ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
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- Eblana
The declaration is here in French:
http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/
http://municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca/
Iggore said:Wow, this has become a real Internet phenomenon. I dont watch the news. did your medias covered this at some point?
I don't see why it's offensive. I can see it could be patronising to many Muslims but not offensive or racist.
and that it wasn't unheard of for asian women to mysteriously catch fire in their kitchens in Bradford
BlackRiverFalls said:I was thinking more of in this country/UK. Around 10 years ago i used to flatshare with a student of Bangladeshi descent, who told me that the tradition is still practiced sometimes over here, and that it wasn't unheard of for asian women to mysteriously catch fire in their kitchens in Bradford.
'Honour killers' expect to walk free
By M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Bahawalnagar district, eastern Pakistan
Mohammad Aslam (left) and Maqbool Ahmad
They don't look like murderers - but the two frail-looking, lower-caste brothers in the village of Khatan in eastern Pakistan are self-confessed killers.
Mohammad Aslam and Maqbool Ahmad admit killing their sister Elahisen and a neighbour, Ghulam Nabi Shah, when they found them together in Elahisen's room on the night of 27 January.
They smashed their skulls with a brick and then strangled them with a rope. Then they gave themselves up to the police saying they had redeemed their family honour.
The event has a familiar ring to it.
According to official figures, more than 2,700 women and about 1,300 men have been killed in honour-related offences in Pakistan since 2001.
Human rights organisations put the number much higher, saying that most honour crimes are never reported to the police.
'Menace'
Sexual indiscretion on the part of men is seldom treated as dishonourable in Pakistani families, but women are expected to be chaste.
Blood stains on the wall of Elahisen's room.
Enlarge Image
As such, the killing of women is hardly ever reported because the perpetrators are usually close male relatives.
Men, on the other hand, are killed by the family of the "dishonoured" woman and their families are more likely to seek justice from the courts.
And this is the dilemma that Mohammad Aslam and Maqbool Ahmad face.
Ghulam Nabi Shah, the man that they killed, belongs to a family of Syeds, said to be descendents of Prophet Mohammad and treated with reverence by rural folk.
Mr Shah's paternal cousin and step father, Syed Akhtar Hussain Shah, has lodged a complaint with the police claiming that he personally saw four people, including the two brothers, murder the victims.
The brothers themselves belong to the Maachhi caste, traditional menial labourers.
Despite this social difference, the people in Khatan, 30km north-east of the town of Bahawalnagar, appear to side with the Maachhis for what the local councillor, Ahmad Riaz Sukhera, calls "obvious reasons".
They are not so dumb as to repeat that confession before the judge
District police chief Zafar Abbas Bukhari
"Mr Shah murdered a village bully more than 10 years ago and became a hero. Then he started jumping into people's houses to sleep with their women. Everyone felt threatened. The Maachhis have rid them of the menace," he says.
But the Maachhi brothers took a long time to "redeem their honour".
"People had been taunting us about Elahisen's affair for a year. We knew that Ghulam Nabi Shah visited her at nights. But he was six feet tall and always carried a gun. We were scared of him," says Mohammad Aslam.
Those who taunted the Maachhi brothers are now all praise for them.
"They have restored their family honour - the deceased deserved to die," says Ghulam Abbas Bhatti, a resident of Khatan village.
The brothers themselves are oozing confidence and dignity even in fetters and handcuffs. "We have done no wrong and the law will not treat us unkindly," says Mohammad Aslam.
Legal experts believe the brothers may be right.
"They have confessed to the murders before the police, but they are not so dumb as to repeat that confession before the judge," says the Bahawalnagar district police chief, Zafar Abbas Bukhari.
Loopholes
"Honour" killers in Pakistan have several cushions within and outside the law, say experts.
Ghulam Nabi Shah left an only son (left) from a divorce 10 years ago
Popular opinion in Pakistan has usually remained sympathetic to the perpetrators of such crimes.
This is also reflected in the attitude of the police and judges who are often biased in the offender's favour.
In addition, successive governments have created legal loopholes by mixing Islamic and British colonial laws.
Even the original British law of 1860 contained a clause that prescribed leniency in cases of "sudden and grave provocation".
In 1990, the government introduced the Islamic law of retribution and blood money that allowed the aggrieved party to pardon an offender either "for the sake of God" or in return for an agreed sum of money.
Many believe that this law privatised crime and undermined the principle that crime was an offence against the state.
It also annulled the provocation clause, but judges continued to lend weight to the concept of justifiable anger in honour crimes during the 1990s.
Inspiration for this came from a judgement of the Federal Shariat Court, a parallel court created by the military government of Gen Ziaul Haq in 1980s to interpret Islamic laws.
The judgement laid down that the killing of a person who attempted to approach another family's woman with dishonourable intentions could be considered an act of self defence.
In January 2005, the parliament finally defined honour killing and amended some laws to bring the offence on a par with wilful murder.
Even in the event of an out-of-court settlement under the Islamic laws, judges are now bound to punish an honour killing with no less than 10 years' imprisonment.
Few convictions
But figuring out ways to get around the system is a favourite pastime of people in Pakistan. And the villagers sitting in the Maachhi brothers' courtyard are doing just that.
Many villagers appear to side with the Macchi brothers
They believe Ghulam Nabi Shah's stepfather would be willing to accept 200,000 rupees (about $3,200) as his price to forgive and forget. "He was a pain in the neck for him as well," says one villager.
An equal sum offered to the police may persuade them to withhold the evidence they have collected, they speculate.
Villagers say the Maachhi brothers can raise up to $8,000 by selling a little under two acres of land they own.
The drift of the conversation is obvious.
If witnesses retract their evidence and the police show a lack of interest, the Maachhi brothers could simply deny the charges and the court would be left with no option but to acquit them.
And this is not mere speculation, considering the conviction rate in honour crimes is less than 5%.
As for Elahisen, the only woman in the case, the Maachhi brothers need have no fear about any of their own family complaining about her murder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6332751.stm
Tea Party candidate endorses stoning gay people to death
A Tea Party candidate running for office in Oklahoma has appeared to endorse the practice of stoning gay people to death.
Last year, Scott Esk, who is in the race to represent the 91st district in the State House, responded to a friend’s Facebook post about the Pope’s stance on gay people by copying and pasting Bible verses including Leviticus 20:13, which describes homosexuality as “detestable” and demands gay people be “put to death”.
When asked by another Facebook user whether he supported executing homosexuals by stoning, Mr Esk replied: “That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realise, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.”
This week, the Oklahoma magazine Moore Monthly uncovered the posts from 2013, and invited Mr Esk to clarify his position. Stoning gay people, Mr Esk said in a phone interview, was “done in the Old Testament under a law that came directly from God” he said, adding: “And in that time there it was totally just. It came directly from God.
“I have no plans to reinstitute that in Oklahoma law. I do have some very huge moral misgivings about those kinds of sins.”
Mr Esk continued: “I know what was done in the Old Testament and what was done back then was what’s just... And I do stand for Biblical morality.”
While Oklahoma is a largely conservative state, Rob Morris, the publisher of Moore Monthly, said he had never met any other Oklahomans who held views comparable to Mr Esk’s.
“Even people that don’t agree with things like gay marriage... nobody wants the death penalty for gays,” Mr Moore told RawStory.com.
Oklahoma introduced a ban on same-sex marriage in 2004. The law was overturned in January 2014 by a federal judge in Tulsa, who declared the ban unconstitutional. His decision was stayed, pending an appeal. Earlier this year one Oklahoma Republican, state Representative Mike Turner, suggested the state do away with all marriages, including heterosexual marriages, saying it was the only way to keep same-sex marriage illegal while also upholding the US Constitution.
Though there is no recent polling readily available on the level of support for same-sex marriage in the state, The Atlantic magazine has estimated, based on existing data that, in 2012, 35 per cent of Oklahomans supported same-sex marriage. ...
- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/am ... GYoJN.dpuf
amester said:These Tea Party types favor liberty only for Christian, white, straight males. Everyone else can suffer, as far as they're concerned.
Brunei brings in death by stoning for gay sex as of the 3rd of April ..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...in-death-by-stoning-as-punishment-for-gay-sex