 And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family. According to the Columbus-Dispatch, Rifqa has admitted that she’d been “unruly” when she’d fled her home, and the “family will try to resolve their issues with counseling.” In a statement read by Rifqa’s attorneys, ‘both she and her parents said they loved each other and believe counseling is the best route.” Ahem. The family’s honor has now been slightly salvaged by Rifqa’s open admission (clearly, an admission that had been required) that she’d been…”unruly.” Is it “unruly” to choose one’s own God, or to try and save one’s own life? I’m just asking. In any event, in grand American tradition, “counseling” is seen as an all-purpose, face-saving panacea, a way of avoiding a more superficial or harsher rule of law—a way of dealing with problems that are far beyond (or beneath) a judge’s purview. Thus, “The case plan for Rifqa and her parents says they should talk about their respective religions and visit and communicate regularly.” Had there been no settlement, I would have testified as an expert witness in this case. Luckily, thanks to the good lawyering involved, my testimony was not required. And so, the Bary family (the teenager and her parents) will now enter counseling—always a dicey proposition in my opinion; girls and women are especially vulnerable to false promises of happy endings and true love. Many grown, battered women, report how well their sociopathic batterers bond with their counselors, and how their own anxieties and justified paranoia is minimized, scorned. Ultimately, these women may not only be diagnosed as “crazy,” they may also lose their children, their homes, even their lives—right under their counselor’s nose. One can only hope that the counselor in the Bary case will know a great deal about the nature of honor killings and the fate of apostates in Islam. For example, in the tragic case of Toronto’s Aqsa Parvez, the counselors at the shelter for battered women to which she fled did not understand the dynamics involved in an honor killing family and, when Aqsa’s mother called to say she missed her, they simply allowed Aqsa to go; Aqsa went home and was promptly killed by her father and brother. Aqsa’s crime? She did not want to wear hijab. Speaking of honor killings and what counselors do and don’t understand: I am about to publish a new study about honor killings (due out in the next issue of Middle East Quarterly) in which I studied 230 honor killing victims on five continents. Therefore, I am not at all surprised by the “surprising” news coming out of Finland concerning a potentially “new” kind of victim. Native Finnish women who marry “immigrant” men (the article simply will not use the word “Muslim”) have begun to flee for their lives to avoid being honor-killed—but not only by their husbands, but by their husbands’ family, even by his entire clan. One Finnish woman who married into an “immigrant” family says: “They’ve threatened to kidnap my children, and my husband has repeatedly threatened to kill me. He says nobody can stop them, that horrible things happen, and he doesn’t even have to do them himself, that revenge will come from the clan….
The Multicultural Women’s Association Monika, which runs a safe house for immigrant women and their children, says that more and more Finnish women are turning to them when Finnish authorities fail to understand the threat of honour violence.” According to Nasima Razmyar, Monika’s Project Manager: “You can have 200 people involved in honour-related violence, that is, the entire extended family. And not just the family in Finland, but relatives abroad and back in the home country. In general, our laws need to understand much better this type of group threat…One problem is that Finnish authorities in social services and on the police force treat honour violence just like any other case of domestic violence. They don’t take into account the fact that instead of a dispute between two individuals, honour violence pits a single woman against the wrath of a large group of people.” One hopes and prays that the counselor assigned to the Bary family understands the nature of honor killings. They can certainly read my first study, which appeared in Middle East Quarterly. And, I will gladly send him or her my new study as soon as it is published. P.S. Tundra Tabloids reports that Finnish state news had pulled the article about honor-related violence in Finland but restored it recently in a more sanitized form. Here’s what was deleted from the original article: “Among immigrants honor violence has occurred in Finland for many years.” “She said that her marriage was hell, but no one believed her.” “The woman is the man’s property and thus can assault the woman however he pleases, if the woman refuses to obey the rules.” “Honor violence has been increasing in recent years in Finland, when unmarried young women immigrants from a foreign culture struggle under the pressure. They may be forced to marry and be prohibited from socializing with Finns.” “We’re currently unable to secure and protect the lives of people in the way that the authorities should do, Hukkanen says.” Once again, I wish to acknowledge Esther’s fine work at IslaminEurope.blogspot.com Phyllis Chesler 
 Via Tundra Tabloids, who has much more on this story.More and more Finns confront honor-related violence in their lives.Among immigrants honor violence has occurred in Finland for many years.Finns, like immigrants, are applying for assistance in honor related violence, in places like multi-cultural centers for women, because the Finnish authorities did not recognize the honor violence and do not understand how serious may be the case. A Finnish woman told of her experiences in YLE's TV2 Ajankohtainen Kakkonen program this week. A woman encountered honor related violence from a religious man of foreign background. She said that her marriage was hell, but no one believed her. - I am afraid of my husband, his brother and the whole family. I have received threats of child abduction and the man has repeatedly threatened to kill me. The man has said that none of them can do nothing - that the horrors will happen, that he doesn't have to do it himself - the avenger can be found from his own tribe, the woman says. A man who believes in honor violence and his entire family think that a woman's chastity is in a man's control. The woman is the man's property and thus can assault the woman however he pleases, if the woman refuses to obey the rules. Honor violence has been increasing in recent years in Finland, when unmarried young women immigrants from a foreign culture struggle under the pressure. They may be forced to marry and be prohibited from socializing with Finns. ( more) See also: * Finland: Mixed marriages three times more likely to end in divorce* Finland: Growing numbers of women fear honor violence* Finland: Mapping honor related violence* Finland: Honor related violence* Finland: Increase in honour-related violence
 When it comes to honor killings and honor-related violence, America had better start learning a few things from Europe. On October 20, 2009, near Phoenix, Arizona, Noor Al-Maleki’s father, Iraqi-born Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki, ran over his 20-year-old daughter with a two-ton jeep.
He struck down her female companion and protector as well. His daughter died. Although she was seriously wounded, Amal Edan Khalaf, the other woman, survived. Just like Yaser Said, who fled Dallas after honor murdering his two daughters (and who has not yet been found), Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki also fled, first to Mexico, and then to England.
However, he was captured, extradited back to Arizona, and charged with first-degree murder. Well done! The case has been described, correctly, as an “honor killing.” Poor Noor did not want to remain in an arranged marriage and dared to find a fiancée on her own. When she died, she had been living with her fiancée and with her future mother-in-law. Now comes Arizona lawyer Billie Little, who is Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki’s lawyer.
Guess what Mr. Little told the judge? According to Arizona Central, because Andrew Thomas, the prosecutor in the case, is a Christian, Mr. Little actually wrote: “An open process provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs.” Let me understand this. Mr. Little does not want the judge to view a murder as a murder because a Muslim committed that murder? Or because only a Muslim was murdered—and that somehow counts for less? From my own research, published in Middle East Quarterly, it is clear that honor killing is primarily a Muslim-on-Muslim crime. After all, Noor was a Muslim too. And, an honor killing is not like Western domestically violent femicide. Western fathers do not kill their young daughters. (And, by the way, does Noor have a mother? If so, where is she? Why is she so silent?) Clearly, Al-Maleki became judge, jury, and executioner when he took the law into his own hands to punish his daughter because, in his view, she was too western and therefore not a good Muslim. What does that make him? A good Muslim? Or a really bad Muslim? Perhaps Islam is not and should not be on trial here but Muslim customs, Muslim behavior surely is. It is the proverbial elephant in the room. How can the prosecutor not mention it? And, once mentioned, how easy it will be to gain pity for the poor, allegedly “racially profiled” murderer. In addition, Mr. Little is demanding that his client be psychiatrically evaluated because “he does not understand basic court proceedings.”
I wonder: Is Mr. Little consulting with Muzzammil Hassan’s lawyer in Buffalo? He’s the Pakistani-born charmer who severely battered and then beheaded his lovely wife Aasiya. Hassan’s lawyer is arguing “extreme emotional disturbance.”
This is rather ironic since this kind of defense has been used, often unsuccessfully, on behalf of battered women. More at Chesler Chronicles
 The visit of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov to Israel this week is a timely reminder that Israel's problems with Islam are not unique. Like Israel, Bulgaria was ruled over by the Ottoman Empire, which exported their population to Bulgaria, oppressed the native Bulgarians, seized their lands and attempted to become the dominant majority. And when the Ottoman Empire lost control over Bulgaria, it left behind a huge Muslim population in Bulgaria.The key difference between Bulgaria and Israel, is that Bulgaria since the 1870's forced much of its Turkic Muslim population to leave. As a result millions of Turkic Muslims left Bulgaria, leaving it a quieter place than neighboring Yugoslavia or Russia, or for that matter modern day France. Muslim clothing was banned, mosques were torn down and lands held by the Ottoman Muslim settlers were returned to native Bulgarians. Today Bulgaria still has a troublesome Muslim minority of under a million, led by Ahmet Dogan, and backed by Turkish intelligence, which under Islamist PM Erdogan has branched out into promoting Jihad, much as Pakistan had. But despite Turkish attempts to intervene in Bulgaria, the country's Prime Minister, Boiko Borissov is a staunchly anti-Muslim leader, who has challenged Turkey's EU bid over its expulsion of Bulgarian in the 1920's.Bulgaria is an example and a warning not just to Israel, but to Europe, Russia, Australia, America and many other parts of the world as well.
Had Bulgaria not made life uncomfortable for Muslims, its fate in the 1990's would have probably resembled that of Yugoslavia, torn apart by foreign backed civil war and then carved up by Clinton and Albright. That same fate is now overtaking Israel and will overtake Europe as well.
That is because Israel's Muslim problem is not unique. Israel, like so many other lands, was overrun by Muslim conquerors who repressed the native Jewish population and settled their own population in its stead. The only unique thing about Israel's dilemma is that when the Ottoman Empire was defeated, Israel did not receive its freedom. Instead a British Mandate that was supposed to create a Jewish state, instead tried to create an Arab client state by expanding Arab immigration to Israel, while restricting Jewish immigration.
Had Israel received its freedom after WW1 when its Ottoman overlords departed, it would have never been overrun by Egyptian and Syrian Arabs who were magically transformed into "Palestinians" in the 70's at the behest of the KGB.
Nor would the Holocaust have claimed a fraction of the lives that it did, had Israel existed as an independent nation capable of taking in refugees, instead of having its ports shut to refugees by a British Empire more interested in appeasing Muslims and using them to establish client states under their control. And the worldwide Jihad and Oil for Terror are the aftereffects of British and American appeasement and coddling of Muslim desert sheiks then.
But the past is in the past. The challenge of the future is to learn from it. The long term effects of Muslim expansionism around the world has embedded Muslim minorities in countries across Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Those minorities have always served as a local powder keg, which is now being lit with the help of Saudi petrodollars. Now a new wave of Islamic expansionism through immigration and Jihad is spreading even into regions that had never known the tyranny of Islam such as Australia, North and South America; as well as Europe where Islam had not succeeded in taking root before.
The toxic brew of religious supremacism and nationalist racism represented by Islamic expansionism is a threat to nearly every country in the world, whether they choose to admit it or not. And while Israel's troubles with Islam are more likely to become front page news, because its presence some 700 miles from Mecca is a perennial thumb in the eye of the Jihad-- it is also the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the world.
Islamism insures that Muslims cannot co-exist with non-Muslims except under a harsh dictatorship.
Which leaves free nations with a choice between tyranny and removing the Muslim minority within its borders. The absence of Islam within one's borders does not guarantee peace, but the presence of Islam insures that conflict will come sooner or later. The examples of that are unfortunately all too numerous across the globe, across entire hemispheres where blood is being spilled in the name of Islam.
From suicide bombings to honor killings, from Muslim insurgencies in the countryside to Islamist parties creeping in from within, from Sharia at the point of a sharpened knife to riots in the streets-- where there is Islamism, there can be no peace.
Israel's great mistake was its belief that it could co-exist with Muslims, and for its entire existence has bent over backward to accommodate them. From accepting the UN Partition Plan to sending troops to urge fleeing Arabs to return to Israel, to leaving the Temple Mount in Muslim hands, to the entire disastrous attempt to negotiate a peace with terror by agreeing to the creation of a terrorist state within its borders-- Israel's folly has been to seek peace with an ideology that uses the promise of peace as a lure to convince you to cut your own throat.
Where Islam exists in a nation, it will sooner or later either be suppressed or it will come to dominate. That is a scenario that every nation with a Muslim minority must understand and address, or it will become a Muslim nation with the native population reduced to an oppressed minority or butchered in the night. A totalitarian ideology cannot be made peace with. Either you will defeat it, or it will defeat you.
 Almost every time I tune in to the show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU), there is some kind of grotesque and pathetically cheap leftist message being perpetuated. Recently, as most of us know, the show had a character verbalize a connection between a psychotic murder and the fans of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly. The connection, naturally, is that these three individuals are “a cancer spreading ignorance and hate.” The other day another episode I watched launched a ferocious attack on a religion and, surprise, surprise, it wasn’t Islam. The producers didn’t take the road less traveled.
You know, the one on which you confront the real dangers facing us but risk attracting lawsuits and death threats and, well, you know, putting your job and life at stake and stuff like that.
Why bother doing all that when you can just dip into the trendy liberal moral sewer and attack the Catholic Church — with no consequences to your own career and personal well-being? The Catholic Church is so evil, you see, that absolutely nothing will happen to you after you attack it. In this particular episode, a Catholic priest molests boys and the Church covers it all up. The script offers a politically correct delicacy in which the seal of confession is portrayed as a vile rule created by horrid men for the purpose of institutionalizing abuse and tyranny.
There are no complexities, nothing to be said about the sacredness and importance of a priest having the obligation of keeping a confessed sin a secret. It’s all just so simple and, of course, evil. Suffice it to say that the subject of this show is a reality in terms of the abuse of young boys by certain Catholic priests and its subsequent cover-up. These crimes have been investigated, exposed, and punished. And they should continue to be investigated, exposed, and punished. So as the topic for a show on television, it’s clearly warranted and legitimate. To continue reading this article, click here. FPM
 This is the first time, I think, in which German authorities prosecuted somebody for ordering an honor murder, and not only for carrying it out. This is an important step in fighting such murders. The son, the actual murderer, will be out of jail before he's 30, which is probably why he was the one chosen to do it.
A German court imprisoned a Kurdish man, 50, for life on Tuesday for ordering the "honour killing" of his own daughter after being told she had lost her virginity.
A son and an Azeri friend lured the 20-year-old woman, Gulsum, to a lonely country road near the Dutch border, throttled her with a rope and clubbed her to death, inflicting horrific injuries to her face.
German authorities have vowed to stamp out the archaic custom among some Kurds, Turks and other ethnic groups of families murdering their own members who offend "family honour" through sexual relationships. Social workers had earlier tried to protect Gulsum.
The state court at Kleve sentenced Gulsum's brother, 20, to nine and a half years in youth prison, just short of the maximum youth sentence of 10 years. He and the victim were two out of three triplets. He had confessed to the killing after he was arrested.
His helper, 37, was jailed for seven and a half years.
Judges said they were convinced the only motive to murder Gulsum had been that she was no longer a virgin and had secretly undergone an abortion.
They said they were also convinced the father of 10, who denied the murder, had ordered his son to kill the sister.
(more)
Source: Earth Times
See also: Germany: Brother confesses to honor killing With thanks to Islam in Europe
 The other day, a twenty-year-old woman was sold at an open auction in Badani Bhutto, Pakistan. Her brothers divided up the money. No one condemned this shameless and abominable act. It is an act that haunts me. For a long time now, similar kinds of people (yes, mainly Muslims) have invaded—no, immigrated to—Europe, where they have continued to engage in polygamy, arranged child marriage, forced veiling of women, honor-related violence, including honor murders (17,000 honor-related crimes of violence have been estimated to occur annually in the UK alone), and female genital mutilation.
According to my new (and about to be published) study, honor murders in Europe are especially savage—even more so than in developing Muslim countries. According to the Telegraf, “Dutch and foreign intelligence services are at high alert due to a five-day international Islamic conference in Eindhoven, starting today. The intelligence services fear that the congress participants will secretly collect funds for armed Islamic battle. It’s also feared that the speakers in the conference will reverse the integration of Muslims in the Netherlands.” (Thanks to Esther’s Islam in Europe blog for this information). In addition, just the other day, perhaps in response to the defacing of a mosque, a British war memorial was defaced with the slogan “Islam Will Dominate the World.” But some of us–Christians, Jews, Muslims, ex-Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs–are fighting back. Yesterday, for the first time ever, the American criminal justice system indicted a father for the “honor murder” of his daughter in Arizona. According to the Arizona Republic, “An Iraqi immigrant accused of slaying his daughter in an “honor killing” has been charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Monday…Prosecutors have labeled Noor Almaleki’s death an “honor killing,” saying the elder Almaleki killed his daughter because she dishonored the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values.” In Texas, Sarah and Amina Said were also honor-murdered; however, the climate of political correctness had a chilling effect on how this murder was portrayed both in the media and on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Rather late in the day, perhaps too late, Europe has begun to fight back against its inevitable Islamification. Bat Ye’or, Bruce Bawer, Christopher Caldwell, Oriana Fallaci, Carol Gould, Melanie Phillips, Jean Raspail, Ibn Warraq, Geert Wilders, and I, among others, have all suggested that this is indeed the case. But prithee pause: There are stirrings of resistance yet in the Old World. In addition to the highly significant convictions of honor murderers in England, Holland, and Denmark, which I wrote about last week, did you know: That a man in Holland has just been refused welfare benefits because he refused to shorten his beard or to shake hands with women on the jobs that the government found for him? That a refugee from Afghanistan was about to get married in Denmark when the police broke up the wedding and arrested him? Apparently, his visa had been denied and the police did not want to allow him to gain Danish citizenship in this underhanded way. Indeed, Denmark may consider deporting immigrants who interfere with police work in the so-called “no go” zones. Apparently, the one thing that Muslim immigrants fear is being deported. That Denmark is offering to pay Muslim immigrants who do not really want to integrate to leave the country? That calls for the banning of either headscarves or burqas or both have rung out (like church bells, dare I say) all across France, Belgium, and Germany? I love Europe. I want it to remain European. It was the land of my bohemian dreams when I was young. I grew up reading poetry, novels, plays, and philosophical treatises by British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Greek authors. I listened—I still do—to music most divine written by composers from all these countries and by Austrian, Polish, Norwegian, Hungarian, and Russian composers too. I have spent many happy hours viewing French, Dutch, Spanish, British, and Italian paintings. I used to love the Islamic world as well. I once traveled and lived within it. It called to me.
The light, heat, color, sounds, smells, foods, history, music, stories, poetry, exotic charm, and human as well as geographic beauty held me in thrall. That world is now gone. I will probably never again travel to a Muslim country in this lifetime. It, too, has been fundamentalized, Islamified in the worst way. Whatever tolerance may have once existed (and granted, it was not much) is either long gone or is now under siege. Today, many Muslims are also fighting over who controls their countries and their religion. In Iran, the bravest of pro-democracy and anti-regime activists are marching, marching, to their deaths.
All over the Islamic world, in groups and as individuals, Muslims are also marching against tyranny and for women’s rights, secular rights, and homosexual rights. Of course, many Muslim dissidents and feminists have also fled to Europe and America where they now live, write, and teach. I am glad they are here. I hope the “Europe” and the “America” where they sought asylum does not betray them and end up looking and acting like the countries they left behind—the kind of country that would sell a young woman at an open auction. Phyllis Chesler
 Faleh Hassan Almaleki is clearly a Misunderstander of Islam, and did not get the memo about how Islam condemns and forbids honor killing. An update on this story. "Man charged with murder in 'honor killing': Almaleki accused of running over daughter," by Dustin Gardiner for The Arizona Republic, December 22 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): An Iraqi immigrant accused of slaying his daughter in an "honor killing" has been charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Monday. Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, of Glendale, is accused of using his Jeep Cherokee to run over his daughter, 20-year-old Noor Almaleki, and another woman in a Peoria parking lot on Oct. 20. His daughter died of her injuries. Almaleki was reportedly furious with his daughter for becoming "too Westernized," police said. Prosecutors have labeled Noor Almaleki's death an "honor killing," saying the elder Almaleki killed his daughter because she dishonored the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values. She reportedly married a man in Iraq and returned to Arizona to live with a boyfriend and his mother in Surprise. Thomas announced Almaleki was also being charged with attempted first-degree murder in the attack on his daughter's friend, Amal Khalaf, 43. Khalaf is the boyfriend's mother and is expected to recover from her injuries, police said.... "By his own admission, this was an intentional act, and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family," Low said. "This was an attempt at an honor killing."... With thanks to JihadWatch
 The number of murders, rapes and assaults on people who dare to break strict religious or cultural rules is doubling every year, police figures show, with up to two violent “honour crimes” being committed every day. But charities which help victims of honour crimes say the true extent of the problem is far worse than the statistics show, as every year hundreds of vicitms - normally women - are too frightened to report attacks or to give evidence in court. The escalating problem was highlighted yesterday as an Old Bailey jury convicted Mehmet Goren, 49, of the cold-blooded and premeditated murder of his 15-year-old daughter Tulay after she fell in love with someone from the “wrong” branch of Islam. Miss Goren disappeared 10 years ago after telling a friend she might be pregnant but justice caught up with her father after his wife “courageously” testified against him and lifted what was described as the “cloak of secrecy” which surrounds honour crimes. A prosecutor said the case was a “wake-up call” to the authorities over the extent of the problem in this country, which campaigners say is growing because of the rise of religious fundamentalism. Miss Goren and her family had nine contacts with police in the days before her death, during which they complained of violence by Goren, but officers had little understanding at the time of the concept of honour crimes and she was left at the mercy of her father. The court heard that Miss Goren, whose Turkish Kurd family are Alevi Muslims, was drugged, tortured and then killed by her father after she fell in love with a Sunni Muslim twice her age. Her body has never been found. Goren, who adhered to what one police officer described as “outdated feudal beliefs”, was sentenced to serve a minimum of 22 years in jail as the trial judge condemned the “hideous practice” of so-called honour killings. Miss Goren’s sister Nuray Guler told the court, the teenager had been “caught in the middle of two clashing worlds” and pleaded with police to stop other women falling victim to “this primitive custom”. She expressed fears for the safety of her mother Hanim, whose evidence against Goren had put her own life in danger. “No one should fail to realise what this means within our culture,” she said. “These people do not forget.” Figures released by the Metropolitan Police show that in London alone there have been 129 honour-based crimes between April and October this year, compared with 132 in the whole of 2008/09, which in turn was double the number of the previous year. The Home Office has estimated that there are an average of 12 honour killings each year in England and Wales. More at the Telegraph
 Mehmet Goren, the father of 15-year-old Muslim schoolgirl Tulay Goren, has been convicted of her murder in a family "honour killing" in London.Tulay, who had come to Britain from the Kurdish region of Turkey, was drugged, tortured and then killed by her father Mehmet Goren, over her relationship with an older man of whom Mehment Goren and his relations did not approve. Although Tulay's body has never been found, her father Mehmet Goren, 49, was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey after a 10-week trial.He was cleared of conspiracy to murder Halil Unal, Tulay's former boyfriend who survived being attacked with an axe by Mehmet, two weeks after the schoolgirl vanished. Mehmen Goren's older brother Ali and younger brother Cuma were each cleared of charges of murder and conspiracy to murder. The trial heard how Tulay, who came to Britain at the age of 12, was assaulted by her father, a Shia Muslim, who was angered by her relationship with Mr Unal, who was twice her age and a Sunni Muslim. In the weeks before her disappearance, Tulay ran away from home twice and personally reported two attacks on her by her father. Her boyfriend also reported an assault. However, despite Tulay's refusal to go home, she was lured back three weeks later, in January 1999, and disappeared the next day.
( more) Source: Telegraph
 The court in Amsterdam sentenced Younis K. (39) to nine years on Monday. They were shown evidence that he beat his wife, Aisha K (36), to death in their home in Amsterdam-Zuidoost in August 2007. His cousin, Tariq S (38) was acquitted. The prosecution had asked for 14 years in prison for both men.
K. supposedly murdered his wife because she wanted to divorce him and go live with another man. In this way the mother of four shamed the honor of his Pakistani family. The man killed his wife buy beating her many times, probably also with cricket bats. The court called the murder 'horrible' and said that Aisha K. must have suffered 'terrible pain'. "That the victim wanted to divorce can in no way even somewhat justify the acts of the suspect." During the trial K. more of less blamed his cousin for the death of his wife. He had asked him to come and mediate on that day. After which he had gone outside for a minute. When he came back, his wife was lying seriously injured in their home. The court did not deem this plausible, as nobody saw K. outside at the time of the murder.
The prosecution said that K. didn't beat his wife to death on his own, but that his cousin helped him. The court concluded that there were indications this was so, but that there was insufficient evidence that the injuries of the victim were caused by two people. The court gave K. a lighter sentence than demanded by the prosecution. They sentenced him for manslaughter and not for murder, which was the demand of the prosecution. The investigation of the case was not without difficulties. For a long time K. claimed that he had beat his wife himself. When he appeared in court in April, he suddenly said that he hadn't touched her at all, but that his cousin had been home at the time of the murder. S. was subsequently arrested.
K. will appeal his sentence, said his lawyer, Richard van der Weide. "My client is very disappointed and affected by this wrongful conviction, in his eyes." He says the court looked too much at the man's first statements, which were demonstrably inaccurate. The public prosecution didn't say yet whether they'll appeal.
 The estranged husband of a mother-of-two Geeta Aulakh, who was found with horrific injuries including a severed hand, was today charged with her murder. Harpreet Aulakh, 31, will appear before London's Feltham Magistrates' Court next week charged with murder. Mrs Aulakh, 28, was found with fatal head injuries and her hand severed after being attacked in Greenford, north-west London on November 16. Aulakh was one of two men arrested by Scotland Yard yesterday in connection with the murder. Mrs Aulakh was attacked at about 7pm. She was walking to pick up her two sons aged eight and ten after leaving work at Sunrise Radio where she was a receptionist. Her family have since described how they are living in a "nightmare" from which they cannot wake up. They said Mrs Aulakh was preparing to divorce her husband of 11 years. The second man arrested yesterday has been bailed to a west London police station on a date in mid-January. Mail Online
 Police have seen 'honour' crime surge by 40 per cent due to rising fundamentalism, new figures show.
Honour-based violence, including crimes like murder, rape and kidnap has rocketed in London during the past year.
Reported instances of intimidation and attempts at forced marriage have also increased by 60 per cent.
A report into the scale of the problem by Scotland Yard found there were 161 honour-based incidents recorded in 2007-8, of which 93 were criminal offences.
But in 2008/9 the number of incidents had risen to 256, with 132 being criminal offences.
The latest figures indicate that the trend is continuing, with 211 incidents reported in the last six months until October, of which 129 were offences - more than double the number in the same period last year.
Police define honour crimes as offences motivated by a desire to protect the honour of a family or community.
Diana Nammi, of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, said the group is now dealing with four times more complaints relating to honour than two years ago.
She said: 'More women are coming forward. They are becoming more aware of their rights in the UK, that there is help available and they feel confident enough to report matters to the police.
'But I also think cases and violence are increasing.
'One reason is the rise in fundamentalism. The problem is increasing in communities around the UK.
'We are seeing a rise not only in honour killings, but also in female genital mutilation and polygamy.'
She added: 'The rise in Sharia courts is another indication of more fundamental beliefs.
'There must be more support from the Government to organisations who are working to combat this problem.'
(more)
Source: Daily Mail
Islam in Europe
 Muslim immigrant men have been accused of six "honor killings" in the United States in the past two years, prompting concerns that the Muslim community and police need to do more to stop such crimes. "There is broad support and acceptance of this idea in Islam, and we're going to see it more and more in the United States," says Robert Spencer, who has trained FBI and military authorities on Islam and founded Jihad Watch, which monitors radical Islam. Honor killings are generally defined as murders of women by relatives who claim the victim brought shame to the family.
Thousands of such killings have occurred in Muslim countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Palestinian territories, according to the World Health Organization. Some clerics and even lawmakers in these countries have said families have the right to commit honor killings as a way of maintaining values, according to an analysis by Yotam Feldner in the journal Middle East Quarterly. In the USA, police allege the latest "honor killing" was that of Noor Almaleki, 20, who died Nov. 2 after she and her boyfriend's mother were run over in a Peoria, Ariz., parking lot. Prosecutors charged Almaleki's father, Faleh Almaleki, with murder, saying the Iraqi immigrant was upset that his daughter rejected a husband she married in Iraq and moved in with an American. "By his own admission, this was an intentional act, and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family," says Maricopa County prosecutor Stephanie Low, according to The Arizona Republic. Many Muslim leaders in the USA say that Islam does not promote honor killings and that the practice stems from sexism and tribal behavior that predates the religion. "You're always going to get problems with chauvinism and suppressing vulnerable populations and gender discrimination," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Not all agree. Zuhdi Jasser says some Muslim communities have failed to spell out how Islam deals with issues that can lead to violence. "How should young adult women be treated who want to assimilate more than their parents want them to assimilate?" asks Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which advocates a separation of mosque and state. "How does an imam treat a woman who comes in and says she wants a divorce ... or how to deal with your daughter that got pregnant, and she's in high school?" Phyllis Chesler, who wrote about honor killings in her book Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, says police need to focus on the crimes' co-conspirators if they wish to reverse the trend. Before 2008, there were six honor killings in the USA in the previous 18 years, according to her research. "It's usually the father, brother or first male cousin who is charged with the actual shooting or stabbing, (but not) the mother who lures the girl home," Chesler says. "The religion has failed to address this as a problem and failed to seriously work to abolish it as un-Islamic." Jasser says his community needs to address how to treat young women who want to assimilate. "Until we have women's liberation ... we're going to see these things increase." USAToday
 Salah Sultan, formerly of the Noor Mosque in Columbus, Ohio, (before he himself was barred from entering the United States), and Anwar al-Awlaki, Nidal Hasan's jihadist imam, led a Hajj trip together in 2002. Patrick Poole, who has done superb research work on the Noor Mosque, has the details here (thanks to Pamela). Yet we are told that Rifqa Bary won't be in any danger, as a convert from Islam to Christianity, if she is returned to her father, who attends this mosque and who she says threatened to kill her. The willful ignorance of the authorities on the Rifqa Bary case continues, despite mounting evidence that the girl is in grave danger.
Do join us for another Rally for Rifqa on December 22 in Columbus.
That's the day of her dependency hearing, and she could be sent back to her family. The only thing we can do is continue to shine a light on her situation and the questionable actions of the authorities involved. Join us.
And ask your favorite "conservative" blogs why they're saying nothing about this poor girl, who has become a symbol of religious freedom -- and our declining national will to preserve it. With thanks to JihadWatch
 An Iraqi immigrant accused of killing his daughter because she had become too Westernised has pleaded not guilty in a US court. Faleh Hassan Almaleki pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated assault. Prosecutors are expected to issue harsher charges now that his daughter has died. Police say Almaleki ran down his daughter and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep on October 20.
Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, died about two weeks later. The other woman survived. Almaleki fled the country after the attack, but was stopped at a London airport and sent back to the US. The hearing had been delayed twice because Almaleki was on suicide watch in jail. SMH
 by Joan Smith When demonstrators gathered in London yesterday to protest against sharia, the Archbishop of Canterbury was otherwise engaged with the Pope. It's almost two years since Rowan Williams caused an outcry when he suggested that recognising aspects of sharia would help social cohesion, and, every day, evidence accumulates to show how wrong he was.
Women, girls and young men desperately need protection from religious laws and the patriarchal attitudes associated with them, as two ghastly events demonstrated last week. First, on Monday evening, a young mother was found dying from head injuries in a street in West London. Geeta Aulakh worked as a receptionist at Sunrise Radio in Ealing and was on her way to pick up her sons from a childminder when she was attacked.
As soon as I learned that her right hand had been hacked off, I assumed it was an "honour" killing, and I'm unconvinced by the claim of a senior police officer that "it could be a defence wound". The right hand has huge significance in Sikh culture and Jasvinder Sanghera, founder of the South Asian women's organisation Karma Nirvana, has described in her autobiographical book Shame how important "honour" is in some Sikh communities.
Geeta Aulakh left her husband last year after a troubled marriage and was in the process of getting divorced. Her sister Anita Shinh said she had felt threatened for months: "She feared for her life, but she wasn't able to talk about it to anyone. She didn't want to worry us." Also last week, a Muslim man appeared in court in Blackburn: Aurang Zeb made history earlier this year when he was one of the first people to be served with a forced marriage protection order, preventing him taking his daughter Rozina Akhtar to Pakistan to marry her cousin against her will. After the order was imposed in February, Zeb tried to force his son to attack his mother and sister, and threatened to kill his wife and cut out her tongue. Last week he was convicted of breaching the order, forbidden to contact his family and ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service. Shazia Qayum of Karma Nirvana criticised the sentence, pointing out there was clear evidence that Zeb had threatened to kill his wife. "Community service? He should have been locked up," she said. The MP for Blackburn is the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, and earlier this year the Government's forced marriage unit started holding confidential forced marriage surgeries in the town. In the first nine months of last year, the unit gave advice or support in 1,308 cases nationally and intervened directly in 388, a 100 per cent increase on the same period in 2007.
These figures are shocking and encouraging at the same time: as The Independent on Sunday reported last year, the extent of forced marriage and "honour" crimes in this country is only beginning to be revealed. It's sometimes argued that forced marriage and "honour" crimes have nothing to do with religion, as though faith and cultural practices are separate. Obviously they aren't, and "honour" crimes happen in circumstances where ideas about the superiority of male relatives are entrenched through religion. There is a bigger point here: the shift away from a tribal social structure, where senior males expect to enjoy unchallenged authority based on religious texts, is a key condition of modernity.
It's supported not just by secularists but by Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and Christians who want to practise their faith in the modern world. They're on the right side of the argument – and of history. The Independent
When the Shari'a is Law
(Through a Muslimah's eyes)
Source: Guy DeWhitney: Heretics Crusade
 "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke
As the story of Nidal Hassan unfolds, it becomes painfully clear that the Jihadi Shrink who opened fire on US troops at Fort Hood did everything but spray paint, "I Am Going To Kill You All" on the wall, before he actually carried out his attack. Not only did Hassan put a Jihadist abbreviation on his business cards, he delivered repeated lectures justifying Jihad, accused the soldiers he was supposed to treat of War Crimes and was already being investigated for contacts with Al Queda and for defending suicide bombing online. At a time when snow globes are banned at airports and detectors are positioned in every Federal building, in the heart of the United States Army, a Jihadist like Nidal Hassan could openly and freely express his sympathies and affinity for terrorism. But the thing that Nidal Hassan had going for him, that the snow globes and baby bottles filled with breast milk didn't, is that Hassan was a Muslim, and ever since 9/11, Americans have been repeatedly warned against criticizing Islam. Told over and over again that Islam is the Religion of Peace, and that just because all our foreign terrorists happen to be Muslims acting in the name of Islam does not actually matter. Just as all those Japanese planes flying toward Pearl Harbor and the German factories producing tanks meant nothing in the 1930's. Hassan's superiors were well aware of what he was, but none of them wanted to risk a charge of Islamophobia. And so they remained silent and soldiers died. That is not a chant you will hear from anti-war activists at the gates of the White House, but that is exactly what happened. And Hassan's case is far from unique. There is no telling how many terrorists have flown under the radar because officials were afraid to be accused of profiling or charged with racism. We may never know what reports were never paid attention to because it has become more acceptable to lose American lives, than detain a Muslim. In the face of Islamic terror, there are endless desks staffed by good men who do nothing and say nothing. Because they have been told that it is more important to be silent, than to take action, when it comes to the Islamic Jihad against all non-Muslims. It is more important to search everyone, than to profile Muslim terrorists. It is better to have lax security, than to have good security that may make some of our friends from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan feel upset. That is how we did it before 9/11. And that is how we are doing it today, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gets his lawyers and the media does the hard work of manufacturing Nidal Hassan's PTSD by Proxy defense for him out of thin air, and the radical Imams whom Nidal Hassan came into contact with are whitewashed with the usual thin paste of the Religion of Peace. But silence on Islam kills. It kills when we remain silent about the Nidal Hassans in our midst. It kills when people look away as honor killings among Muslim families continues to grow. It kills as Muslim gangs like the Muslim Boys in the UK form and it kills as Muslim riots claim the lives of innocent people, as they repeatedly do in Europe. But when it comes to Muslims, there is a code of silence that falls over even the most committed officials. A directive that warns them to look away, to make excuses and to blame anything and everything but Islam. To deny the truth and cover up the crime. While Hassan is one example of the cost of silence, honor killings are another. The willingness of American and European social workers to ignore abuse in Muslim families as "part of their culture" or worse yet to recruit Muslim police officers who often take the victim right back to the abuser, is part of the same Culture of Silence on Islam.
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
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And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family.
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