 Incidents like the Buffalo beheading won't stop while Islamic leaders and institutions continue to adhere to theology that tolerates wife beating. By Patrick Poole The February 13 beheading of Aasiya Z. Hassan by her husband Muzzamil Hassan, as reported here at Pajamas Media by Phyllis Chesler, has stunned the American Muslim community. This honor killing is particularly shocking because Hassan co-founded the Bridges TV network, which was created specifically to combat negative stereotypes of Muslims and to supposedly present Americans with an alternative “moderate” form of Islam. However, the official response to this tragedy from the Muslim community has not been helpful. As observed earlier this month by the Salafi Burnout blog, the individual chosen by the Muslim Alliance of North American (MANA) to respond to the “moderate” Buffalo beheading tragedy is Mauri Saalakhan, who reportedly has admitted to beating his own wife. Saalakhan’s response to the Hassan honor killing is posted on MANA’s website. (Saalakhan has also previously been discussed here at Pajamas Media, regarding his support of terrorist organizations and his close connection to New York Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks). Several days following the initial post concerning Saalakhan’s abuse of his wife, one of his supporters posted a purported response from Saalakhan defending his conduct, which was then included in a separate post on the Salafi Burnout blog: The allegations — which I have since discovered are now on a number of extremely hostile anti-Islam, anti-Muslim websites — are UNTRUE. I have never beaten up any woman in my life. There have been a number of occasions in the PAST (not the present), and few in number, when I have struck a woman with an open hand — an admission that I am not proud of — but I have never beaten a woman! And on the few occasions when this did happen — with three (I can count them) exceptions — it was in response to being struck first. Read more ... Source: Pajamas Media
 Backed by millions in U.S. funds, Palestinian unity missing key element
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – The recognition of Israel is not on the table at talks aimed at creating a unity government between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, according to participants taking part in the discussions.
The international community is urging the formation of a unified Palestinian government to clear the way for some $5 billion in international aid to flow into Gaza, including parts of a recent $900 million pledge from the U.S.
Two sources inside the unity talks currently underway between Fatah and Hamas in Egypt both confirmed to WND that Hamas is not being asked to recognize Israel as a condition for joining the Palestinian Authority. Instead, Abbas' Fatah party – under international pressure – is asking for Hamas to recognize, but not agree to, past agreements with Israel, including one deal that tacitly recognizes the Jewish state's right to exist.
In the past, the U.S. has said that before it deals with Hamas, the Islamist group must first recognize Israel's right to exist. Clearly, Fatah does not place as much importance on that U.S. condition.
Mushir al-Massri, a Hamas spokesman and parliament member, told WND from the talks in Egypt: "The world is asking us to recognize Israel, but Fatah does not recognize Israel. It's not demanded from Fatah, and you (Americans) give plenty of money to Fatah, so why are you asking Hamas to recognize (Israel)?"
Indeed, contrary to popular perception, Fatah has never officially recognized Israel as a party.
In 1994, the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, signed what was known as the "recognition principals," in which the PLO formally agreed to recognize Israel. Fatah is the largest faction of the PLO, and as such, is thought to be party to the recognition agreement.
Fatah as a party, however, never officially declared it recognized the Jewish state. The last time the Fatah party held its official congress - in which it amended its charter - was in 1989. At that time, Fatah declared jihad on Israel and called for the Jewish state's destruction.
PLO Leader Yasser Arafat later made a statement to the French media in which he claimed the portion of Fatah's charter calling for the destruction of Israel was null and void, but the terms were never officially nullified. According to Fatah bylaws, the group's charter can only be changed by vote during an official Fatah congress session.
Al-Massri, meanwhile, said Hamas may be ready to recognize, but not accept, previous agreements between Israel and the PLO.
"Hamas can live with recognizing past agreements with Israel," he said, "but we need to discuss small nuances."
U.S. funds to reach Hamas?
The unity talks could bring Hamas into the PA, which is slated to be infused with large amounts of foreign donor funds. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month announced that a $900 million U.S. aid package for the Palestinians was meant to foster regional peace and would not fall into the hands of the Hamas terrorist organization.
But the aid is slated to be received both by a U.N. agency that openly employs Hamas and by the PA, which Hamas may now join.
Clinton told a news conference at an international donors meeting in Egypt on March 2, "We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure our funding is only used where and for whom it is intended and does not end up in the wrong hands."
The U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist group. Hamas' charter calls for the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. The group is responsible for scores of deadly suicide bombings, shooting attacks, border raids and rocket launchings aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.
The $900 million U.S. in funding includes $300 million earmarked to provide "humanitarian aid" for Gaza following Israel's 22-day war there aimed at denting Hamas' terrorist infrastructure.
A U.S. official reported the money will go to the PA and to nongovernmental organizations, most notably the United Nations Relief and Work Agency, or UNWRA, which administers aid to millions of Palestinian "refugees" in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Israeli security officials warned that since Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, any reconstruction efforts in the territory are likely to bolster Hamas, whether the Islamist group directly receives the funds or not. They also said the PA has previously used donor funds to pay salaries for Hamas officials and the terrorist group's police force in Gaza, which includes scores of terrorists among its ranks.
Further, Hamas and the soon-to-be cash-infused PA are in talks to join a unity government. The talks are said to be favored by the Obama administration.
In recent meetings with representatives of donor countries, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu warned that infusing the Hamas-controlled Gaza with funds or construction efforts before Hamas stopped firing rockets at Israel would send a message to the terrorist group that it can continue its onslaught with little consequence.
Netanyahu also reportedly said reconstructing Gaza with international aid could make it more difficult for Israel to launch a future anti-terror operation in the territory, since the Israeli army may hit locations rebuilt with foreign donations.
Reacting to the news of the pledged U.S. funds, Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, recently told WND, "We are very happy with this decision."
"In the first place, this money will go toward reconstructing efforts," said Barhoum, speaking by cell phone from Gaza.
Hamas, UNWRA closely linked
The $900 million is also slated for UNWRA. From 1990 until today, teachers affiliated with the Islamic Bloc, which is formally associated with Hamas, have won elections as representatives of the teachers' section of the UNRWA union. By 2003, they held all seats and fully constituted the executive committee of this section of the union. The publication of UNWRA school books in Gaza is coordinated with Hamas.
Saeed Siam, Hamas former interior minister and one of the leaders of the group's so-called military wing, taught in UNRWA schools from 1980 to 2003 and served as a representative to the UNWRA union. He was killed during an Israeli air strike last month.
Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the man who founded Hamas and has been immortalized by it, worked as a UNRWA teacher from 1967 to 1994.
On July 6, 2001, Hamas convened a conference in the UNRWA school in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, with students, teachers and school administrators in attendance. Yassin presented his ideology, and then an official named Saheil Alhinadi, who represented the teaching sector of UNRWA, praised students who had recently carried out suicide attacks against Israel, declaring "the road to Palestine passes through the blood of the fallen, and these fallen have written history with parts of their flesh and their bodies."
A 2002 report from the Intelligence and Terrorism Center at Israel's Center for Special Studies, a think tank associated with Israeli intelligence, documented how a number of wanted terrorists were found hiding inside schools run by UNRWA.
"A large number of youth clubs operated by UNRWA in the refugee camps were discovered to be meeting places for terrorists," said the report.
Muhammad Ali Hassan, a Hamas terrorist arrested in February 2002, confessed he had carried out a sniper shooting from the school run by UNRWA in the al-Ayn refugee camp near Nablus, or biblical Shechem. He also reportedly told his interrogators that bombs intended for terrorist attacks were being manufactured inside the school's facilities.
Nidal Abd al-Fattah Abdallah Nazzal, a Hamas activist from Kalkilya, was arrested in August 2002. He had been employed as an ambulance driver by UNRWA. He confessed during his interrogation that he had transported weapons and explosives in an UNRWA ambulance to terrorists.
Additional information about arrests of UNRWA employees by Israel came in 2003 from the U.S. General Accounting Office, which was charged with conducting an investigation of UNRWA operations. The office found that in three instances Israeli military courts convicted UNRWA employees of involvement with explosives.
More recently, in the time leading up to and since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in the summer of 2007, there has been concern in Jerusalem about UNRWA camps being used for the manufacture, storage and launching of rockets and mortars into Israel. Also, camp residents have been suspected of active involvement in launching missiles and infiltrating shooters and suicide bombers into Israel. Source: WorldNetDaily
By Phyllis Chesler Occasionally, if a thinker-activist lives long enough and keeps in the fight, she might just experience a moment of vindication. For me, last evening was one of those moments. Yesterday, I completed a QNA with the National Review about honor killings/”honorcides” which appears there today and which you may read HERE. I also did a long interview with a major new service on the subject which is slated to appear tomorrow. Like many other wire services and like the mainstream media, ideas such as mine are usually sidelined, marginalized, attacked, or simply “disappeared.” I do not think this will happen tomorrow. And now, I have a number of honorable allies. One surely is NOW-New York State President, Marcia Pappas who is now also being attacked for her having linked the Buffalo beheading with “honor killings,” with “Islam,” and even with “Islamic terrorism.” Indeed, she was attacked yesterday by a coalition of eight domestic violence victim advocacy providers in Erie County where the Buffalo beheading took place. I quickly posted a blog which dealt with this, (it deserves a longer piece), but I mainly praised the recent rally in London which was sponsored by One Law For All. Read more ...Source: Pajamas Media
 Phyllis CheslerAn NRO Q&A It really was two crimes in one. When Aasiya Hassan was allegedly beheaded by her husband in upstate New York, the response by many Muslim groups was to make sure that no one connected the murder to Islam, rather than to be concerned that a man may have brutally murdered his wife in the name of Islam. Unfortunately, none of this came as any surprise to feminist Phyllis Chesler. Chesler shines a light on this dishonorable outrage, most recently, in a study for The Middle East Quarterly calling out the differences between “honor killing” and domestic violence. She blogs regularly about Islamic gender and religious apartheid, including honor killing, here and recently took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez. Kathryn Jean Lopez: What exactly is an honor killing? And is it odd for there to be one in, say, New York State? Phyllis Chesler: The beheading in Buffalo, N.Y., is a hybrid case which involves some features of Western-style domestic violence and a Pakistani-Islamic method of murder. However, in 2004, in Scottsville, N.Y., a Turkish-Muslim woman was honor-murdered, and in 2008, in Henrietta, N.Y., a serious honor murder was attempted by an Afghan Muslim. However, honor killings usually take place in shame-and-honor societies, mainly in the Third World. In the West, such murders are mainly done by Muslims (it is a Muslim-on-Muslim crime), and to a much lesser extent, by Sikhs. Strangers are not usually honor-murdered; only daughters, wives, or sisters are. It is an intimate family crime, a premeditated one, with many warnings given. It is also a family collaboration. Read more ...Source: NROPhyllis Chesler
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 A deep and frightening financial crisis dominates news coverage. A flood of layoffs, tumbling stock prices and a battle over government's role in stemming the tide rightly leads newscasts and the front pages of America's ever-shrinking newspapers. Important stories can get lost in the mix. But sometimes, it seems the stories are ignored due to uncomfortable facts associated with them. Andrew Sullivan, one of the most prolific news junkies in the blogosphere, made that point last week. He expressed dismay at missing the news of the beheading of Buffalo resident Aasiya Hassan Feb 12. Muzzammil Hassan, founder of Bridges Television – a cable network created to enhance the image of Muslims - is charged with killing his wife. "I learned of the case for the first time on Bill Maher, which means the MSM [mainstream media] must have been doing a very good job suppressing it," he wrote. It's just one of several stories about Islamist extremism that has been ignored by U.S. news outlets in the past month. The Israeli military has declared that its investigation has found the number of civilian casualties from its recent fighting in Gaza has been grossly exaggerated. Those inflated figures are helping drive divestment efforts and protests at universities in the U.S. and abroad. Those protests are growing increasingly hostile and threatening. Read more ...Source: IPT NewsMuzzammil Hassan
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award
 By Asra Q. Nomani On the night of Feb. 12, 2009, Aasiya Hassan was allegedly murdered and beheaded by her estranged husband, Muzzammil Hassan, inside the building of the American-Muslim TV venture, Bridges Network Inc., they operated together. While the alleged murder took place, the couple’s two children - four-year-old Rania and six-year-old Danyal - were waiting for their mother in a car outside the building, along with Muzzamil Hassan’s 17-year-old son from an earlier marriage, according to people familiar with the details of the case. It isn’t clear where the children were when police discovered their mother’s body, but the account is a reminder that domestic violence often has devastating consequences for children when it goes untreated. Police records - including this report from Flower Mound, Texas - show that the Hassan family had been struggling with Muzzammil Hassan’s abuse long before the alleged murder took place. According to the police report, Muzzammil Hassan "coerced her into a bedroom." In the bedroom, she said, he "pushed her down onto the bed, sat on her chest and pinned her arms and legs down." Read more ...Source: The Daily Beast
By Phyllis Chesler These People Claim That Honor Killings Are The Same As Domestic ViolenceHard on the heels of the Buffalo beheading, the mainstream and feminist media hosted many Islamic clerics, Muslim, Jewish, Christian religious writers, as well as liberal, secular feminists, all of whom insisted that honor killings are no different than domestic violence; that both are crimes; and that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam just as domestic violence has nothing to do with religion. Even so, everyone also said that an anti-Muslim bias (or “Muslim baiting”), controlled the perception of honor killings in general, and saw honor killings even when they did not exist–for example, in the case of the Buffalo beheading. Read more ...Source: Pajamas Media
By Joe Kaufman Following the recent beheading of Aasiya Zubair Hassan, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) issued what it called “an open letter to the leaders of American Muslim communities.” The letter was a call against domestic violence, which apparently Hassan had been a long time victim of. However, while ISNA was condemning domestic violence and while Hassan was suffering from it, the group was perpetuating the same crime on its website and via the works of its leadership. On Thursday, February 12th, Syed Muzzammil Hassan a.k.a. Mo Steve Hassan arrived at a police station in Orchard Park, New York, where he resided, to report the death of his wife. Aasiya Hassan’s body was found decapitated at Bridges TV, the television network Muzzammil had established at the behest of her in December 2004. Shortly after his contact with the police, Hassan was arrested and charged with his wife’s murder. According to various sources, Aasiya Hassan had endured violent abuse at the hands of her husband for an extended period of time, as had two previous wives of Hassan. The abuse was said to be widely known throughout the Muslim community. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
By Robert Spencer Muzzammil Hassan allegedly beheaded his wife Aasiya on February 12 in the offices of Bridges TV, the Muslim-oriented cable channel that he founded in 2004 to combat the negative perceptions of Muslims that he claimed were dominating mainstream media coverage. He said at the time the station was founded that Aasiya was his inspiration for founding Bridges TV: “Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her. She was seven months pregnant, and she thought she didn’t want her kids growing up in this environment.” The environment that they will grow up in instead cannot be imagined. But many people are doing their best to make sure that, whatever the other features of that environment may be, a critical appraisal of the roots of honor killing in Islamic culture, and a determination to put an end to this phenomenon, will not be among them. Read more ...Source: Human Events
"Fahd Bouichou (from Morocco) has been gotten by the Police while escaping. He beheaded his (Italian) wife and their little daughter (2 years old). The priest is worried: 'was he maybe upset since the daughter got baptised?' .... [The man got a Visa to stay in Italy, based on the fact that 'he was the father of the child']"
 Will she have died in vain?It is time for imams, leaders, and spokespeople to take the offensive rather than merely the defensive, to go beyond the soundbytes to eradicate the sources of abuse.By Asma T. Uddin For as long as I can remember, when faced with sensationalistic media coverage of terrorism that immediately blames Islam for the acts of Muslims, I have responded confidently that such connections are simplistic and untrue. With the 9/11 attacks, my religious identity became inextricably linked with my spokesperson self, and in recent years, I have found it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the spiritual and the controversial – to find the faith among social commentary. I am sure the same can be said of many of us who are concerned about how Islam is handled by the media and perceived by the American public. In rushing to defend Islam, we often find our connection with Islam somehow reduced to soundbytes; Islam's principles are simplified to convenient factual tidbits. Islam is a religion of peace, jihad is largely about the struggle for inner purification, Islam gave women their rights well before any other civilization did, and so on. Read more ... Source: Alt MuslimMuzzammil Hassan is being charged with 2nd degree murder for beheading of his wife. This is beyond travesty of justice! If honorcide were officially a hate crime, he could have been charged with 1st degree murder.
 Marcia Pappas (podium)By Phyllis Chesler Within hours of the news of Aasiya Z. Hassan's February 12th beheading, allegedly by her husband, Muzzamil Hassan, in Buffalo, American-Muslim organizations and individuals began a dirge bemoaning the existence of domestic violence. But thanks be to Allah, they affirmed, such violence exists among all faiths and ethnicities. Such family violence, they insisted, had nothing to do with Islam. Muslim leaders emphasized that honor killings were "anti-Islamic" or "un-Islamic," a holdover from "pre-Islamic times." They vowed to preach against it in the mosque. All well and good. That Mr. Hassan beheaded his wife--well, that simply wasn't dwelled upon. Muslim religious feminist, Asra Nomani, and Irshad Manjie, both referred to the Buffalo beheading as an "honor killing" and despaired of the silence which still surrounded this form of domestic violence against Muslim girls and women. As Muslim women, they were not as squeamish about condemning violence against Muslim women by Muslim men and by Islamic culture. Zarqa Abid, a soulful-sounding religious Muslim woman claimed that her cousin was once married to this same Hassan, and she denounced Hassan as a "monster." Abid also criticized the Islamic community for having refused to listen to her when she attempted to alert them to Hassan's criminal nature and deeds. Instead, they shunned her and continued to shower him with their money and to honor him. Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, a Muslim author and activist, said that "there is so much negativity about Muslims (this beheading) sort of perpetuates it. The right wing is going to run with it and misuse it. But we've got to shine a light on this issue so that we can transform it." Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali, of Sterling, Virginia, vice-president of the Islamic Society of North America, said that "violence against women is real and cannot be ignored." Nevertheless, Muslim organizations are relatively silent about this atrocity, given how vocal they usually are when Islam or Muslims are involved. A Google search of CAIR and beheadings only revealed that CAIR had given the alleged murderer an award." Alright, some Muslims are calling it an honor killing, most are insisting that it is not an honor killing and that it has nothing to do with Islam; some Muslims are admitting that, like other groups, Muslims also have a serious problem with violence against women. Progress, of sorts. What did American feminists have to say? Well, I’m certainly one, and I have been on record a long, long time opposing Islamic gender and religious apartheid, both in Muslim lands and in the West. I write about this subject weekly, often daily. Nonie Darwish, a Muslim-born Palestinian-American feminist, has condemned Sharia law as dangerous to women and other living beings. Now, for the first time, an American non-Muslim feminist has joined us. On February 13, 2009, Marcia Pappas, the President of NOW-New York State, hit the ground running. She was quoted world-wide, even as far away as India. Pappas bravely asserted that the Buffalo beheading was a domestic violence murder that smacked of terrorism and jihad. The February 16, 2009 NOW-New York State press release quoted her as saying: And why is this horrendous story not all over the news? Is a Muslim woman's life not worth a five-minute report? This was, apparently, a terroristic version of "honor killing," a murder rooted in cultural notions about women's subordination to men. Are we now so respectful of the Muslim's religion that we soft-peddle atrocities committed in its name?...What is this deafening silence?
And exactly what do orders of protection do? Was Aasiya desperately waving the order of protection in Muzzamil's face when he slashed at her throat? Was it still clutched in her hand when her head hit the floor? You of the press, please shine a light on this most dreadful of murders. In a bizarre twist of fate it comes out that Muzzamil Hassan is founder of a television network called Bridges TV, whose purpose it was to portray Muslims in a positive light. This is a huge story. Please tell it! Alas, other than Pappas, and the feminists who supported her privately, most feminist leaders either attacked Pappas or remained silent. Read more ...Source: FrontPage MagazineMarcia Pappas
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
Muzzammil Hassan is being charged with 2nd degree murder for beheading of his wife. This is beyond travesty of justice! If honorcide were officially a hate crime, he could have been charged with 1st degree murder.
By Daniel Pipes On the occasion of its launch in 2004 from near Buffalo, New York, the Muslim television channel "Bridges TV" won the enthusiastic support of Secretary of State Colin Powell's media assistant, Stuart Holliday: "I laud your expression of interest in promoting understanding and tolerance." And so it went; Bridges TV also met with euphoric media coverage, uncritical academic reaction, and blessings from sports giants like Muhammad Ali and Hakeem Olajuwan. From the start, however, Bridges TV amounted to a lie. On the political level, its raison d'être was based on the canard that Muslims in the United States suffer from bias and are victimized. That an idea took formal expression in 2000, when the Senate passed a resolution inveighing against the "discrimination" and "backlash" suffered by the American Muslim community, an insulting falsehood then and now. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
 By Joshua Rhett Miller
The beheading of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan has all the markings of an honor killing, psychologists and Islamic experts tell FOXNews.com, as the upstate New York woman's husband awaits a preliminary hearing on murder charges.
Muzzammil Hassan, 44, remains jailed after being charged with the second-degree murder of his wife, whose body was found Thursday at the office of Bridges TV, their television station in Orchard Park, near Buffalo.
Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said Hassan has not confessed to the crime, despite media reports to the contrary.
"He came in and said his wife was dead," said Benz, who declined to elaborate on the particulars of his conversation with the suspect.
But Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III left no doubt that he believes Muzzammil Hassan killed his wife. Hassan will appear for a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Orchard Park. If convicted of second-degree murder, he faces up to life in prison.
"He's a pretty vicious and remorseless bastard," Sedita told FOXNews.com Tuesday. "Whether he was motivated by some kind of interpretation of his religious or cultural views, we don't know. We'll look into everything in the case."
Asked if the murder is being probed as an honor killing, Benz replied, "We've been told that there's no place for that kind of action in their faith, but I wouldn't say that there's anything that's being completely ruled out at this point."
But psychologists and some American Muslims said the slaying has all the markings of an honor killing.
"The fierce and gruesome nature of this murder signals it's an honor killing," said Dr. Phyllis Chesler, an author and professor of psychology at the Richmond College of the City University of New York. "What she did was worthy of capital punishment in his eyes."
Following multiple episodes of domestic violence, Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce on Feb. 6 and obtained an order of protection that barred her husband from their home, according to attorney Elizabeth DiPirro, whose law firm, Hogan Willig, represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding.
Chesler, who wrote "Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?" for Middle East Quarterly, said some Muslim men consider divorce a dishonor on their family.
"This is not permitted in their culture," said Chesler, whose study analyzed more than 50 reports of honor killings in North America and Europe. "This is, from a cultural point of view, an honor killing."
Chesler said honor killings typically are Muslim-on-Muslim crimes and largely involve teenage daughters, young women and, to a lesser extent, wives.
But Chesler said the "extremely gruesome nature" of the crime closely matches the characteristics of an honor killing.
"Leaving the body parts displayed the way he did, like a terrorist would do, that's very peculiar, it's very public," Chesler said. "He wanted to show that even though his business venture may have been failing, that he was in control of his wife."
Chesler called on U.S. and Canadian immigration authorities to inform potential Muslim immigrants and new Muslim citizens that it's illegal to abuse women in the two countries.
"As long as Islamist advocacy groups continue to obfuscate the problem, and government and police officials accept their inaccurate versions of reality, women will continue to be killed for honor in the West, such murder may even accelerate," Chesler wrote. "Unchecked by Western law, their blood will be on society's hands."
M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, agreed with Chesler.
"It certainly has all the markings of [an honor killing]," Jasser told FOXNews.com. "She expressed through the legal system that she was being abused, and at the moment she asked for divorce, she's not only murdered — she's decapitated."
Muzzammil and Aasiya Hassan founded Bridges TV in November 2004 to counter anti-Islam stereotypes, touting the network as the "first-ever full-time home for American Muslims," according to a 2004 press release.
Jasser said he was concerned that Aasiya Hassan suffered such a barbaric death after she and her husband were seen as a couple focused on bettering the "Islamic image" in the United States.
"The most dangerous aspect of this case is to simply say it's domestic violence," Jasser told FOXNews.com.
In a 1,300-word statement, Islamic Society of North America Vice President Imam Mohammed Hagmagid Ali said the organization was "shocked and saddened" by the killing.
"This is a wake up call to all of us, that violence against women is real and can not be ignored," the statement read. "It must be addressed collectively by every member of our community."
Ali called on imams and community leaders to take a "strong stand" against domestic violence, and he denounced the link of shame and divorce among Muslims.
"Women who seek divorce from their spouses because of physical abuse should get full support from the community and should not be viewed as someone who has brought shame to herself or her family," the statement continued. "The shame is on the person who committed the act of violence or abuse. Our community needs to take a strong stand against abusive spouses."
Meanwhile, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, a producer and host for Bridges TV who worked alongside the Hassans, said "now is not the time" to debate the cultural and religious context of the murder that appears to be an honor killing inspired by Aasiya Hassan's desire to divorce her husband.
"There will be time for that later," Hirschfield said in a statement obtained by FOXNews.com. "I will only say to those who leap to the conclusion that this kind of thing is intrinsic to Islam, ask yourselves if you think that drunkenness is intrinsic to Irish Catholics, or cheating in business is to Jews?" Source: Fox NewsBrad Hirschfield
Latest recipient of the Retarded Rabbi Award
 By Phyllis Chesler The profile of a classical honor killing is one in which a young girl or young woman in an Islamist household is, from a modern, western, and feminist point of view, kept secluded and subordinate, normatively abused, force-veiled at a young age, and held to a 7th-8th century view of woman’s honor and family honor as practiced in the past and still today among many people in the Muslim Middle East, in the increasingly Arabized Islamic world in Asia, and in Muslim immigrant communities in the West. For the first time, in the wake of the Buffalo beheading, Muslim-American organizations who routinely claim that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam are now saying that a classical honor killing involves the murder of a young girl or woman by multiple family members. It does. I have shown this to be so in my study, just published in Middle East Quarterly HERE. The Muslim organizations are not necessarily admitting that such a killing is related to Islam, but they are admitting that honor killings do exist, separate and apart from western-style domestic violence/femicide. And, to be fair, many individuals and organization leaders are also condemning such murders in grave and heartbroken voices. Read more ...Source: Pajamas MediaH/T: L.A. Muzzammil Hassan
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award
 Further details are available on connections between the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, the U.S. government, and an Islamic cable TV station whose founder has been charged in the beheading of his wife. As reported yesterday by the New York Times: A man who founded a Muslim-American television station to help fight Muslim stereotypes is to appear on Wednesday in a suburban Buffalo court on charges that he decapitated his wife last week. The man, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, went to a police station in Orchard Park, N.Y., on Thursday to report that his wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, was dead, Chief Andrew Benz said on Tuesday. Mr. Hassan told the police that her body could be found in the nearby office of the television station, Bridges TV. The police later arrested him on charges of second-degree murder, Chief Benz said. According to investigative research posted on GMBDR, in April 2004 national media reported on the start-up of Bridges TV, described as "the first English-language cable television channel aimed at U.S. and Canadian Muslims." Read more ...Source: The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report
News last week that the founder of Bridges Television has been arrested and accused of beheading his wife is prompting renewed focus on domestic violence and honor killings among Muslims. Muzzammil Hassan faces second-degree murder charges in the gruesome death Feb. 12 of his wife Aasiya Hassan. Aasiya had filed for divorce from Muzzammil Hassan and secured a protective order against him just before she was killed. "This was apparently a terroristic version of honor killing, a murder rooted in cultural notions about women's subordination to men," New York State president of the National Organization for Women President Marcia Pappas told the Buffalo News. Read more ...Source: IPT Blog
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