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   From: freedom@usa.com   
      
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   news:bu2657$kju$1@news.eusc.inter.net...   
   > Mother kills raped daughter to restore 'honor'   
   >   
   > By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson   
   > Knight Ridder Newspapers   
   > November 17, 2003   
   >   
   > ABU QASH, West Bank Raped by her brothers and impregnated, Rofayda   
   > Qaoud refused to commit suicide, her mother recalls, even after she   
   > bought the 17-year-old a razor with which to slit her wrists.   
   >   
   > So Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud says she did what she believes any good   
   > Palestinian parent would: restored her family's "honor" through   
   > murder.   
   >   
   > Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her   
   > sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she   
   > told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next,   
   > Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No,   
   > mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the   
   > head with the stick.   
   >   
   > Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor   
   > through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid   
   > succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old   
   > mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I   
   > could protect my family's honor."   
   >   
   > The guilty brothers are in jail.   
   >   
   > Qaoud's confessed crime, for which she must appear before a   
   > three-judge panel Dec. 3, is one repeated almost weekly among   
   > Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel. Female   
   > virtue and virginity define a family's reputation in Arab cultures, so   
   > it's women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as   
   > sullied.   
   >   
   > Victims' rights groups say the number of "honor crimes" appears to be   
   > climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and   
   > Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice   
   > what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who   
   > works for the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East   
   > Jerusalem.   
   >   
   > Poverty and war have exacerbated the problem, says Nadera   
   > Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a social work and criminology professor at Hebrew   
   > University in Jerusalem and an expert on violence against women. "Men   
   > do not have any power except over women," she says.   
   >   
   > Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002, up from five during the   
   > first half of 1999, according to the center's study. Police in Israel   
   > investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years.   
   > But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian   
   > police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef   
   > Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaoud's case.   
   > Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her research showed the likely number to be 15   
   > times higher than the number of reported cases.   
   >   
   > Qaoud says her husband, Abdul Rahim, 52, told her the Quran forbade   
   > such killings. But neither his pleas nor those of Palestinian crisis   
   > counselors swayed her.   
   >   
   > According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi,   
   > 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the family's   
   > three-bedroom house. On Nov. 26, 2002, doctors at a nearby hospital   
   > who were treating Rofayda for an injured leg discovered she was eight   
   > months pregnant.   
   >   
   > Palestinian authorities whisked her off to a women's shelter in   
   > Bethlehem, where she gave birth to a healthy boy Dec. 23. He has been   
   > adopted by another Palestinian family, court records show.   
   >   
   > Rofayda, meanwhile, wanted to return to her parents in the Ramallah   
   > suburb of Abu Qash. Ramallah Gov. Mustafa Isa called a meeting with   
   > the family and village elders, demanding they pledge in writing not to   
   > harm the girl. "He asked me if everyone in the family and the village   
   > would promise not to bother this girl, but I told him I couldn't give   
   > him a guarantee," Abu Qash Mayor Faik Shalout says.   
   >   
   > Rofayda returned home in late January without notifying the   
   > authorities.   
   >   
   > The shame was unbearable, Qaoud said. Relatives and friends refused to   
   > speak to her family. Her elder daughters' husbands wouldn't allow them   
   > to visit because Rofayda had returned home.   
   >   
   > On Jan. 27, Rofayda sent word that she was in danger to counselors at   
   > Abu-Dayyeh's center in East Jerusalem. They, in turn, called   
   > Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash.   
   > The police said they couldn't get to the Qaoud home because of Israeli   
   > checkpoints.   
   >   
   > Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to   
   > a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Her three youngest   
   > children went to a cousin's house.   
   >   
   > At 11:30 p.m. she killed Rofayda, court records show. Tarifi, the   
   > prosecutor, says he's convinced Qaoud had an accomplice, but Qaoud   
   > insists she acted alone.   
   >   
   > Qaoud turned herself in and, after four months in jail, was released   
   > pending the resolution of her case.   
   >   
   > While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment, for example,   
   > by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man, generally   
   > carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be   
   > sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says. The fact she   
   > is a mother who was trying to protect her family's honor mitigates the   
   > crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under   
   > Palestinian law, he adds.   
   >   
   > The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian   
   > jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a   
   > relative, Tarifi says.   
   >   
   > No trace of Rofayda or her brothers remains in the family home. Qaoud   
   > says she ripped up all of their photographs and burned their clothes.   
   > The bedroom in which she killed her daughter is now a storeroom.   
   >   
   > Erasing the memories is harder, she admits.   
   >   
   > She eases her pain by doting on her three children still living at   
   > home, especially the youngest, Fatima, 9, whom she lavishes with   
   > kisses. The children say they've forgiven Qaoud and return her   
   > affection.   
   >   
   > "My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by   
   > people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. "I love my mother much more   
   > now than before."   
   >   
   > Copyright 2003 The Washington Post   
   >   
   >   
      
   Another peacefull muslim.   
      
   There is no one more cowardly than a muslim suicide bomber!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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