Hamas admits its gunmen shot betrothed woman in 'honour killing'

[emad]

The Independent
By Donald Macintyre in Beit Lahia, Gaza
13 April 2005


Hamas has mounted a desperate damage-limitation exercise after one of its units shot dead a 20-year-old Palestinian woman for "immoral behaviour" as she enjoyed a day out with her future husband.

Angry residents of Beit Lahia, close to Gaza City, have demanded - so far in vain - that the Islamic armed faction hands over three of the gunmen still at large to the Palestinian Authority after what the victim's family believes was a tragically unjustified type of "honour killing".

The masked Hamas gunmen shot dead Yusra Azzami as she sat in the front passenger seat of her fiancé's Mitsubishi after they had forced it to stop. They went on to beat up her fiancé, Ziad Zaranda, and his brother, Rami, before escaping in the victims' car. Yusra's terrified sister, Magdalen, who was engaged to Rami, ran away before she too was beaten.

Two senior officials from Hamas, which has admitted that members of the faction killed the woman, were turned away by her grief-stricken family this week when they visited to present their condolences. Both sisters and brothers were to be married this Friday in a joint ceremony.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=628859

[Zenlitened]

1. Religious fundamentalism = DEATH

:grr:

[forgethell]

13. Well, currently

you don't see many Christian fundamentalists doing this. Certainly not in these same numbers.

Sometimes you have to prioritize your enemies.

[Dutch]

23. No, Christan fundamentalists are happy to concentrate on leading

the charge to bomb the shit out of any country they deem insufficiently holy. All shades of fundamentlaists seem to rank their beliefs ahead of human life, so in a very real way the previous poster was bang on: fundamentalism=death.

[Djinn]

25. it happens with alarming regularity in Hindu cultures as well

I guess you view them as your enemy just as much as the evil mooslems

[smirkymonkey]

2. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

It makes me sick the way they treat women in Muslim countries. :grr:

[drdon326]

9. Who "the fuck" knows.

btw....this was carried out by the now infamous.....


"VICE AND VIRTUE COMMANDOS".

[Scurrilous]

17. Infamous?

Can you please point out where this article mentions anything about this crime being carried out by something called 'vice and virtue commandos.'

Was it here:

"But it was not clear yesterday whether inter-factional rivalry had also played a part since Yusra Azzami was a Hamas member at the Islamic university while her fiancé was in Fatah."

Or here:

"The Zaranda family was sceptical about whether "morality" was the motive saying that the stolen vehicle had Palestinian Authority markings and that it might have been an attempt to blame Fatah for mounting chaos in Gaza."



Enlighten me about this 'infamous' group. I've never heard mention of a Palestinian 'vice and virtue commandos' prior to the JPost article you linked yesterday. I've googled 'vice and virtue commandos' and come up empty. No mention of such a group in Gaza. Can you give me more details about this organization.

[drdon326]

18. Infamous to me.

I didnt coin the name. According to the jpost article, they were identified by "Palestinian security officials and residents".

[drdon326]

19. Also from the jpost article

Hamas initially denied any link to the murder, but later admitted that the assailants belonged to one of its groups. It also admitted that the murderers were responsible for cracking down on men and women who defy Islamic teachings by appearing in public together.

[simcha_6]

22. Sounds like vice and virtue commandos to me. n/t

[drdon326]

28. And this....

will be a future palestinian state.

[Djinn]

26. you might want to clarify that

the world most populous Muslim nation is Indonesia and honour killings do not happen there (or atleast no more often than it happens in the US) and their last President was a woman.

The amount of utter ignorance about Islam on this board today has me a little disturbed.

[Call me Deacon Blues]

3. You better believe folks

that this sort of shit will happen in the good ol' U S of A if the fundamentalists have their way. Interacial couple? Pow! Gay couple? Pow! "Uppity" woman/black? Pow!

[Swede]

4. Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Killing is what they do.

[psychopomp]

5. Sadly, "honor killings" are not limited to Muslims

or Arabs, for that matter. It happens in many places. My Pakistani friend was told by his own family that he would be killed if he refused to marry the woman his family had chosen for him.

[redqueen]

6. Are men frequently victims of honor killings?

I thought it was mostly a punishment for women.

[psychopomp]

10. Dunno but he dropped his non-Pakistani wife

like a hot potato. He was married in short order in his home country and returned to Japan to complete his studies. I believe his story.

On a side note, why was this moved to I/P? That's one for ATA.

[Colorado Blue]

11. It happens. It can happen to gay people too. :( nt

[TheWraith]

12. Certainly.

Motivated by real or imagined theft, insult, impropriety, whatever, it happens. The difference is, it doesn't usually get media attention if a woman isn't involved.

[JerseygirlCT]

7. Abbas had better find these thugs, and bring them to real

justice, or he's exposed as a complete fraud.

This is disgusting.

[forgethell]

14. Yes, but

very common is some parts of the world. Mainly Islamic portions.

[drdon326]

20. Honor Killings in Palestine

Every year, hundreds of women and girls are murdered in the Middle East by male family members. The honor killing-the execution of a female family member for perceived misuse of her sexuality-is a thorny social and political issue. Palestinian activists campaigning for equality find it difficult to stop the killings altogether. Legitimacy for such murders stems from a complex code of honor ingrained in the consciousness of some sectors of Palestinian society.

Given that honor killings often remain a private family affair, no official statistics are available on the practice or its frequency. According to a November 1997 report of the Woman's Empowerment Project published in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, there were 20 honor killings in Gaza and the West Bank in 1996. One representative of the group added, "We know there are more but no one publicizes it." Similarly, an unofficial report given to the Palestinian Women's Working Society stated that "recently" 40 women have been killed for honor in Gaza. The report defined neither the period in which these murders took place nor the exact circumstances. During the summer of 1997, Khaled Al-Qudra, then Attorney General in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), told Sout Al-Nissa' (Women's Voices), a supplement published by the Women's Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), that he suspects that 70 percent of all murders in Gaza and the West Bank are honor killings.

Though a growing number of Palestinians find honor killings unacceptable, the practice continues. "No one knows the magnitude, because no one has conducted a study," said Lisa Taraki, associate professor of sociology at Birzeit University. Women's organizations have mobilized against the killings, but are furious that the practice continues in spite of the legal prohibitions. The killings violate the right to life upheld in versions of the draft Basic Law and openly discriminate against women. The woman alone is punished for the "crime;" whereas the man, who may have raped his victim, is considered an innocent party and often walks free.

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer206/ruggi.htm

[Djinn]

27. try again

it's actually most common in India.

[mutus_frutex]

8. This is no surprise..

I mean, it can be expected from religious fundamentalists. It has happened here in the US too (check about the Lafferty case in Utah).

But this says a lot more about something else: Palestinians, for the most part, would be very happy with a secular government. I mean, they are fairly close to the lebanese and I think they would like something like what the lebanese had. Now, why is Hamas so loved among the palestinians, when they do stuff like this? Well, because the situation created by the israeli occupation forces is such that even these creeps are a good alternative.

Cheers.

[Darranar]

15. What do you think they'd say?

That they have robbers and murderers in their organization, or that they have possibly overzealous enforcers of "virtuous behavior"?

[drdon326]

16. I really dont know what terrorists would lie about.

n/t

[Darranar]

21. Terrorists lie like any other group...

Hamas has an interest in public relations - not with secular Americans, but with Palestinians. Its portrayal of this incident should be seen in this context.

It has an interest in portraying itself as a purer, less corrupt alternative to the PA, one that does not work with the occupation and truly expresses the popular will of the Palestinian people.

Their reaction to this incident has been in keeping with this agenda. Their first attempt was to disassociate themselves from the whole thing. This does not seem to have worked very effectively, so they chose to admit the possibility more in keeping with the image they want to project - not that of robbers who murder for money, but of religious zealots who murder for "virtue."

I do not claim to know the truth of the incident. Whatever it was, those three gunmen should be brought to justice for the murder they committed, and Hamas shielding them from that is another despicable act that should be added to their already long list.

[drdon326]

24. More on "honor killing"....Sister shot for phone photo

Amman - A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend's camera-equipped cellphone in the latest "honour" killing in the kingdom, hospital officials said Monday.

The unidentified man shot the 31-year-old mother twice in the head Sunday night and then turned himself in to police saying he committed the murder to "cleanse his family's honour".

The incident is the fifth example of a so-called honour killing in Jordan this year. Those found guilty usually face sentences of a maximum of one year in jail under Jordanian law.

Last month, a man stabbed his sister to death after finding out she had agreed an unofficial marriage with a man who subsequently disappeared.

At least 19 women lost their lives in honour killings in Jordan last year, according to the local press.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1695453,00.html

...........................................................

juuuuuust lovely. Its good to see the ME is ready to enter the 3rd century.:eyes: