Somalian rape victim, 13, stoned to death

[oberliner]

An Islamist rebel administration in Somalia has had a 13-year-old girl stoned to death for adultery after the child's father reported that she was raped by three men.

Amnesty International said al-Shabab militia, which controls the southern city of Kismayo, arranged for 50 men to stone Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in front of about 1,000 spectators. A lorry load of stones was brought to the stadium for the killing.

Amnesty said Duhulow struggled with her captors and had to be forcibly carried into the stadium.

"At one point during the stoning, Amnesty International has been told by numerous eyewitnesses that nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue," the human rights group said. It continued: "Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/03/somalia-rape-amnesty

Amnesty International is trying to bring attention to this horrific act.

[jeff30997]

1. Absolutely horrifying story.

Bunch of sadistic barbarians!

[Winnipegosis]

2. Scum.

[poverlay]

3. Are there any other organizations on this, or is Amnesty spearheading it? I want to donate and send

this to everyone I know. I can't stand by and let this happen again without doing everything in my power to stop it. We should be working harder to stop this than we did to get Obama elected. Where are all of the people labelling themselves as "good-life is sacred-god fearing" types?

I can not believe this.
Where are our priorities?

[oberliner]

4. UNICEF has released a statement about the incident as well

UNICEF deplores stoning of child rape victim

About UNICEF

UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

http://www2.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EGUA-7L4SEV?OpenDocument

There is some contact information on that page.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Amnesty is probably the biggest one; there are others

The Association for Women's Rights in Development has taken up the case:

www.awid.org/eng/Women-in-Action/.../WLUML-Call-for-Action-Somalia-Stoning-to-death-of-a-13-year-old-girl - 44k

Also:

www.stophonourkillings.com

www.stopstoning.com

[oberliner]

11. Worse than the concept of stoning is the concept of killing this girl for being raped

It seems that the problem is less that stoning is used as a means of killing someone, but that a young girl who is raped by family members and others is killed for reporting that rape.

[Raster]

5. Ah yes, the fruit of radical Islam. A 13-year old rape victim stoned to death.

MURDERED because she was female and because her family dared report her rape. And for the men that raped her? Nothing.

[Berry Cool]

6. What I'd like to know is, what can we do about it?

How do we stop actions like this? Are there any ways we can help?

I think it's more important to ask that question than to allow a thread on this topic (and yes, there has already been one) to devolve into yet another party in which DU's atheists pat each other on the back because Religion Is The Root Of All Evil. (Which is bullshit. Religion is not the root of all evil. Evil people, however, like to use religion as a tool and an excuse to commit evil like this...evil that others, both nonreligious and religious, want to stop.)

[varkam]

8. Well, I'm a DU atheist...

and I do believe that the only thing that I said in the other thread is that I will never understand how people can do things like this to one another.

Since you brought it up (and you did bring it up), I also think it would be foolish to turn a blind eye to religious influence in situations such as this. Now that's not to say that "religion is the root of all evil" - as it is plainly not. And, indeed, most real-world situations are far too complex and nuanced to assign blame to any one thing or concept, such as religion.

All that being said, just because there is good that comes out of religion doesn't mean that it gets a free pass when it comes to hateful texts, bigoted concepts, et cetera.

[Berry Cool]

13. Good for you. If only there were more like you.

I would never turn a blind eye to religious influence in situations such as this, nor would I give it a free pass. Neither would I regard it as an opportunity to deride religion and attempt to proselytize others away from faith.

Fundamentalism is the real issue here...fundamentalism of any sort of religion...because fundamentalism is extremely dogmatic, has no shades of gray and is always in black and white and believes it is always right, no matter what it does. It stems from the need of some people for a world in which there is no moral ambiguity and decisions are simple. And it opens the door to the worst kinds of evil.

[Gullvann]

9. I somewhat agree. BBC News just had a follow-up article the stoning

Somalis grow fearful of Islamists

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7722701.stm

Religion is not the root of all evil, but in this case it seems to unfortunately play a rather large part.

That said, there are many in the article above that condemn the stoning as unislamic.

Heck, even the last islamist group that ruled Somalia two years ago, the Union of Islamic Courts, are distancing themselves from al-Shabab who is responsible for much of the recent mayhem.

How to stop it?

I guess the Ethopian invasion did not work out as intended. Invasions seldom do...

I honestly have no idea. That is what makes it even more heart breaking.

Many nations in the west have after 911 tried to crack down on the financing of these groups through the hawala money transfer system. But, that is also difficult and can cause much misery, because many ordinary Somalis are also dependent on these transfers.

Added on edit: Making it worse is that there are indications that the Al-Shabab is very popular among many Somali expatriates, because they are seen as freedom fighters against the Ethiopian invasion. Hopefully, the publication of crimes such as these will by itself contribute to opening the eyes of the Somalis who help finance Al-Shabab, that it not a group that has the well being of Somalis in mind.

Then again, I guess you don't actually need that many funds in order to stone a child to death :-(

[zbdent]

10. remember, it's not that the people doing this were Muslims ... they were

die-hard RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS who were the ones doing it ...

[applegrove]

12. At least horrors like this are making the news. I'm sure they have been going on for centuries.

Glad Amnesty is involved. Only way to stop stuff like this is to make it hurt the government involved. Thanks for keeping the story alive for another week.

[oberliner]

14. Absolutely

The question is - what can those of us living in the US do about these sorts of atrocities?

Edit to add: Unfortunately, short of donating money or bringing these incidents to light, I'm not sure what else, realistically, we can do.