Girl Hanged On a Tree in Honor Killing

Yesterday morning the Ministry of Interior Police of the Hamas Government in the Gaza Strip

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found a girl of 12 years hanged on a tree in the courtyard of her family’s house in Qarara, north-east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. The body of the girl was transferred to the Nasser hospital in Gaza.

The murder of this child in Ramadan, the month of fasting and worshiping God, could be described as a duplication of the crime of murder in a society which professes itself as Muslim. Murdering a child for honor is a crime, and violating the principles of Islam and the holiness of Ramadan is a crime too.

According to my knowledge, children are victims of sexual abuse and incent inside many Palestinian families. Many incest victims, mostly girls, were poisoned or murdered at the hands of the perpetrators of the crimes in order to cover the fact that incest happened. The deaths of these children were always declared as “normal” in the cases which I have known. In Palestine, talking and reporting about incest is forbidden and considered as a sin, not because of the horror of the crime, but in order to cover the crime and the perpetrators.

In the past, such cases sometimes happened and became known, but under the current situation, abusing and murdering children seems to have become something normal, it looks like poverty and desperation creates radicalization and crime, and the weakest members of society are the most obvious victims. It goes so far that it looks like murdering women and children has become some kind of national sport to Palestinians where everybody has to show off on their radical views and how “smart” they are in the commission of their crime against those of their own blood. Children are free-for-all, women are reduced to covering themselves in extreme ways, producing children, and helping to murder those children who get out of line for the extremist views being imposed on our society by imported religious radicals.

A group of brides in a mass wedding ceremony held by the Islamic Charity at the stadium in Rafah on August 4 2010. Covering women like this is a new and was not known to Palestine throughout history.

Since last years after the establishment of two conflicting Palestinian powers in Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the crimes of murdering females and girls on a background of allegedly keeping on the “family honor” increased. The sentence for murdering females under the pretext of “family honor” is between six months and three years jail. President Mahmoud Abbas, who presents himself as a liberal power and not a radical one, insists that the change of the horrible laws regarding the “honor killings” would happen after declaring a Palestinian state, contrary to what he promised in the past year, namely to change these laws with priority. He did not fulfill his promises for unknown reasons.

In Palestine, in the West Bank and Gaza, the families of the murdered females often claim that the victims committed suicide in order to avoid falling under even the lax law which proscribes this crime.

On last Saturday August 7 2010, a married female, 46 from Hebron and under nominal PA power, was found murdered in her house “under unknown circumstances” according to the PA police. The Palestinian Public Prosecutor Khader Al-Toubasi transferred the body to the autopsy to identify the main causes of the death, but those reasons remain unknown after they were clarified and found related to so called “honor” crimes.

On last August 2 2010, a girl, age 17, was “suicided” and thrown from a window on the fifth floor of the Al-Farra building in Khan Younis in Gaza. The girl was pushed from the window by her family and did not suicide herself as it was released about her murder. The crime was committed as a result of her refusal to marry somebody who her family had chosen as a husband for her (an old man). According to media information, the crime came to light after a boy from her neighborhood whom she intended to marry killed himself of despair over her death.

by Kawther Salam

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The Fog of Smear by the Wife of a Convert

Criticism of Palestinian institutions in the interest of Palestine is a healthy phenomenon, especially when the author of the criticism has a known history of struggle in defense of Palestine and when this criticism is done in the national interest of Palestine.

During my over 26 years of working as a journalist in occupied Palestine, this work which I consider as is an integral part of the Palestinian national struggle, I do not recall that I opposed the principle of criticism or denied my readers in daily newspapers the right of criticism and expressing their diverging opinion. I always published all criticism and protest letter in the daily newspapers. Several times I published corrections and apologized to my readers when what I had written was not correct. I hold these same principles on my website, but with a clear exception for people who post clearly illegal or insulting comments, who try to impose themselves on me or whom I suspect of having ulterior motives.

Yesterday was a “special day” in the history of the criticism of my journalistic work. In the morning I received an email which included some information about a writer who had criticized previous reports which I had posted on PTT defending Palestinian human rights, in which I clearly wrote about honor killings, the execution of people without fair trials, the corruption and the misuse of foreign financial aid given to Palestinian institutions. These are issues which always appeared in the Palestinian daily newspapers, which were written about despite the censorship from several sides.

The person who criticizes me, who lives in a house of glass and is surrounded by all the contradictions and the suspicions in regards to their personal affairs and their relation to an American convert, has reached in their criticism of my writing the level of the Israeli military censorship while at the same time claiming their commitment to the interests of the Palestinian struggle factions. The analysis which this critical writer made of my past essays reached a filthy level of smear, slander and personal insults while she disregarded in her writing the laws of the European Union and UK where she lives since decades while calling me “westernized” in a way which I perceive as lacking the basic respect which is normally extended to strangers. Besides that, it is incompatible with ethics of Islam, to slander others. This is expressly forbidden in the Quran and considered as a major sin. (Al-Nur: 23, Al-Ahzab: 58).

The Palestinian media, the daily newspapers and the Palestinian journalist all knows well what to write and report in the interest of their nation and homeland. None of them need people who can be suspected of being managed by infiltrators, trolls or foreigners with possible ulterior motives who attach themselves to Palestinians, Palestinian history, Islam, and the Palestinian resistance while trying to become part of the Palestinian society but in fact subverting and destroying it in the interest of the west. Unfortunately, there are many Palestinians who have passed through unsuccessful, awful experiences and have become victims of such infiltrators, strange foreigners, “converts” with ulterior motive.

The Palestinian history is not innocent of “converts” who try to crush the Palestinian identity.

The story of the “converts to Islam” reminded me of the Jewish Russian mathematics infiltrator who spoke good Arabic and declared his conversion to Islam at the end of 1990; he lived in an old basement near the Abraham Mosque among the Palestinians in my homeland Hebron, which this critical writer accused me of calling “garbage” in one of my previous essays which she apparently misunderstood because actually I used the word “garbage” to describe the urine, shit, sand, bullets which the IDF soldiers stationed on my rooftop were throwing in my house, balcony, water tank and hanged cloths. This “Russian Jew” who thought that his silly declaration of “conversion” could help him to marry a Palestinian woman while even the rats refused his proximity, lived among the Palestinian and never left the mosque even for a long while. After the massacre of 25 February 1994 against Muslims at the Abraham mosque, this stinky Jew “convert” fled. It came out that he was the right arm of the American terrorist Baruch Goldstein from the Kach movement, that he had helped him to perpetrate his crime of murdering over 50 Muslims and injuring hundreds more.

Every day Palestinian newspapers publish without fear dozens of reports against the authority of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, despite the occupation. They also publish dozens of reports supporting each of these factions on a daily basis. They publish fully detailed reports about human rights violations by both of Hamas and the PA. For example, here some (translated) titles of articles published today in Palestinian newspapers:

• Hamas has accused the Palestinian Authority of arresting 15 of its elements in the West Bank.
• Police said: woman died under mysterious circumstances in Hebron. (This means that she was victim of a so-called “honor killing.
• Elements wounded in a clash between elements of the “Qassam” and the “Islamic Jihad” in Gaza.
• The Major General Adnan Al-Damiri objected that the recent arrests by the security forces in Nablus of 20 citizens were for political reasons, as they all are charged with smuggling of funds and items related to the security of the Palestinian national authority.
• Hamas attacked an Al-Jazeera reporter in Gaza.
• Condemnations of attack against Al-Jzeera reporter.
• Secret meeting held between Israelis, Hamas officials.
• The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemns the PA closure of local TV stations in the West Bank.
• Human rights report of the Independent Commission accuses the government in Gaza, where convicted of murder in violation of the law

Publishing such reports is a part of the Palestinian daily life, they do not offend the Palestinian struggle, and publishing them does not mean that the honor of the Palestinian journalists and writers of these reports is in doubt, that they are traitors or accused in their patriotism, or that their belonging to Palestine is in doubt.

As a Palestinian journalist committed to the principles and provisions of the laws of the media and to the respect of the laws of the EU where live, as a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and the International Federation of Journalists, I am committed to the regulations and bylaws of these institutions. I prefer to not respond directly to defamation, smear, insults, lies, and unreasonable criticism of this writer who attacked me because of my defense of human rights; of the victims of honor killings … I am seeking legal advice in this issue before deciding what to do next. I respect the law and justice which apply equally to everybody, and I will follow the advice of my lawyer in this issue. I will never stop criticizing my people, whether they are from Fatah, Hamas, the PA or other factions. The interest of Palestine and the human rights are above everybody. A child of Palestine has all the right to criticize the political leadership of Fatah and Hamas. I will not stop criticizing the Zionist occupation. The occupation is criminal and so are its perpetrators and supporters anywhere.

Much more worrying than the smear directed at me is the radicalization and extremism beyond reason which is apparent in some of the writings on that website. It has nothing to do with struggle for the Palestinian issue but much more with dangerous extremism instigated from elements who are not Palestinians, who are foreign to us and who I must doubt have our best interest at heart. I can only recommend this writer to look at the people who surround her and to ask herself some very critical questions. Whatever this person does, I hope that she understands that we Palestinians have few true friends, and even less so among zionist jews, and that she understands the dangers for herself in what she is doing, because contrary to these supposed “friends” she is not above the law.

Below is the answer which I sent to the bitter mail which put me in knowledge of this critical article.

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Hi all,

I am shocked by these last Emails and by the article “Through the Fog of Deception”, of which I was not aware.

I accept that (N) has other views than I, but what she says about me in that article is slanderous and insulting on a very personal level. I think that people living in the UK and in the EU should be aware of laws regarding slander.

During a past food fight between people related to PTT, I received unsolicited information about the writer of this article and about other people mentioned in the current series of Emails, which I consider to be shameful and potentially slanderous. Since I do not know her or the other people involved, I have chosen to keep this shameful information to myself.

I accepted to work with PTT on invitation of Haitham. I know him through his very respected work on PTT and sabbah.biz. I have no other relation or affiliation with Haitham or with anybody else, beyond a cordial relation with him and Mary. I have no influence in editorial or other decisions which Mary or Haitham take regarding PTT.

I will not be part of a meaningless fight. This fight is divisive and will only help to divert everybody involved from the issue of Palestine. I am too busy with my own issues to be involved in fruitless activities such as slandering people unknown to me and discussing hearsay.

I accept criticism of my writing and of my views, but I strongly reject slander and personal insults. I understand gratuitous conflicts like the present one as part of the work of secret services, who engage in making people fight with each other so that they forget the cause which brought them together in first place. The methods involved have been used before against the Palestinian political groups in Palestine, and against other political groups in many other countries. These methods used to destroy political movements are today known by the collective name of COINTELPRO in deference of a so named FBI project which became known to the public; these methods have since then been adapted, refined and used to destroy civil- and political rights and civic dissent movements around the world.

One thing the exile has taught me (apart from better English) is that the trust toward israeli jews who involve themselves in this issue on the side of Palestine, as well as the Palestinians whom they support, has limits. All these people were involved in the Palestinian issue as members of the IDF before they started supporting the Palestinian issue on the side of Palestinians; many do so in order soak charitable moneys donated to the Palestinian cause by people in the West who are less knowledgeable, all these people have family in the IDF, many live or have family which lives on stolen Palestinian lands in the West Bank. Some people whom I have known in israeli peace groups have no problem with living in houses stolen from Palestinians in Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem …

To me, Palestine remains above everybody. Criticism of Palestinians and Palestinian institutions in the interest of Palestine is a healthy thing to do.

With all due respect for Haitham and Mary, from whom I have only received kind words, my engagement with PTT has resulted in an increase in hateful emails from people whom I do not know.

If the price for posting my articles on PTT is to be involved in food fights such as this one, then I will spare my time and energy and stop posting my articles there, and continue my work on my own site.

Please take me out of the distribution list for these Emails.

Kind regards and all the best to you all,

by Kawther Salam

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The UN is Not the Right Place for Honor Killings Talk

See more pictures

The following questions were delivered during the press briefing of the Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People from 24-25 March 2010 at the United Nations office in Vienna.

According to my information, alone in January and February 2010 13 women were murdered in so-called “honor killings”, and the bodies of 7 victims were dumped in the streets of the West Bank.

Why has the PA until now not changed the discriminatory laws and practices which allow these grave crimes, while many laws have been changed?

Is the continued tolerance of “honor killings” and discrimination against women part of the process of building a Palestinian state?

Ambassador Riyad Mansour, PA representative at the UN in New York, answered:

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“You are absolutely right, and the lady who spoke today (he meant Suhair Azzouni) you should go and talk to her, she raised the same issue, she gave the statistics about the killing of the 13 honor killings in the occupied territories, and she defended the cause of the Palestinian women before the audience, while you unfortunately was not ere, in the morning session. Go and speak with her, take a copy of her statement.

What I want to say that this is some deficiency in the law of the Palestinian authority, and we encourage this woman to come and to raise this issue, because we are interested in changing these laws so the interest of the Palestinian women, would be defended and laws would be changed in line in the interest of the Palestinian women and also for us to eventually have total equality between men and women in accordance with our declaration of independence, and also to have more representation of women in the PLO, the government, in the Palestine national council, in the legislative council of Palestine, she gave statistics that made our society look bad verses women, but we are not hiding these realities that are bad, we are debating them, and we want to change them and I suggest you to take a copy of her statement and publish it because of the cause of the Palestinian women.”

At the final conclusion session of the second day of the seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People, Ambassador Riyad Mansour said that “The UN is not the right place for Honor Killings talk, but we have to deal with this issue while it is part of our society’s problems”. But my experience is that in fact it is never the “right place” or the “right time” to speak about honor killings, sexual abuse, violence and discrimination against women for the honorable gentlemen, so much that one could come to the impression that they actually protect these atrocities against women with a wall of never-ending justifications.

What prompted me to ask the question about the so-called “honor killing” in Palestine was the steady increase in these crimes, which summed up to 13 crimes carried out during the past two months January and February 2010. This is a staggering figure when compared with the annual figures for such crimes perpetrated during the past years in Palestine.

The equivalent of this crime is the silence of the Palestinian National Authority and the preservation of the Jordanian penal code of 1960, which is applied in Palestine until now for protecting the criminals. In Palestine it is legal to kill women in order to protect the “honor” of the family. This and other Jordanian laws are strongly discriminate between men and women, they are inhuman and a crime against all women.

The officials of the Palestinian Authority claim that the change of the laws that protect the murderers of women will come in accordance with the declaration of the Palestinian Independence State. In my opinion as a journalist, this claim is incorrect, and it come as a cover to protect some the Palestinian Authority employers who are involved in one way or another in these “honor” crimes.

The claim by Ambassador Mansour that the PA intends to change the laws, or that this is “a deficiency of the laws” is not credible, as I spoke last year about this very issue with the justice minister of the PA, Ahmad Al-Moghani, during a visit of the minister to Vienna.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not wait for the announcement of a Palestinian state when it passed numerous resolutions and presidential decrees relating to other crimes, including the Presidential decision, which protects the interests of the employees and institutions of the PA.

Palestinian President himself committed flagrant violation of the law when he issued his decree decision “military order” on June 6 2007 which granted the military courts the power to deliver on military law against those involved in civil crimes that may affect staff in the Palestinian Authority or its institutions. “See the military order of President Abbas as (PDF), and see a copy of this military order below.”

Recently, an incident of sexual harassment against a woman who had applied for work in the PA was exposed with a video. The person who was involved in this crime was R. Al, the political assistant in the office of the President Mahmoud Abbas.

In order to carry more information related to “honor killings” and sexual assaults on Palestinian women, I re-publish a brief summary of what I spoke during lectures that I gave at a conference held in Europe, or which I have published in past articles:

“Seven women were killed in the Palestinian territories because of “honor killings” in the first month of the year 2010. These news were released by Palestinian human rights organizations interested in women’s issues, but according to my sources, this statistic was falsified and the real number of women who were murdered, only in the cities of Ramallah and Hebron since the beginning of the year 2010 has exceeded 13. The sources confirm that these seven women, who were registered in the statistics of human rights organizations as victims of “honor killing”, were left in public streets and in fields after being killed and there was no chance for the perpetrators to hide the crime”. Read more “Over 13 Honor Killings in Two Months in Palestine”.

“Today 11 June 2009 a Palestinian woman of age 32 and mother of two children was killed by her family in the southern district of Hebron. The body was found while the murderers were trying to hide their crime. According to the sources, the background of the murder was a so-called killing to “protect the honor of her family”.
In the Gaza Strip, 10 June 2009, a girl from Deir el-Balah was murdered by her father. The background of this murder was a so-called killing to “protect the honor of her family”. Read more “Victims of Incest and Abuse in Palestine”

“6- Under the PA we were allowed to report about the violations of human rights under the Israeli occupation, but we were not allowed to report about the violations of human rights committed by the Palestinian Authority itself. We were not allowed to report about the corruption in the PA, or about sexual abuses against women and children, or about the many cases of incest, about the honor killings, about the many cases of women killed because of inheritance fights, and about the violence against women inside the family. These issues never found their way to the Palestinian media under the PA.

7- Any mention of violence against women was off-limits: former President Arafat once gave orders to confiscate all copies of a monthly magazine from every shop in Ramallah one hour after its appearance, because the magazine had reported about cases of sexual abuse of PA workers in the offices of the Palestinian National TV. An official from the office of former President Arafat threatened me that “the blue flies will never find your body” if I reported about certain cases of sexual abuse in the PA itself”.

Read the full article: “The King of Jerusalem” which was delivered at the 2nd Conference of Women Journalists and Communicators of the Mediterranean which took place at the localities of the European Institute of the Mediterranean in Barcelona on October 5 and 6, 2007 under the sponsorship of the Government of Catalunya, the City Council of Barcelona, the Association of Journalist Women of Catalunya, and the International Network of Women Journalists and Communicators.

“(4) In addition to the horrors perpetrated upon us by the occupation, the women of Palestine must endure the repression by our own men. Honor killings, rape, incest, violence, exclusion from a wide range of activities and rights are life as usual for all women in Palestine. Under such conditions, it becomes clear that “human rights” and “women rights” are very personal concepts, not something “good to have” but a matter of survival, for both genders. Let me start with personal examples.

My youngest sister is one of the many women who have benefited from the respect shown for women rights by the PA. Three years ago she married an employee of the PA National forces (Samir Udeh). As we found out, she became his second wife, after his first wife ran away from him. During the wedding festivities, the dowry of my sister disappeared, it was later found out that her husband had stolen it, and he later claimed that he had stolen it for “security reasons”. But the truth was that he used this gold to open a brothel for his friends from the PA employees, and he also married a young girl in secret. He sold the favors of this new wife to his colleagues from the PA, and he made and sold videos of these activities until the family of the young girl found out what was going on. The family killed the poor girl and cut and hung her head before the house for all neighbors to see, in order to save their honor.

(6) Neither the man nor the family of the murdered girl were punished, none of the men who participated in the abuse of this woman were punished, and my sister, who first heard about her husbands crimes from neighbors, could divorce this man only because I was able to intercede in her favor. Worst of all, these horrible deeds are not even considered crimes, because under the Jordanian penal code of 1960, which is applied in Palestine until now for unknown reasons, it is legal to kill women in order to protect the honor of the family. This and other Jordanian laws strongly discriminate between men and women, they are inhuman and a crime against all women.

(7) The honor killings have strongly increased in Gaza and Ramallah during the last years. At the beginning of 2008, a man from Gaza who had escaped from jail where he was for a rape murdered his three sisters because he suspected them of “talking with men”. In Ramallah, two sisters were murdered in April 2008 by their brother, for “honor”. The newspapers do not report these crimes, and neither does human rights organizations: the censorship is absolute.

But far from asking the PA to do something for the rights of women, the EU has recently gifted them with 150 million Euros for their corrupt forces and to build a jail by 2010, as if the hundreds of jails of the Israelis were not already enough”.

Read the full article: “A Sincere Offer of Peace to Israel”, a speech, was delivered on Sunday 6 July 2008, in the auditorium of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

by Kawther Salam

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