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Honor Killing in Texas (Human Events.com)
Human Events. com ^ | 01/08/2008 | Robert Spencer

Posted on 01/11/2008 4:23:05 PM PST by fanfan

Amina Said, 18, and her sister Sarah, 17, smile happily in one widely circulating photo, and Amina is wearing what looks like a sweatshirt bearing the name “AMERICAN.” But their fate may have been the herald of a new, disquieting feature of the American landscape: honor killing. Amina and Sarah were shot dead in Irving, Texas, on New Year’s Day. Police are searching for their father, Yaser Abdel Said, on a warrant for capital murder.

The girls’ great aunt, Gail Gartrell, told reporters, “This was an honor killing.” She explained that Yaser Said had long abused the girls, and after discovering that they had boyfriends, had threatened to kill them -- whereupon their mother fled with them. “She ran with them,” said Gartrell, “because she knew he would carry out the threat.” But Said found them, and apparently did carry it out.

Honor killing, the practice of murdering a female family member who is believed to have sullied the family honor, enjoys widespread acceptance in some areas of the Islamic world. However, Islam Said, the brother of Amina and Sarah, has denied that the murders had anything to do with Islam at all. “It’s not religion,” he insisted. “It’s something else. Religion has nothing to do with it.”

And to be sure, the Qur’an or Islamic tradition does not sanction honor killing. Muslim spokesmen have hastened, after the recent killing in Canada of another teenage Muslim girl, Aqsa Parvez, by her father to tell the public that honor killing has nothing to do with Islam, but is merely a feature of Islamic culture in some areas. Aqsa Parvez was sixteen years old; her father, Muhammad Parvez, has been charged with strangling her to death because she refused to wear the hijab. Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, declared: “The strangulation death of Ms. Parvez was the result of domestic violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to colour or creed.” Sheikh Alaa El-Sayyed, imam of the Islamic Society of North America in Mississauga, Ontario, agreed: “The bottom line is, it’s a domestic violence issue.”

But these dismissals are too easy, principally because they fail to take into account important evidence. In some areas, honor killing is assumed to be an Islamic practice. There is evidence that Islamic culture inculcates attitudes that could lead directly to the murders of these two girls in Texas. In 2003, the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. In a sadly typical consequence of this early last year, a Jordanian man who murdered his sister because he thought she had a lover was given a three-month sentence, which was suspended for time served, allowing him to walk free. The Yemen Times just last week published an article insisting that violence against women is necessary for the stability of the family and the society, and invoking Islam to support this view.

Since Islam is used as the justification for such barbarities, it becomes incumbent upon Muslim spokesmen to confront this directly, and to work for positive change, rather than simply to consign it all to culture, as if that absolves Islam from all responsibility. For this is the culture that apparently gave Yaser Said and Muhammad Parvez the idea that they had to kill their daughters. It is a culture suffused with its religion, thoroughly dominated by it -- such that a clear distinction between the two is not so easy to find.

The killings of Amina and Sarah Said raises uncomfortable questions for the Islamic community in the United States, questions about the culture and mindset that people like Yaser Said bring to this country. Now that honor killing has come to Texas, Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. have an all the more urgent responsibility to end their denial and confront these cultural attitudes. If they don’t, and instead continue to glibly insist that religion has nothing to do with what happened to these poor girls, the murders of the Said sisters will only be the beginning of a new American phenomenon.


TOPICS: Canada; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: honorkilling; honorkillings

1 posted on 01/11/2008 4:23:07 PM PST by fanfan
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To: fanfan
Isn’t multiculturalism grand?

I just LOVE “diversity” don’t you? And assimilation - well - why bother with that? Isn't it "diversity" that makes us strong?

2 posted on 01/11/2008 4:26:36 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: fanfan

“Honor killing, the practice of murdering a female family member who is believed to have sullied the family honor, enjoys widespread acceptance in some areas of the Islamic world.”

Knowing how we fall all over ourselves to please these barbarians, I would not be surprised if this practice becomes acceptable in American society. Yes, even in Texas.


3 posted on 01/11/2008 4:27:54 PM PST by 353FMG (Vote for the Person who will do the least damage to our country.)
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To: fanfan

The beauty of diversity. It’s our strength, don’t you know?


4 posted on 01/11/2008 4:28:13 PM PST by puroresu (Enjoy ASIAN CINEMA? See my Freeper page for recommendations (updated!).)
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To: fanfan

Religion of pieces.


5 posted on 01/11/2008 4:31:32 PM PST by Tolkien (There are things more important than Peace. Freedom being one of those.)
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To: fanfan
History of abuse too.
6 posted on 01/11/2008 4:31:40 PM PST by 1066AD
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To: 353FMG
I would not be surprised if this practice becomes acceptable in American society. Yes, even in Texas.

Yes, it will soon be enshrined in Texas law. Our President said that we must respect the followers of the Religion of Peace.

7 posted on 01/11/2008 4:33:57 PM PST by vox humana
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To: fanfan

Go FRED !
Mlticulturalism is not consistent with conservatism


8 posted on 01/11/2008 4:34:47 PM PST by Ulysse (a)
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To: fanfan

I wish they would stop calling these killings “honor” killings in this country. They are cold blooded murders. This is just like “suicide” bombings. They are murders also. We just need to tell it like it is.


9 posted on 01/11/2008 4:35:16 PM PST by toomanygrasshoppers ("In technical terminology, he's a loon")
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To: nmh

Your comment doesn’t even need a sarcasm tag.

I weep for the West.


10 posted on 01/11/2008 4:37:33 PM PST by fanfan ("We don't start fights my friends, but we finish them, and never leave until our work is done."PMSH)
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To: FARS; Cindy

Ping


11 posted on 01/11/2008 4:40:46 PM PST by fanfan ("We don't start fights my friends, but we finish them, and never leave until our work is done."PMSH)
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To: fanfan

Thank you for the ping fanfan.

#

http://truthusa.com/a/index.php?topic=1576.0


12 posted on 01/11/2008 5:36:13 PM PST by Cindy
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: fanfan

Sarcasm aside ... I weep for the U.S..

It’s going to hell in a hand basket.


14 posted on 01/11/2008 6:14:06 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: 1066AD

From your link:

“Her son, Islam, 19, agreed.

“Why is it every time an Arab father kills a daughter, it’s an honor killing?” Islam said. “It didn’t have anything to do with that.” He declined to answer other questions.

Mr. Said has not been arrested, and some family members suspect he may have fled to Egypt, which he visits each year. “

Well, maybe because it’s TYPICAL of ISLAM.


15 posted on 01/11/2008 6:17:44 PM PST by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: nmh

Stupid democratic utopian puke! We have been suffering from this nonsense long enough. We are being held hostage in our own country by the very people we elected to represent Americans. We hear alot on the liberal progressive democratic side on the word CHANGE. YOU ARE RIGHT WE NEED CHANGE, AND ITS NOT THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO JAM DOWN OUR THROATS. GET OUT AND VOTE AMERICA, TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE OF THE MONGRELS WHO ARE RUINING THIS GREAT NATION!


16 posted on 01/11/2008 6:24:10 PM PST by ronnie raygun (Id rather be hunting with dick than driving with ted)
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To: nmh
I just LOVE “diversity” don’t you? And assimilation

Yes, I DO love it.

I regularly assimilate Indian, Chinese, British, Chinese, Thai, Greek, Italian, German, Middle Eastern, North African, Caribbean, Mexican, Polish, New Orleans, Texan/Southwestern, and several other cuisines.

Diversifying our culture is a whole different matter, though:

No diversification without assimilation!

17 posted on 01/11/2008 8:57:05 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (Not a Hyphenated-American; I'm a Gringo-ChinAfroMexistanian, made in the USA, by American workers!)
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Comment #18 Removed by Moderator

To: fanfan
Here are a couple of photos of the sisters (father is an Egyptian immigrant, mother is from Texas ..... looking at the girls, I'd guess the mother's anglo or hispanic):

And as long as we're on the subject of "Islamofascist Parenting Skills" here's another photo for you all, with a caption of: This is a picture of a Palestinian mother stepping on the corpse of her son who betrayed the Muslims by helping the Israelis.

How about it, folks? Should we start an internet campaign to vote her in as Mother Of The Year?

And surely the Said sisters' doting father should be a shoo-in for Islamofascist Father Of The Year, since he has two notches cut on his gun.

19 posted on 01/11/2008 11:09:30 PM PST by CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC
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To: fanfan

“And to be sure, the Qur’an or Islamic tradition does not sanction honor killing.”

Taqiyya alert! Taqiyya alert!


20 posted on 01/12/2008 11:10:10 PM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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