Spinning Out Of Control: Honor Killings and Media Bias

We are entering an all-spin zone, a wild, weird and spooky season and I am not talking about Halloween.

With a few exceptions, the mainstream media continue to kill stories about honor killings and attempted honor killings in North America. How often did you read stories about the honor killings that took place in Toronto (07), Dallas (08), Atlanta (08), Oak Forest, Illinois (08), Alexandria (08), Buffalo (09), and Kingston, Canada (09)—on and on, until the most recent attempted honor killing in Phoenix?

Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Iraqi Father Runs Down ‘Westernized’ Daughter With Car

Police in a Phoenix suburb are looking for a father suspected of running down his daughter because she was becoming too “Westernized” and was not living according to their traditional Iraqi values.

Police say 48-year-old Faleh Hassan Almaleki of Glendale allegedly ran his daughter down Tuesday at an Arizona Department of Economic Security parking lot in Peoria.

 

Western Justice for Honor Killers

When girls or women suddenly disappear, we tend to assume that they’ve been kidnapped by pedophiles or traffickers. Some of us think they were probably prostitutes and either deserved to die or were, tragically, lured to their deaths by a serial killer.

We do not think they might have been killed by their own families. And, we always assume that the slavers are men. Both beliefs are wrong.

For example, in 1999, in a suburb north of London, a fifteen year old Kurdish Turk, Tulay Goren, suddenly disappeared. The family insisted that she had simply run away. Now, a decade later, her father, Mehmet Goren and her paternal uncles Cuma Goren and Ali Goren are on trial at the Old Bailey for her murder and for having conspired to kill her much older boyfriend, Halil Unal…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Mother of Dead Dallas Girls Calls Their Murder An “Honor Killing”

The mother who lured her two young daughters, Sarah and Amina, to their tragic deaths at the hand of their father, Yaser Said, now regrets what she did. Downplaying her own role, or rather, insisting that she is innocent, Patricia (”Tissy”) Owens calls the murder of her daughters an “honor killing” by an “evil man.” Despite years of paternal child abuse at home, “Tissy” now insists that she had no idea that Yaser was actually going to kill the girls whom he sexually and physically abused and whose “too Western” ways enraged him.

Sarah and Amina refused to marry older, unknown men from Egypt in arranged marriages. They had American ways, academic ambitions, and Christian friends, including Christian boyfriends. Unthinkable! And, like Rifqa Bary, they knew they were in danger and so they ran away. Their mother sweet talked them back home. They were dead within hours. Their father has never been found…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Justice in Florida for Rifqa Bary

Breaking News!

The Case Remains in Orlando

Judge Daniel Dawson has just decided that Rifqa Bary’s fate will be decided in his court in Florida. You may read about it here and here. This means that Judge Dawson will hear the case on September 3rd.

It also means that the incredibly brave 17-year-old will remain safe in Florida state custody until that hearing.

I have been doing media interviews all afternoon, from as far away as China. However, this case has not as yet been covered by CNN. As one of my readers has pointed out, Fox has led the national media in their coverage of the case. (Kudos to journalist Joshua Rhett Miller who is always there when it matters)…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Muslims Don’t Murder Apostates, 9/11 Had Nothing to do with Islam

Fathima Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teenager who converted to Christianity at least four years ago but who only recently ran away, has been taken away from the two good Samaritan Christian pastors who took her in and is now in state custody in Florida. On Friday, a judge will decide whether her case should be heard in Florida or in Ohio. Her parents have “lawyered” up, her father Mohamed Bary, a jeweler, insists that he never threatened to kill her, that he wants her to come home. The mainstream media is getting nervous. What if they believe what Rifqa says and they end up sued? Or worse?

After all, the Columbus police have challenged the girl’s claim that she is in danger. Sgt Jerry Cupp, chief of the Columbus police missing person’s bureau, has said that “Mohamed Bary comes across to me as a loving, caring, worried father about the whereabouts and the health of his daughter.”

Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Muslim Teen Who Converted to Christianity Says Family Threatened to Kill Her

An Ohio teenager who says she ran away from home because her family threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity, is now in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families (DFC), local and national media have been reporting.

The teenager testified Monday at a custody hearing in Orlando that she’d recently changed religions and is worried her relatives will do something drastic, according to WFTV in Orlando and Central Florida News 13.

“They have to kill me because I’m a Christian. It’s an honor (issue),” the girl told WFTV.

Such threats are common, even in the United States, her attorney, Rosa Gonzalez, told News 13.

“She says her life is in danger and she could be killed in an honor killing,” Gonzalez said after the hearing — which was held because the teenager’s parents are trying to regain custody of her.

FOX News reports that the teen, a non-citizen whose parents are from Sri Lanka, has for several weeks been staying with an Orlando couple who are pastors of a new Christian church there. She met them on a Facebook prayer group.

Her father denied his daughter’s allegations to NBC 4 in Orlando, saying he never threatened to kill his daughter because she rejected Islam. He was in Florida for a court hearing, but was reportedly traveling back to Ohio Tuesday.

While for the time being, The Florida Department of Children and Families currently has custody of her, ultimately, Ohio authorities will decide where the teen should live, FOX News stated.

ABC News’ Sarah Netter reports that although the father insists he is not a menace to his daughter, a Florida court has placed the 17-year-old girl in foster care until her claims can be investigated.

According to ABC News, the teen left home in New Albany, Ohio, last month and hopped on a bus to Orlando to meet with husband and wife pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz, who she met through a Facebook prayer group for the couple’s non-denominational Global Revolution Church.

“When she came to our house, she told us her parents would not report her missing,” Blake Lorenz told ABCNews.com.

Apparently they did immediately report their daughter missing but the disappearance reached local news stations and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Pastor Lorenz said the teen, a native of Sri Lanka, had secretly converted from Islam to Christianity four years ago, but her religion was only discovered recently. She had snuck out to an area church where, according to Lorenz, she had an “incredible encounter with Jesus.”

Lorenz said the teen was so moved she posted about it on her Facebook page, writings that would later be seen by her friends from her family’s mosque and reported to her father, ABC News said.

“That’s when he threatened to kill her for the first time,” Lorenz said, adding that he didn’t know on how many other occasions that threat had been made.

ABC News said the battle finally came to a head about a month ago, he said, when her mother found a Christian book in the house while the father was out of town. The girl’s mother, he said, threatened to tell her father.

“She did say she was dead to her” if she didn’t renounce her Christian faith, Lorenz said.

The teen confirmed to ABC’s Orlando affiliate WFTV that she believed her father would kill her.

“They have to kill me because I’m a Christian. It’s an honor [killing]. If they love me more than God, then they have to kill me,” she explained.

ABC News said that terrified and fearing she would be the victim of an honor killing, the teen got on a bus and borrowed a cell phone to contact Beverly Lorenz who she had been communicating with after finding the Lorenzes’ church on Facebook.

The pastors’ first move was to call an attorney, several of them, actually, ABC News said.

“No one really knew what to do,” Lorenz said, pointing out that she was not only a minor, but that she had crossed state lines and she wasn’t even a U.S. citizen.

ABC News reports that Blake Lorenz said the girl arrived late at night after a two-day trip. The next morning, the couple called police for advice, but did not tell them her name. They did report her presence two weeks later, he said, when the couple realized the teen’s parents had reported her missing.

Lorenz said he fears the teen is “definitely not safe.” He pointed to other suspected honor killings in Muslim families, including two Texas sisters who were murdered by their Muslim father Jan. 1, 2008, in what some believed to be religion-fueled rage over the girls’ Western ways.

The teen’s father has been in Florida trying to bring his daughter home. A woman who answered the phone at the girl’s home in Ohio said she was a relative, but declined to answer any questions.

The father told WFTV that there was no truth to his daughter’s claims.

Pastor Lorenz said he called the abuse hotline Friday. Elizabeth Arenas, a public information officer for the Florida Department of Children and Families, said the girl is now in foster care, she said, while Florida officials work with Ohio child services to investigate the teen’s claims.

“We just want to be sure she’s going to be safe,” Arenas said.

ABC News reported that the teen, her father, Lorenz and Florida DCF officials appeared in court Monday where a judge ordered her to remain in state custody for now. The teen is being represented by a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that takes on conservative Christian causes.

“When she saw her dad yesterday, she was scared to death,” Blake Lorenz said. “She literally believes she’s going to be killed.”

As for the father, he said, “I don’t want to make him out to be a monster, because I’m sure he’s not.”

ABC News reported that Arenas, who said the father has been cooperative with Florida DCF officials, said the state had recommended the teen be placed in Ohio state custody. But a judge Monday granted emergency jurisdiction to the Florida DCF, meaning the girl will remain in the state’s care at least until the next hearing, scheduled for Aug. 21.

Her parents were also given supervised visitation rights, but only at the discretion of their daughter. Arenas said she was unsure if the teen had met with her parents since the hearing.

“I don’t want to see my father,” the teen told WFTV.

Amy L. Edwards and Rene Stutzman, Staff Writers for the Orlando Sentinel newspaper (www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-bk-ohio-teen-convert-custody-dispute-081009,0,4993216.story ) in a report to which Walter Pacheco contributed, said the girl, who turned 17 on Monday, is at the center of a custody dispute in Orlando, where she sought help from a family she barely knew — a pastor and his wife willing to take in a teen who feared her own family’s retribution because she converted to Christianity.

The Orlando Sentinel did not identify the teen because of her age.

The two reporters said she looked more like a timid child clinging to her protector than an Ohio teen runaway brazen enough to flee her Muslim family out of fear for her life.

The girl appeared before a crowded courtroom full of lawyers and spectators on Monday when an Orange Circuit Court Judge ordered her into Department of Children and Families emergency custody.

The newspaper said it was another in a series of legal decisions in a complicated case: Beyond the girl’s religious preferences, the court must solve jurisdictional issues related to child services and courts.

In addition, the teen, a native of Sri Lanka, is not a U.S. citizen, the newspaper stated.

The newspaper reported that her dispute with her family became news several weeks ago when the girl ran away from her home in Columbus, Ohio. She hitch-hiked to a Greyhound station and boarded a bus to Orlando.

Once there, she borrowed a cell phone to call Beverly Lorenz, who with husband Blake Lorenz is a pastor of Global Revolution Church in Orlando. The Lorenzes met the girl through a prayer group on Facebook.

The newspaper said that although the girl was a stranger, Beverly Lorenz told her they would house her. The teen told the Lorenzes she feared her family would hurt her, kill her or send her back to Sri Lanka, Beverly Lorenz said.

“We are doing everything we can to protect her,” said Blake Lorenz, who said he has been told his life may be in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, the girl’s parents reported to Ohio law enforcement authorities that their daughter was missing. They put together a flier, with her picture on it, asking for tips to her whereabouts, the newspaper said.

Beverly Lorenz said they called an abuse hotline, prompting a visit on Friday from the Orlando police. Officers picked up the girl to be placed in state custody.

The newspaper said the Lorenzes appeared in court with the teen Monday, as did her father from Ohio.

According to the newspaper report, when the petite girl walked into court, she immediately bolted for Beverly Lorenz, who held her. The teen then joined Blake Lorenz at a table with lawyers. He comforted her throughout the entire hearing with his arm around her shoulder.

Rosa Gonzalez, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, told Orange Circuit Judge Gail A. Adams the teen is in fear for her life. The sight of her father makes the teen “frantic and hysterical,” Gonzalez said.

The newspaper said the teen’s father said little during the hearing.

Reached by an Orlando Sentinel reporter by phone, the girl’s mother said little. “Yes, of course” her daughter would be safe should a judge eventually order her back there, she said.

The woman also said the girl’s father would not harm his daughter if she wanted to be a Christian. She referred other questions to her husband. He did not answer his cell phone after the hearing.

Gonzalez said her organization, which sends pro bono lawyers to work on cases involving Christian issues, is concerned the teen could be returned to her parents, the newspaper reported.

“We don’t take those threats lightly,” she said.

Imam Hatim Hamidullah, with the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said the Muslim faith does not call for a father to hurt his child, should she convert to another religion.

“It is not Islam for the father to bring harm upon his blood daughter or any other human being because of anger,” he said. “Our position is to exhaust all measures that would bring peace and harmony back to the family,” Hamidullah said. “Being angry and threatening the life of someone is not one of those methods.”

A DCF spokeswoman said the agency is working with Ohio officials to ensure the teen’s “safety and well being.”

The newspaper said that attempts to talk to the teen after the hearing were unsuccessful — her legal guardians ushered her out of the building without letting her speak to a reporter.

On a babysitter Website, the girl described herself this way: “One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is cheerleading for my high school and of course tumbling as well. I have a little brother who is about to turn 5 years old. With this, I have had a lot of experience with toddlers and many years of sitting for him.”

Blake Lorenz, who retired after serving as pastor at Pine Castle United Methodist Church for several years, said the teen believes her dad will kill her.

“We are doing everything we can to protect her,” he said.

After Monday’s hearing, Blake Lorenz said he was relieved the teen is not returning back to her family in Ohio immediately, but he’s still cautious. He’s “very concerned that the system will let her down.”

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Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent of ANS, is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. Michael has traveled to Albania and the former Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany and the former Czechoslovakia, Israel, and Canada. He has reported for ANS from Jordan, China, Russia, Jamaica, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Michael’s volunteer involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department — Michael Ireland Media Missionary (MIMM) — of A.C.T. International of P.O.Box 1649, Brentwood, TN 37024-1649,at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International where you can donate online to support his stated mission of ‘Truth Through Christian Journalism.’

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Also see: Honor Killing Averted: Muslim Convert to Christianity Flees For Her Life, by Phyllis Chesler

Musings on a Hot Summer Night in Manhattan

Yesterday in Khartoum, a world away, the Sudanese police beat the women who peacefully came to support Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein; they beat her lawyer too. Like their fellow Islamist thugs in Teheran, they blocked the cameramen so you cannot see their dirty work.

Yes, as one of my readers pointed out: The judge delayed Hussein’s trial possibly in the hope that someone would kill her, (she’s been threatened) and that no trial, no public flogging would be necessary.

There are no Marines coming over the next hill on this one.

There certainly are no Western feminists anywhere on the horizon.

Otherwise, the feminists all live (and die) in the Muslim world right now and their heroism is dazzling, mind-boggling.

The Western multi-culturalists say that they are “helping” all they can by refusing to discriminate against Islam and Islamism, by accepting the veil in our midst, and by “de-constructing” it in the classroom. They say: The West has prostitution, Islam veils its women–get used to it…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Let’s Rescue the Heroes: Free Asma’a al-Ghoul

Today, Britain granted political asylum to a married Saudi princess who had an out-of-wedlock child with a non-Muslim British man. The unnamed princess, married to a much older man, feared that she would be honor murdered, probably stoned to death, back home in the Kingdom.

I recall the 1978 fate of another Saudi Princess, Misha, who dared to fall in love with a commoner. They married secretly, she disguised herself as a man, and was about to flee the country when they were both apprehended; both husband and wife were publicly and gruesomely executed. Two thousands Saudi princesses were forced to watch this sickening spectacle.

Neither Saudi princess was a fighter for others. Each sought personal happiness which, as women, was utterly denied to them. They were—and are—desperate rebels, perhaps even tragic role models.

President Obama has recently promised to allow “battered” women from other countries to apply for political asylum here. If so, I previously wrote, we will soon find ourselves flooded with such applications…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

A Frenzy of Honor Killings: Neda, Soraya, Bursa – and Me

The world has just watched the cold-blooded murder of Neda in Teheran. The last sentence she uttered was: “Death to the Dictator.” Many of us are now about to see the haunting film about the real-life stoning of another Iranian woman, known as Soraya M. These two tragedies took place in a Muslim country.

The blood of real (not just reel) Muslim women, murdered either by the state or by their families, continues to cry out—not only in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa but also in the West.

Two days ago, on June 24, 2009, in Germany, a Turkish father, Mehmet O, a kebab shop owner, repeatedly knifed his fifteen-year-old daughter, Bursa, while she was sleeping. Despite the fact that Bursa, her mother, and her sister all wore hijab, Mehmet O. still felt Bursa was too “westernized,” and that she did not want her “strict Muslim father to control her life.”

Bursa’s friends described her as a “fun-loving girl, (who) loved hip hop music….But that is no reason to kill someone.”

Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

 

Brother on Trial for Killing Sister in Ottawa: Guess Where He’s Originally From

In the fall of 2006, in Ottawa, Canada, an Afghan brother, Hasibullah Sadiqi, shot his 20 year-old sister, Khatera Sadiqi, and her fiance, Feroz Mangal, while they sat in a parked car. Both victims died.

Now, three years later, Sadiqi is on trial. According to the Ottawa Citizen, “The defence is expected to advance the argument of provocation, which could reduce a murder charge to manslaughter…The Crown, meanwhile, intends to prove that Sadiqi’s actions were planned and deliberate.”

In other words: Sadiqi will argue that the alleged “dishonor” his sister brought upon her family by choosing her own husband was a “provocation.” This is similar to Zein Isa, the Palestinian terrorist father who, together with the sixteen year-old girl’s mother, Maria, stabbed their allegedly “too-western” teenage daughter, Palestina, to death in St. Louis in 1989. Zein Isa insisted that he did this in “self-defense.”

Tellingly, Hasibullah shot his sister Khatera “in the head and torso” while he shot her fiancée, Feroz, “in the neck and chest.” True, Hasibullah did not behead Khatera, but he did shoot her-and only her-in the head. This suggests that he wanted to assassinate her way of thinking; it also suggests that this was a political execution…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, Jihadic Style. President Obama, Please Read This.

While I was enjoying some sunshine in Savannah, (more to come about that), World War Four continued to rage blithely on.

Al-Qaeda in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and North Africa, threatened terrorist attacks against Germany and Holland and threatened to kill a British hostage (captured on the border between Niger and Mali), if Britain does not release a radical Muslim preacher.

The Pakistani Taliban shot a couple dead for alleged adultery and their execution in Islamabad was captured on a cellphone; Egyptian police arrested a Muslim woman for having married a Coptic Christian; in Lahore, a Muslim husband killed his wife for failing to bear a son; in the Punjab, a Sikh physician-husband amputated his wife’s hand and that of her cousin with whom he suspected she was having an affair.

So much for male terrorists in foreign lands…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>

A Civilized Dialogue About Islam and Honor Killing. When Feminist Heroes Disagree.

Part One.

It has been my privilege to know and to work with Dorchen Leithold who is a fearless, tireless, driven, and heroic champion of womens’ rights. I remember Dorchen back in the days when we were both anti-pornography activists. She then became an anti-trafficking activist which she still is. We have participated in many important demonstrations, conferences, and memorial services over the last forty-plus years. Dorchen went on to become a lawyer. She is now the director of legal services for battered women in New York City (Sanctuary for Families) and has, Sojourner Truth style, literally rescued and saved the lives of many a woman.

We now have a genuine disagreement about whether or not Islam plays a role in domestic violence and honor killings, including in the recent horrific beheading of Aasiya Z. Hassan in Buffalo. Dorchen thinks not, I think there is a profound relationship that we deny at our own peril and to the detriment of Muslim girls and women.

With Dorchen’s permission, I am now publishing our recent correspondence. This is how people, including feminists, might consider sounding when they disagree with someone. Instead of cutting each other off, or writing each other off, here is one example of how a civilized disagreement might sound.

Our exchange is rather long. Dorchen said I could publish it as long as I did not change or edit anything she wrote. I have now added some material of my own in order to frame this dialogue and to respond to her last letter. I will run this in two parts. Stay tuned tomorrow for our second and final exchange…Continue reading on the Chesler Chronicles >>

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Part Two.

Last night I posted the first part of a dialogue between myself and my esteemed colleague, Dorchen Leithold, who is a dedicated and brilliant lawyer and feminist activist. Unsurprisingly, tragically, we disagree about Islam and the nature of its relationship to domestic violence and honor killings, including the recent horrific beheading of Aasiya Z. Hassan in Buffalo.

From Dorchen’s point of view, she has seen “racism” in action against Muslims in America, and among her Muslim victims of domestic violence. She might view what happens when a Muslim approaches the criminal justice system as similar to what happens when an African American does so. I agree that this is a real concern. However, focusing only, or even mainly on this injustice, may also blind feminists to the fact that the majority of Muslim and/or African-American domestic violence victims are women who have been beaten, sometimes killed, by intimate partners who are often also Muslim or African-American men.

I write about how Islamic gender apartheid has penetrated the West in The Death of Feminism. At issue, is the relationship between multi-cultural relativism and universal human rights, including womens’ rights. Secular feminists either lump all religions together as either dangerous or inconsequential or they theoretically view all religions as equally capable of doing good or evil on earth. In doing so, they fail to contemplate the ways in which Islam is different from other religions in the West. They genuinely, really, actually, amazingly, unbelievably, do not want to understand the ways in which Islam is different. (Pretty paradoxical for such good multi-cultural relativists)…Continue reading on the Chesler Chronicles >>

The Danger To the Prosecution of Calling an “Honor Killing” an Honor Killing.

On February 17, 2009, a reporter quoted the Buffalo DA as saying that Muzzamil Hassan, in custody for the Buffalo beheading of his wife, is “a pretty vicious and remorseless bastard.”

On February 18, 2009, the Buffalo DA kept the media away from Muzzamil Hassan’s hearing. Wise move.

Once upon a time, a Muslim woman, bright with hope, lived in the heartland of America. She wanted to lead her own life. She refused to marry her first cousin. She chose to attend college and she planned to become an elementary school teacher. She dared to drive her own car. Two of her cousins stalked her, warned her, threatened her, accused her of “turning her back on her own culture.”

Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>