2007 - 7:58 pm Red.eVolution:Even though it’s a bit late, I want to thank you for mentioning my site.
Unfortunately, in my personal life I’ve been very busy and, it’s very hard for me to even maintain basic relationship with other bloggers.
Anyway, I agree completely with your point of view.
The western civilizations should not allow “the proliferation of Islamic gender Apartheid”
and worst of all, as result those barbaric murders perpetrated in the name of a so called “family’s honor”.
Humanity as a all should be horrified by such practises and condemn them all.
This is not a matter of a single individual, or for the mere fact not by any single group, but as humanity in its entirety.
These crimes are in fact perpetrated against not just a single individual, but against all humanity.
We can’t tolerate, or accept such acts in the modern age, still been perpetrated.
Irrefutably there is a necessity to talk more about this matter.
I firmly believe that, pressuring our governements to act regardless of maintaining a good relationship with any Islamic parties, is already a first step.
Taking our governments to the right path, where we can stop those murders from ever happening again in our cultures, it’s the following step.
Sorry for the brief comment on your topic, I wish I had more time in my hands.
Thank again.
Dec 19, 2007 - 1:34 am Anonymous:Red.eVolution
MAMA PALAMA
HEATHER - See http://prosites-prs.homestead.com/ - Michael Savage; http://www.savage-productions.com/CAIR_served.html CAIR_served; http://stopthemadrassa.wordpress.com/ - Protecting our Schools from Islamic Curricula
Dec 19, 2007 - 3:59 am MAMA PALAMA:MAMA PALAMA
HEATHER - See http://prosites-prs.homestead.com/ - Michael Savage; http://www.savage-productions.com/CAIR_served.html CAIR_served; http://stopthemadrassa.wordpress.com/ - Protecting our Schools from Islamic Curricula
Dec 19, 2007 - 4:01 am Mama Palama:To Marion I. Lipshitz
Amnesty International as is true of other politicized so-called human rights interests groups and organizations have been corrupted, corroded and handed over in a handbasket to monied interests who seek the deligitimization of the Jewish State of Israel and incitment of anti-Semitism.
It behooves true seekers of justice to stand up to lies campaigns and canards advanced for the geopolitical enterprise of jihadists and its legion of indoctrinated conduits.
Dec 19, 2007 - 4:34 am njcommuter:Unfortunately, I think the only tool likely to be effective is the death penalty, applied swiftly after a very public trial, with surviving children removed from the family, clan, and culture. We have to create as much shame in the coverup as there might be in the original ‘offense’. This isn’t cultural genocide, it’s a choice: leave behind those parts of the culture that are abhorrent to civilization, or leave the whole culture behind.
Dec 19, 2007 - 12:30 pm marion l:mama palama and greenconsciousness:
You are caught in a logical contradiction of your own making:
If you do not like Amnesty International, then you should not be referring people to WAFI, which as i have shown in my prevoius post, relies heavily on information from Amnesty International. Others can plainly see this for themselves simply by going to WAFI’s website at http://www.wfafi.org
Dec 19, 2007 - 8:47 pm Happy Pick:I can understand and sympathize with the mild - very mild - condemnation of Islam in this horror. However, how many of you realize we here in the west have opened our doors to ever more of this stone age ideology to infiltrate our cultures, mores, philosophy and overall ability to withstand as FREE nations? Islam began in circa 600 a.d. - it has not changed since and it will never change, but it intends to change the Western civilizations our countries are built upon. Tolerance is one thing - something to be admired, but when we tippy-tow around an unjustified stone aged murder, all for the sake of Islam, what are we in actuality doing? What are we accomplishing? We are accepting this tribal behaviour into the very framework of our society, and in time we shall become as they are, and THAT is the aim of not only these Islamics, immigrants but also of CAIR and the entire Middle East. Study history, friends. This I fully realized before my 20th birthday so long ago, and it shall continue UNLESS we ourselves refuse to accept these Satanic actions, all in the name of Islam!
Dec 19, 2007 - 10:18 pm Jewel Atkins:Phyllis, does amnesty international and other human rights organizations finance way stations or secret shelters for muslim women or apostates? They talk up a storm about abuse in the middle east, but do they actually do anything constructive about it…or is their outrage limited to Gitmo?
Dec 20, 2007 - 7:13 am eurosceptic:Remember that your wonderful government has brought charges agaiinst one Mark Steyn for saying bad things albeit truthful things about the so called “religion of peace.” Time to wake up before your liberal nut case lawyers allows Canada to get washed down the tubes like the eu countries.
Dec 20, 2007 - 7:58 am Charles:All this talk about the ROP, it is just that…talk, while the Islamist are busy “acting”. Action needs to take place, and real action, not this multicultural claptrap and acceptance of everyone else’s “values”. Before we all know it, it could take years, we will be __overrun__ by the Religion of Peace. But, I doubt if there are leaders with the fortitude to courageously confront the very dangerous and insidious terror we are actually facing. Where is the OUTRAGE in Canada, in the USA, in Europe. Where? Wake up everyone, Wake Up!
Dec 20, 2007 - 9:21 am David Thomson:“Imagine L.Ron Hubbard - with guns.”
Wow, this may say it all. I must remember this witty aphorism. It will definitely give me something to think about for the rest of the day.
Dec 20, 2007 - 1:44 pm Marion L:Dear Ms. Atkins:
Amnesty International [AI] does far more than “talk up a storm about abuse in the [M]iddle [E]ast” and “their outrage” is not “limited to Gitmo.” AI campaigns against abuses targeting women, men and children in over 100 countries all over the world. AI’s campaign was crucial in saving Amina Lawal of Nigeria from a horrible death by stoning. AI was also instrumental in saving the Saudi/Qatif gang rape victim from the unspeakably horrific Shari’a court ruling of a jail term and 200 lashes. In addition, the Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari was freed from Iran’s notorious Evin Prison in large part due to AI’s campaign. There are many more examples I could cite, but why not see for yourself at http://www.aiusa.org ?
Also, I would not dismiss the value of “talk[ing] up a storm.” Well directed email, letter writing, blogging, and media campaigns — at which AI does excel - do save lives.
Two other organizations that are also helping women all over the world are: Equality Now - http://www.equalitynow.org - which focuses exclusively on abuses that specifically target women — and Human Rights Watch - http://www.humanrightswatch.org
If you are reading this post and are unfamiliar with these three organizations, I urge you to take the time to visit their websites. They offer vital information and campaigns that save women’s lives.
Dec 21, 2007 - 12:27 am Marion I. Lipshutz:Dear Dr. Chesler:
Like you, I am horrified by the murder of Aqusa Parvez and by all honor murders. Like you, I believe in universal human rights. That is why I criticize the well-documented human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. I do not judge the American government more “harsh[ly]” than other governments. However, as a citizen I believe I have the right to dissent from government policies that violate the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights. I believe that the Bush administration should be held accountable for engaging in extraordinary renditions, for encouraging the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and for allowing the abuses at Guantanamo to continue. This is consistent with a universalist feminist ethic that seeks an end to violent abuses by male-dominated governments. In addition, given the horrible violence against women in Saudi Arabia, I dissent from our government’s close ties with the Saudi monarchy. Finally, as Syria also has an abysmal human rights record, it was appalling for the Bush administration to render Maher Arar to Syria in one of its repugnant acts of extraordinary rendition.
Dec 21, 2007 - 1:09 am Ennis:Sorry but AI and HRW lost all credibility with me a long time ago and has done little to regain it with me.
As to the subject at hand Canada will do absolutely nothing about the murder of Aqsa Parvez. She and her family are not Christians of European stock which are the only punishable groups allowed under the Leftist Liberal “multiculturalist/PC” dogma. To take any action against this “father” would be way too much like those “evil Amirikkkan rethuginazis” that they are always ranting about and they would much rather kill themselves then do that.
Dec 21, 2007 - 9:01 pm Marion L:Dear Ennis:
You say that AI and HRW have “lost credibility with [you]” but you do not say why. Have you seen their websites lately or is this based on past experience? As both AI and HRW campaign against honor killings, they are very much part of “the subject at hand.”
In addition, it is ironic that you accuse the left of “ranting” when your post includes a scurrilous reference to “refuginazis.” This repugnant language cheapens the level of public discourse and shows great insensitivity to the historic oppression of the Jewish people; many of whom entered the United States and Canada as refugees.
Dec 22, 2007 - 12:13 am Rachel v G:In the UK, as indeed with the rest of the western world, we have this inexplicable desire to make foreigners and their religions and customs welcome at the expense of our own. A borough in London recently tried to ban Christmas as the muslims may be offended by our celerbrations. The same borough suffers severely during ramadan celerbrations with violent acts of public destruction and cat calls of “Destroy the West”. How can our government find this sort of behaviour more acceptable than a jolly old man in a red suit giving presents to children?
When they are faced with the horrors of what these cultures are capable of they turn a blind eye because they are too scared to admit it’s their fault for not having insisted on a pledge of allegience and immediate expulsion from the country if they break any of our laws. A young muslim girl at my school tried to kill herself on a regular basis because she was being tortured at home by her brothers and father for “un-muslim like conduct at school” i.e. trying to fit into the modern world and make friends. She eventually disappeared and no-one has any idea what happened to her.
What happened to “When in Rome do as the Romans do”?
Dec 23, 2007 - 5:25 am aloysiusmiller:Heather, You have been reading too much fiction. Mormon polygamist women freely entered and freely left polygamous marriages. Brigham Young’s 27th wife divorced him and travelled the US denouncing polygamy. She didn’t seem to be too terribly afraid. I don’t want to turn the clock back to those days but there never was honor killing or anything like it in Mormon history. Islam and Mormonism cannot be compared.
Dec 23, 2007 - 3:40 pm