9 Comments

It is important to talk about this case. Everyone should be grateful that this information is appearing on your blog, Phyllis. Few people know about the Dallas honor killings. Even fewer know about the Toronto honor killings in December of 2007. Ignorance is bliss.

Thank you for calling attention to this terrible case. I subscribe to a range of crime and media sites and it somehow didn’t appear on them.

Unfortunately, the “gender bias” category of state hate crime laws has been, quietly and disturbingly, defined in practice as applying only to crimes committed against transsexuals, transvestites and other non-biologically-born female or female-identified victims. This policy came about because activists who were given authority and funding to “train and educate” prosecutors and police about hate crime enforcement worried that “counting women” would “overwhelm” statistics and “distract” the public from ethnic, religious and racial cases. This is an ugly chapter in the history of the hate crimes movement. Do anything to a woman, even carve hate speech into her body in the course of raping and killing her, and it will not count as gender bias hate crime, for example. This exclusion is written into the law only at the federal level (state parks, etc.) but it is practiced lockstep in all states that have gender bias laws.

So it is not surprising that the Said murders would not be counted as gender bias hate crimes — Texas doesn’t list “gender bias” in their state statute anyway, but if they did, it still wouldn’t count. It is also not likely that the hate crimes establishment, which wields power over such decision-making in deeply politicized and disgraceful ways, would wish to open the door to treating honor killings as religious or ethnic bias unless it was non-Muslims killing Muslims, I imagine.

The goals of these laws and of the hate crimes movement itself it to paint a picture of minorities in America as targets, not perpetrators, of crime and to paint the dominant, white, heterosexual culture as perpetrators and not victims. To that end, crimes committed by people who count as minority men against same-minority women are not counted as hate, except in cases of “sexual orientation” bias. Frankly, it would be better to urge that this murder be treated like any other murder — the horror that it is — than to demand special definitions of the victims, which only diminishes other victims’ suffering and opens the door to endless, subjective, political manipulation of crime prosecution for political ends. Women and children, who are, by vast, vast percentages the categories of people most likely to be victimized based on their identities (as women and children), always end up on the losing end when crimes are defined as “bias” or “not-bias.” They will never be “counted.”

But Sarah and Amina deserve to be remembered and not forgotten. They deserved protection and they deserve justice now.

My greatest fear is that women, regardless of ethnicity or religious identity, will be placed in danger because our state and federal governments will shy away from prosecuting these murders vigorously if the Muslim Society declares that enforcement of laws against homicide are discriminatory. Unless the Muslim society rises up and says the murders of their daughters will not be tolerated this society will be dismissed as being made up of cowards and bullies. You are in america, YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO ADHERE TO THE LAWS OF THE LAND. Those laws state clearly that fathers may not kill their daughters because of some archaic rules of behavior.

Every time I see a woman walk down the streets, in 90 degree heat, covered from head to foot in a chador, I can’t help but think, “there goes a woman in fear of her life”. No human beings in control of their destinies would allow themselves to be subjected to such discomfort unless they were in mortal fear that other human beings might take umbrage at their bare arms or head and BEAT THEM or KILL THEM for their immodesty. I know that some men believe legal, medically safe abortion should be outlawed since they will never experience pregnancy. The same holds true of the donning of the chador or burkah. Men able to wear short sleeve shirts and light weight pants in the sizzling heat of summer are totally unaware of the discomfort women they profess to love are enduring. Terrifying a woman into donning a chador in Texas, in Summer, is much the same. I guess I am challenging Islamic purists to wear a chador from June through September before coercing a wife, mother or daughter to do the same.

This father did not butcher his daughters because they offended his sacred belief in a divine law. He did it because they pi**ed him off and flaunted his lack of control over them. This wasn’t about disgracing Allah, it was about defying Daddy.

Given the tendency in Texas to execute the perpetrators of murder, I look forward with great anticipation to the apprehension, trial and conviction of this monster. Go get em Texas!!

Phyllis, we will have to be the voice of these girls, and other women in their position. The women that allow themselves to be controlled and manipulated by these men, I’m not sure you can help them. Murder is against the law. Period. In Texas, if you kill someone we will kill you back!! I would love to be the voice for these girls and this family. Educating the public and keeping this in the forefront of our Senate, Congress, and law officials, then maybe our voices can be heard.
The government is always wanting to take control of something, here ya go! Let them do something honorable and protect and serve.

Dr. Chesler,

How odd that the FBI would back peddle on such a serious issue. It’s one thing for the mainstream media to brush “Honor Killings” under the rug and merely proffer an alleged honor killing occurred, but highlight Muslim organization spokepeople saying it is merely a domestic or generational issue!

But the FBI? They have a whole division devoted to “profiling” serial killers, to predict when they will strike next. Unfortantely, when a father honor murders his only daughters, there is no “future” crime to anticipate. The Bureau’s ignorance or apathy towards these crimes is deeply disturbing. What they need is a division of “pre-profilers” to identify girls and women at risk for this particular crime.

The likelihood of this happening? Nil! If under the Bush administration (for all its faults), the FBI isn’t recoginising the component that “honor killings” play in the war on terrorism, what will happen under an Obama administration?

I hate the word “hate”, for the FBI to reclassify these murders as “hate crimes” totally misses the mark! Usually, hate crimes are directed at a group. A monster who hates his daughters enough to kill them to save his pride is not committing a “hate crime”, he is a cold blooded, premediTated killer of the worse kind!

So the FBI turns out to be nothing more than an a cowardly, ass-covering bureaucracy. Is this news to anyone?

The core difficulty here is galloping, all stifling leftism. The women’s movement in this country has been co-opted. Left wing political affiliation uber alles.

Abortion, which widespread contraceptive use has much reduced as an issue, takes precedence over plain slavery, routine assault and battery and murder.

PC women are an insult to democracy and their own gender.

Not for posting purposes:

Phyllis, I heard you were on the radio early this morning and you said great things. As per my partner, Haim, who told me about it: “She said all the right things.”

Can the program be listened to online? What station and show was it?

Thanks,
Gloria

To David Levavi – I am a left leaning woman and this case has horrified me, as have other honor killings committed in both the US, Canada and Britain, as well as in primarily Muslim countries.

No woman can call herself a champion of women’s rights without denouncing this horrifying trend, that has now made its way onto our shores. We may not have much influence in the middle east but by God this is the United States and we can all make our voices heard here.

And we should. Without reservation we should denounce the honor killings of these two beautiful girls in particular, and honor crime affecting so many others in general.

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Death by Stonings are Needed! Honor Killings of Young Women are Honorable…
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absurd thought -
God of the Universe wants
more public stonings…

of young girls who’ve been raped
but not by their husbands

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absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
bury girls up to their waist

then have the crowd throw stones
at her until she is DEAD

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absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don’t call a murderer names

certainly not a monkey
but a piece of sh*t is fine

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All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. If there is no freedom of speech there can be no real freedom.
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Philosophy of Liberty Cartoon
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