DiamondHearts said:
If he is guilty of the crime of rape, Islamic law demands execution of the uncle. The girl should not have been killed, if what you say is correct.
GeoffP, please provide a link from an unbiased source, and preferably not Zionist or anti Irani source.
I believe Muslims can be good Muslims if they don't follow the Quran exactly. I believe anyone who says and believes kalima, la ilaha ila Allah, Muhammad ar rasool ullah as Muslim.
I believe those who follow Quran and the laws of Allah swt are better Muslims (and better people) than others who don't follow as much.
I believe the only difference between men is in their being loved by Allah swt is how much they struggle to please Him and do actions and have beliefs which He loves for His servants to have.
Muslims believe that it is always better to be more religious and follow the actions of the Rasool Pak Muhammad (s) than not to. We respect those among us who are religious. This is why we are Muslims. We believe in Islam completely.
Peace.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA330181999
PAKISTAN
Honour killings of girls and women
Introduction
"The right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions."
Hina Jilani, lawyer and human rights activist
Women in Pakistan live in fear. They face death by shooting, burning or killing with axes if they are deemed to have brought shame on the family. They are killed for supposed 'illicit' relationships, for marrying men of their choice, for divorcing abusive husbands. They are even murdered by their kin if they are raped as they are thereby deemed to have brought shame on their family. The truth of the suspicion does not matter -- merely the allegation is enough to bring dishonour on the family and therefore justifies the slaying.
The lives of millions of women in Pakistan are circumscribed by traditions which enforce extreme seclusion and submission to men. Male relatives virtually own them and punish contraventions of their proprietary control with violence. For the most part, women bear traditional male control over every aspect of their bodies, speech and behaviour with stoicism, as part of their fate, but exposure to media, the work of women's groups and a greater degree of mobility have seen the beginnings of women's rights awareness seep into the secluded world of women. But if women begin to assert their rights, however tentatively, the response is harsh and immediate: the curve of honour killings has risen parallel to the rise in awareness of rights.
Every year hundreds of women are known to die as a result of honour killings. Many more cases go unreported and almost all go unpunished. The isolation and fear of women living under such threats are compounded by state indifference to and complicity in women's oppression. Police almost invariably take the man's side in honour killings or domestic murders, and rarely prosecute the killers. Even when the men are convicted, the judiciary ensures that they usually receive a light sentence, reinforcing the view that men can kill their female relatives with virtual impunity. Specific laws hamper redress as they discriminate against women.
The isolation of women is completed by the almost total absence of anywhere to hide. There are few women's shelters, and any woman attempting to travel on her own is a target for abuse by police, strangers or male relatives hunting for her. For some women suicide appears the only means of escape.
Abuses by private actors such as honour killings are crimes under the country's criminal laws. However, systematic failure by the state to prevent and to investigate them and to punish perpetrators leads to international responsibility of the state. The Government of Pakistan has taken no measures to end honour killings and to hold perpetrators to account. It has failed to train police and judges to be gender neutral and to amend discriminatory laws. It has ignored Article 5 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which it ratified in 1996, which obliges states to "modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women" to eliminate prejudice and discriminatory traditions.
Some apologists claim that traditional practices as genuine manifestations of a community's culture may not be subjected to scrutiny from the perspective of rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Against this, the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action stated: "All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated" and asserted the duty of states "to promote all human rights and fundamental freedoms". The United Nations General Assembly in 1993 adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women which urges states not to "invoke custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligation" to eliminate discriminatory treatment of women.
While recognizing the importance of cultural diversity, Amnesty International stands resolutely in defence of the universality of human rights, particularly the most fundamental rights to life and freedom from torture and ill-treatment. The role of the state is to ensure the full protection of these rights, where necessary mediating 'tradition' through education and the law.
This report is the fourth in a series issued by Amnesty International on the rights of women in Pakistan; it is the first to look at abuses of women's rights by private actors.
Killings in the name of honour
Ghazala was set on fire by her brother in Joharabad, Punjab province, on 6 January 1999. According to reports, she was murdered because her family suspected she was having an 'illicit' relationship with a neighbour. Her burned and naked body reportedly lay unattended on the street for two hours as nobody wanted to have anything to do with it.
Ghazala was burned to death in the name of honour. Hundreds of other women and girls suffer a similar fate every year amid general public support and little or no action by the authorities. In fact, there is every sign that the number of honour killings is on the rise as the perception of what constitutes honour -- and what damages it -- widens, and as more murders take on the guise of honour killings on the correct assumption that they are rarely punished.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3
Often, honour killings are carried out on the flimsiest of grounds, such as by a man who said he had dreamt that his wife had betrayed him. State institutions -- the law enforcement apparatus and the judiciary -- deal with these crimes against women with extraordinary leniency and the law provides many loopholes for murderers in the name of honour to kill without punishment. As a result, the tradition remains unbroken.
The methods of honour killings vary. In Sindh, a kari (literally a 'black woman') and a karo ('a black man') are hacked to pieces by axe and hatchets, often with the complicity of the community. In Punjab, the killings, usually by shooting, are more often based on individual decisions and carried out in private. In most cases, husbands, fathers or brothers of the woman concerned commit the killings. In some cases, jirgas (tribal councils) decide that the woman should be killed and send men to carry out the deed.
The victims range from pre-pubescent girls to grandmothers. They are usually killed on the mere allegation of having entered 'illicit' sexual relationships. They are never given an opportunity to give their version of the allegation as there is no point in doing so -- the allegation alone is enough to defile a man's honour and therefore enough to justify the killing of the woman.
According to the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 286 women were reported to have been killed for reasons of honour in 1998 in the Punjab alone. The Special Task Force for Sindh of the HRCP received reports of 196 cases of karo-kari killings in Sindh in 1998, involving 255 deaths. The real number of such killings is vastly greater than those reported.
Pakistani women abroad do not escape the threat of honour killings. The Nottingham crown court in the United Kingdom in May 1999 sentenced a Pakistani woman and her grown-up son to life imprisonment for murdering the woman's daughter, Rukhsana Naz, a pregnant mother of two children. Rukhsana was perceived to have brought shame on the family by having a sexual relationship outside marriage. Her brother reportedly strangled Rukhsana, while her mother held her down.
Ownership rights are at stake when women are to be married, almost always in Pakistan by their parents. A major consideration is the property or assets that the young woman has a right to inherit one day. A woman is handed over to her spouse against payment of a bride price to her father; sometimes that bride price includes another woman given to the father as a new wife. Some men accept a low bride price on condition that the as yet unborn daughter of the couple will be returned to them to be married off for another bride price. The commodification of women is also the basis of the tradition of khoon baha (blood money) when a woman is handed over to an adversary to settle a conflict.
Women are seen to embody the honour of the men to whom they 'belong', as such they must guard their virginity and chastity. By being perceived to enter an 'illicit' sexual relationship, a woman defiles the honour of her guardian and his family. She becomes kari and forfeits the right to life.
In most communities there is no other punishment for a kari but death. A man's ability to protect his honour is judged by his family and neighbours. He must publicly demonstrate his power to safeguard his honour by killing those who damaged it and thereby restore it. Honour killings consequently are often performed openly.
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"Pakistani women abroad do not escape the threat of honour killings. The Nottingham crown court in the United Kingdom in May 1999 sentenced a Pakistani woman and her grown-up son to life imprisonment for murdering the woman's daughter, Rukhsana Naz, a pregnant mother of two children. Rukhsana was perceived to have brought shame on the family by having a sexual relationship outside marriage. Her brother reportedly strangled Rukhsana, while her mother held her down."
Amnesty international is that unbiased for you, or let me guess that is a jewish hate site to, i am afraid there are mountains of abuses in there archives to many to post here, this is just a small piece of the link.
Diamond you really are living in a dreamland, even in the uk pakistani's reinact these barbaric acts of honour killings, whats there excuse after all there supposed to be in a civilised country, no longer subject to anchient tribal laws.
Diamond you have a real problem with facts & reality, may i suggest you go back to college & further your education on pakistan people.
