The punishment was death by stoning. The crime? Having a mobile phone

[n2doc]

This barbaric form of execution is on the rise, and campaigners are calling on the UN to act
EMMA BATHA

Two months ago, a young mother of two was stoned to death by her relatives on the order of a tribal court in Pakistan. Her crime: possession of a mobile phone.

Arifa Bibi's uncle, cousins and others hurled stones and bricks at her until she died, according to media reports. She was buried in a desert far from her village. It's unlikely anyone was arrested. Her case is not unique. Stoning is legal or practised in at least 15 countries or regions. And campaigners fear this barbaric form of execution may be on the rise, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Women's rights activists have launched an international campaign for a ban on stoning, which is mostly inflicted on women accused of adultery. They are using Twitter and other social media to put pressure on the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to denounce the practice.

"Stoning is a cruel and hideous punishment. It is a form of torturing someone to death," said Naureen Shameem of the international rights group Women Living Under Muslim Laws. "It is one of the most brutal forms of violence perpetrated against women in order to control and punish their sexuality and basic freedoms."

more

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/special-report-the-punishment-was-death-by-stoning-the-crime-having-a-mobile-phone-8846585.html

[MrsKirkley]

1. Even worse is the fact that her own family were the ones who killed her.

Apparently they never loved her. Otherwise, they could've never followed through with it, no matter what the "tribal court" ordered.

[HipChick]

4. Family honor trumps any 'love'

Besides female children are seen as burdens with no worth in this countries

[Live and Learn]

24. True. It is unimaginable to our way of thinking. nt

[dkf]

2. Where the enforcement of international norms?

Crickets.

[PowerToThePeople]

3. this

I can not believe than stoning occurs in this day and age. I feel sickened to the soul thinking about that this woman went through.

[obxhead]

9. There's no money in it.

Can't label it as a WMD triggering the pounding of war drums by the 1% and their stooges in the government.

[MH1]

5. When do we start calling the treatment of women in these cultures a Holocaust?

Does it only count as a Holocaust if it is genocide?

I'm sure the body count of women brutally killed, tortured, and enslaved is well over 6 million over the course of history.

With no disrespect intended to the Nazi-inflicted Holocaust, but this is something I've been wondering for a while now.

Really, we need a label for these crimes. "Misogyny" is too hard to spell, too hard to say, and already allocated to rather less brutal actions.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. I absolutely agree with you.

Femicide, maybe...but that still doesn't capture the enormity nor the evil of the problem.

Stoning, acid attacks, gang rapes, serial killings....

Males who harm women have poor skills at coping with sexual frustation and lack of control in life. It's not one centralized entity committing these crimes; it's many individuals acting out the human tendency for the strong to take from and vanqish the weak-- to take what they want. That and the complicating factor of sexual urge makes it so much more difficult to address coherently.

Too common that males are raised with special treatment and freedoms not given to females. They learn attitudes like entitlement and violent reactions to frustration. They learn to externalize aggression onto targets whom they can get away with hurting: Women/girls.

Basically, too many societies blame the victim and do not teach and reinforce the concept that women are people--and that men are responsible for their actions.

[cali]

20. I think femicide is a better label than holocaust

Femicide or Feminicide is broadly defined as the killing of women but definitions vary depending on the cultural context. Feminist author Diana E. H. Russell is one of the early pioneers of the term, and she currently defines the word as "the killing of females by males because they are females." Other feminists place emphasis on the intention or purpose of the act being directed at females specifically because they are female; others include the killing of females by females when the murder is done in the name of male-centered views. Most emphasize the idea that the murders are motivated, directly or indirectly, by misogynist and sexist motives. Often, the necessity of defining the murder of females separately from overall homicide is questioned. Opponents argue that over 80% of all murders are of men, so the term places too much emphasis on the less prevalent murder of females. An alternative term offered is gendercide which is more ambiguous and inclusive. However, feminists argue that the term gendercide perpetrates the taboo of the subject of the murder of females. Feminists also argue that the motives for femicide are vastly different than those for homicide. Instead of centering in street violence, much of femicide is centered within the home.

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femicide

[MattSh]

7. See that list of countries?

And campaigners fear this barbaric form of execution may be on the rise, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Countries that the USA are all at war with. Or have been at war with. And if you think we're not at war in Pakistan, see this...

http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/

[Jenoch]

13. As much as I despised our military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan,

it is ridiculous to blame the U.S. for the culture that allows stoning people to death. That practice has been used for centuries.

[Ilsa]

15. What does that have to do with this centuries-old practice

of torture? Yeah, maybe there is more hopelessness in men there because of the wars, but that does not justify torturing and murdering women for basic freedoms and for being female. Simply dropping out of those countries won't improve women's lives there. That change must come from within, including legally banning these practices upon pain of incarceration.

[cantbeserious]

8. Humans Are Truly A Barbaric Species

eom

[MoonRiver]

10. Yes. That is the root of the problem.

[Cleita]

12. I hope the UN does something about this in backward countries, and

I'm talking two thousand years ago backwards. Of course if we still practice capital punishment, we don't have much to talk about.

[7962]

17. Just what is the UN going to do? They are powerless without the US

Heck, half the countries IN the UN have some sort of awful treatment of women accepted as "normal". What do you expect the UN to do? Form a commission to study it? Never get sanctions passed because a lot of member countries dont want scrutiny either.

[Cleita]

21. It empowers the UN to institute sanctions against the offending

countries. This affects the elites in those countries, who often will make the changes required either by policy, influence or even force. It's a start and better than doing nothing.

[7962]

22. True, but how many times has that actually worked?

Iran has had sanctions on them for years. Hurts the regular folks not the elites.

[Cleita]

25. Seems Iran is making overtures to us because of the sanctions

so it may be slow but seems to have some effect. It's better than bombing them to smithereens IMHO.

[Faygo Kid]

14. And Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal

I believe if a nuclear bomb is detonated in a populous area, it will come from Pakistan or North Korea, and most likely Pakistan. We live in deadly times.

[Shankapotomus]

16. We are living in the Dark Ages

Sick.

[A HERETIC I AM]

23. We aren't.

THEY are.

[Shankapotomus]

29. Ha! So true

Most concise and yet profoundly truthful alternative observation I have seen on DU yet!

If I could recommend a non-comical reply for a DUzy this one would be it!

I gladly stand corrected!

[kentuck]

18. And they have nuclear weapons?

Maybe they are stoning the wrong people?

[lpbk2713]

19. Her *crime* was being female in a medieval part of the world.

Let's face it. Their calendar is 400 years behind the rest of us.

[kestrel91316]

26. The rising ultra-RW in the US calls for a return to stoning and other laws

from Leviticus.

Call them Dominionists, Christian Reconstructionists, Talibornagains, Teabaggers, John Birchers, whatever - they don't want folks to know that they support this, but every once in a while one of them lets their mask slip.

[leftynyc]

31. Stop the bullshit

There is not one elected official anywhere in this country that has called for stoning women because they have cell phones, or for any other reason. Saying there are 10 nobodies who wouldn't mind this is not the same - or even close - to this being the LAW - to this punishment being carried out by family members. There isn't one elected official here. Not one. Stop the bullshit...just stop.

[kestrel91316]

33. Of course they are not PUBLICLY calling for it. They are too smart for that.

But the religious right in the US is enthusiastically in favor of a return to Levitical law and all that it means.

Wearing blinders isn't helpful. And these people are counting on folks like you being blind to their real intentions.

[leftynyc]

34. What are the names

of people who have told you that's what they want? Have you sneaked into any of their meetings? Just what are they saying privately (and why haven't you turned on a recording device) that you have overheard?

Or - are you just being hysterical and trying to take away from the horror of this crime by saying someone, somewhere in this country would surely do the same exact thing except for......I don't know - laws, perhaps?

[Recursion]

27. Damn it... I just read a journal article on this I now can't find

Anyways, the gist was that women's access to mobile technology is the most disruptive technological force to patriarchal tribal societies, pretty much ever, and that we're witnessing a backlash against it. Oddly, the widespread economic benefits of women's access to mobile technology are quite explicitly acknowledged by those opposing it; the model they are presenting is that it's a bribe from "Western" forces to try to undermine the family. Nonetheless, women's access to mobile technology continues to grow despite horrific acts like this. If I can find that article finally I'll post it; it was really interesting.

[jsr]

28. Betcha they made the kids watch the atrocity.

Sickening.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. Ugh.

[Brigid]

32. When I saw the title of this OP . . .

My first thought was that the victim was probably female. Bingo.