Pakistan Parents Killed Daughter for Eyeing Boy
Source: Associated Press
ISLAMABAD—A Pakistani couple accused of killing their 15-year-old daughter by pouring acid on her carried out the attack because she sullied the family's honor by looking at a boy, the couple said in an interview broadcast Monday by the BBC.
The girl's death underlines the problem of so-called "honor killings" in Pakistan where women are often killed for marrying or having relationships not approved by their families or because they are perceived to have somehow dishonored their family.
The girl's parents, Mohammad Zafar and his wife Zaheen, recounted the Oct. 29 incident from jail. The father said the girl had turned to look at a boy who drove by on a motorcycle, and he told her it was wrong.
"She said 'I didn't do it on purpose. I won't look again.' By then I had already thrown the acid. It was her destiny to die this way," the girl's mother told the British broadcaster.
Read more: Pakistan parents killed daughter for eyeing boy - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21932303/pakistan-parents-killed-daughter-eyeing-boy?source=rss#ixzz2BNofDRGD
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It breaks my heart to post this here, but this is the world we live in. Monstrous parents.
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maxsolomon
(38,727 posts)It's going to take decades if not centuries for fundamentalist Islam to reconcile itself with Modernity.
David Zephyr
(22,785 posts)Toxic parents. Toxic beliefs. Heartbreaking.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)Christianity was here when it was 1500 years old.
maxsolomon
(38,727 posts)Fundamentalist Islam has little issue with much of Modernity. Cell phones are an example.
But in the realm of sexuality, and women's sexuality specifically, they are resolute in refusing to evolve.
It needs to evolve, and it needs to do it now.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)that all societies/religions develop along the same lines. In fact it was the seminal Sufi mystic Al ghazali who put an end to the Islamic Golden Age as he clearly saw how Islam would be changed if Muslims scholars continued with the sciences developed by Aristotle.
pnwmom
(110,261 posts)They just refuse to keep subjugating the women in their culture.
Do these people routinely carry acid with them ? How come it is always women wh get hurt . Are there nom male wrongdoers ? Oh , I forgot , They are valued higher than a mere women in Islam . Peaceful religion ? NO !
1monster
(11,045 posts)parents are.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,848 posts)goddamn acid on her. There problem solved. Monsters is right. Even that word falls short.
fozzieferocious
(22 posts)Not to mention the acid part... "By then I had already thrown the acid." What? Do they carry bottles of acid around with them every day just waiting for the moment to throw it on their vile, evil and unruly children with wandering eyes?
catrose
(5,365 posts)Parenting tip: Carry acid in your purse in case your kid dishonors you in public. <sarcasm>
And they can't be sentenced to die by acid because that would be cruel and unusable punishment. I hope their other kids are in foster care now.
yesphan
(1,604 posts)on their daughters. Seems they were just waiting for the right time to do it.
I don't hear stories of acid getting thrown on boys.
catrose
(5,365 posts)fozzieferocious
(22 posts)Religion that indoctrinates like this is poison to the human mind. Just imagine if the religious nuts in this country followed the Bible like these whack jobs follow the Koran - there'd be loads of preteens getting stoned to death every weekend.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)How disgusting
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)The stories relating to human rights abuses in Pakistan which get posted here frequently seem have become less about human rights abuses and how people can and should fight them both in the US and abroad, and more about how much people here hate Pakistanis and Islam. So this will likely be my only post here, though the story is newsworthy.
pennylane100
(3,425 posts)but let us not criticize the crazy religious fanatics who have such a distorted view of their religion. It is a view shared with many hundreds of thousands of followers, possibly millions, but it would hurt their feelings to point this out.
It would also be politically incorrect to point out that these young women cannot, unfortunately, look forward to a day when they are free of such abusive parents as they will have been sold into slavery, also known as forced marriage where the abuse will then be continued by their inlaws. They can also expect to die a slow and painful death at the hands of their in-laws if the dowry is not paid promptly.
So while there are millions of decent law abiding citizens in Muslim countries, there are also a lot of crazy women hating zealots and if it hurts your feelings to have this pointed out, too bad.
Skittles
(171,710 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)the kind of male dominated world where women are abused and murdered in the name of some extreme religious belief. The really sad part is the mother threw the acid. Poor innocent young lady. What a sad,sad story. Our American taliban and their right wing cohorts would deny abortion in emergency of mothers life, different, same outcome. I have become very mistrustful of religion. Period.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Sickening.
What the hell is wrong with human beings? Besides stoopid and brain washed...
TrogL
(32,828 posts)Sounds like the father carries it with him at all times.
We are wired to look at unusual sounds.
skypilot
(9,128 posts)Why would this family just have acid lying around? Is acid something that people in Pakistan keep around their households? And this news account makes it sound as though the father just happened to be holding the acid already when his daughter looked at the boy. This story is horrific but it also sounds kinda off.
shanti
(21,799 posts)he had acid at the ready, what the hell??
panAmerican
(1,206 posts)Was she too old to be a desirable child bride, maybe? So detestable, no matter how you look at it.
Turbineguy
(40,074 posts)Romney wins, that way we can move to that enviable state of civilization too.
Monstrous is correct.
Pachamama
(17,564 posts)Aaaaarrggghhhhhh!!!!!
When i read these kind of stories and realize what kind of monsters are out there, inhumane cruel and evil creatures that would in a torturing way MURDER their own flesh and blood, an innocent soul, and in the name of Honor????? WTF? There is no honor in torture and murder.....may these creatures who commit such attrocities burn in hell.....they have no souls...
May this girl and all other daughters and women who continue to be tortured and murdered have their souls rest in peace and love, a world they clearly never got to have with their families while here in this lifetime....
Ilsa
(64,368 posts)from looking at boys. But then, if she was talking to a boy whose voice had not changed, and he sounded like a girl, then they could kill her.
I'm being sarcastic, of course.
This is the sort of thing that makes me want to kill her parents.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)And do it on live TV so we can all record it for posterity.
Fuck those parents.
Fuck all the people who don't hate them.
northoftheborder
(7,637 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)It's a slow process but it will happen just as Capitalism will always triumph over Communism. Give people the chance to see what greater freedom brings and they will inevitably opt for that.
maxsolomon
(38,727 posts)ALWAYS?
Has Capitalism "triumphed" in the kleptocratic oligarchy of modern Russia?
Back to the topic: many Islamic nations have REGRESSED from a period of greater freedoms for women to ones where misogyny is embraced as the will of God.
History does not always more towards liberalism.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)Socialism is not non-Western in origin.
As for the so-called Muslim regression, Westerners are not responsible for it.
As for Oriental fatalism and theories about cause and effect, Westerners are not responsible for those either.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)The teaching of Western classics in the West most particularly, is on the decline and has been for well over 150 years.
Western understanding of Western civilization is only as deep as technology, modernity and individualism, and the reflection on these is quite superficial.
We banished philosophy, theology and history to the corners of the room, to the margins, and now we are paying for it.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)It will die.
It must die.
Only a tiny minority understands or practices it.
And that speck is getting tinier every century.
Subsume? No. If anything, it is the West that will be subsumed by the rest.
argiel1234
(390 posts)profits violently off of people's lives. Thankfully Capitalism is being exposed for the violent terrorist system that it is, that values profits over human beings
Do you have some "freedom" drones and bombs to promote in "Eastern" mindsets?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Sick, psychotic parents... READY to KILL their own CHILD...
In the most excruciating and hateful way possible, torturing her.
pnwmom
(110,261 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)(AFP) – May 9, 2011
"It is time to stamp out these barbaric, feudal practices which are a slur on our nation," the Supreme Court said...
Many go unreported, with police and local politicians turning a blind eye to what some see as an acceptable form of traditional justice by families seeking to protect their honour.
"All persons who are planning to perpetrate 'honour' killings should know that the gallows await them," Justices Markandeya Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra said in their ruling, adding that no one can take law into their own hands.
If someone is unhappy with the behavior of a relation, "the maximum he can do is to cut off social relations... but he cannot take the law into his own hands by committing violence or giving threats of violence," the bench said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i2d1tgM_eiQmuRVBrqCfOmmAAtlw?docId=CNG.c1abdfdf972345482d6ae381b79e6ce8.191
The court's argument makes sense to us. But the article says most are not executed. I found another version of this on DU2:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4844767
I found this reply there. A reply referred to an quote from over a 150 years before the article:
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows."... "Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
General Charles James Napier, Commander in Chief, British Army in India, 1843
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4844767&mesg_id=4845455
There is a discussion of feudalism on the thread. Pakistan was once part of India, but I don't think the killings in the article are much different, even though they are separate countries now. This is something that has gone on long time. So Pakistan is, despite some modernization, still living under feudalism?
benld74
(10,285 posts)Anthony McCarthy
(507 posts)People seem to assume this is acceptable to all Muslims when I'd imagine it isn't. It's not as if Americans don't murder their children in horrible ways for entirely secular reasons. Making it a matter of Islam vs. anti-Muslim Americans, I can guarantee you that it's the anti-Muslim Americans who are NOT going to have any ability to make things better. Bombs from drones would be mentioned.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Yes, I suspect that this is seen as terrible behavior by the majority of Muslims. No, I don't for a minute think that Muslims find this behavior acceptable. The problem is that the media will spin it that way, encouraging us to see all Muslims as terrible, hateful monsters. This is not the case.
This case could be compared with Christians blowing up abortion clinics. It's hateful, monstrous behavior... but it is inspired by insanity and fanaticism more than religion itself. Some of the most decent people I know are quite religious - and often their faith inspires generosity, charity and forgiveness.
That said... it's damn heartbreaking that these monsters would kill an innocent child just for looking at a boy. What the hell was wrong with those parents? This is not Muslim behavior - this is the behavior of two deeply insane, fanatic individuals who hopefully will spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Smuckies
(692 posts)I can say that nearly all Muslims would find this behavior disgusting and wrong. This crime shouldnt be generalized to all Muslims. Its the individual, not the religion.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)It's the Taliban culture. It seems to be a culture of fear and hatred, no love, no joy, no happiness, no beauty... just oppression, pain, hatred and destruction.
A culture which fosters mothers to kill their own children..to actually believe their children deserve to die for breaking a rule, for being human is not a culture that is beneficial to humanity in the least.
In this Taliban culture there is not even the most basic of human traits.... love and protection of our offspring.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)It is not our place to change their behavior or to try to apply any kind of Western standard to it.
The only Western analogue which is even close is the Wars of Religion.
The Wars of Religion in Europe, 1500-1650, were a by-product of a modernizing society and a populace newly informed about the scriptures by way of print.
Many places in central Europe were depopulated by the slaughter.
People who could never have hated anyone in the Middle Ages were filled with rage.
Something of the sort is happening now among Muslims. Terrorism is nothing more but a way of externalizing to the West the internal problem in the Ummah. But the boomerang always comes back, and it hurts more every time it comes back.
The Wars of Religion ended when belief, in spite of the state religions, became individualized and personalized.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)and the fear that secular India will somehow culturally and economically make muslim Pakistan irrelevant. This drives Pakistanis to cling even more severely to a caricature of Islam from the 13th century in the hopes of remaining relevant. This is also the main reason why Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism because it could never win a conventional war.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)qwyatt
(9 posts)It's news like this that makes me so thankful to live in (relatively liberal) America.
Chellee
(2,300 posts)Charlie Fuqua, Arkansas Legislative Candidate Endorses Death Penalty For Rebellious Children In Book
According to the Arkansas Times, Fuqua wrote:
"The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:"
There's obviously something in the water in Arkansas because they also have two pro-slavery candidates running. Jon Hubbard (R-AR) and Loy Mauch (R-AR). It's biblical, you know.
lindysalsagal
(22,915 posts)Always do.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Caesar in his Commentaries of the Gallic Wars, mentions that the Germans were much more open about the sexes intermixing then were the Romans. This more openness has been characteristic of Western Society ever since. Even today Italy and Spain have a more "protective" view of women then the rest of Western Europe.
Now, Italy and Spain are NOT the Middle East, but in the Caucasus visiting males are warned NOT to look at the local women, Christian or Muslim, for that can bring with it a death sentence from her family.
In Libya, where they is NO history of "Honor Killings" attempts to introduced the practice was rejected by Qaddafi and the Government that replaced him (The reports of "Honor Killings" in Libya seems to be more related to propaganda aimed at the west on how bad the other side was, then any actual "Honor Killings" in Libya.
"Honor Killings" is more a Middle East to India tradition (and seems NOT to be the rule in Iran). In Afghanistan the position on "Honor Killings" is unclear, most of the killing of women in Afghanistan has more to do with the underlying conflict between the Tali ban and the Government of Kabul then anything else (Culture, Religion, Democracy, etc are used as an excuse in the political infighting on the local level between supporters of the two groups).
In Pakistan, you are seeing some traditional Indian traditions given a Moslem cover. In traditional India women were subservient to their husbands and fathers AND women were married off by their fathers, so independent sexual relations were not only frowned on, but illegal.
Now, even since British rule, this Culture of India has been under stress, both by the changes as Pakistan and India has become more urbanized but also as the relative ease for women to learn a new language (English) over men have tended to make women more valuable then men (i.e. women can earn more money then their husband's can, and that is a reversal of traditional income roles for men and women in the subcontinent. When a Culture is under stress, it tend to radicalize among those most affected by the change. In most cases the poor, for their are the most dependent on the Cultural rules as to who they can ask for assistance AND who they must provide assistance for.
Thus it is rare to see such a "Honor Killing" among the elite, the shame of the incident can be paid off with money. In the poorer parts of the culture, which has a tradition of "Honor Killing" it is done among the poor for if the young woman in question is viewed as "Compromised" it will be impossible to marry her off. If the young woman can NOT be married off, she will be a burden to her family for she will have no husband to provide money assistance to her parents if they need it. Thus a "Young Woman" from a poor family, can become a burden on her family if she has the "Wrong" reputation.
Remember we are talking about societies without anything close to the American Safety Net (which is almost nothing) let alone European social safety net. Thus the only safety net the poor can rely on, is their extended families. Any attack on that extended family will NOT be tolerated, for it attacks the very safety net that poor family is dependent on. From The Middle East to India, that includes young women who are "Prue" when they are married off. Thus any attack on a woman's virginity is an attack on the family, and if the woman is seen as seeking sex herself, is an attack on the extended family by her.
Yes, it is weird, as we look at it from Western Eyes and our Western Culture that is supported by the much more extensive Safety net provided by the State, but it is a Culture the members of which understand the rules and follow those rules.
Side note: Yes, prostitution, fornication, adultery and other sexual "sins" occur, even in Pakistan. In most cases they are covered up. I always give the example of the only time where the biblical rule that said a Husband could kill his wife, if he found her NOT be a virgin. It is the story of Mary and Joseph, and his plans on finding out Mary was pregnant with Jesus Christ was to divorce her privately NOT to kill her as permitted by Jewish law of the time period. The Gospels mention it in passing that Joseph decided to divorce Mary rather then kill her, until an angel told this that this was an act of God, at which point Joseph accepted Jesus as his son.
The real question is the Koran has similar stories (Mary gives virgin birth to Christ, even in the Koran, through Joseph is not mentioned in the Koran and returns with Christ to live with the priests of the Jewish temple).
My point is no where in the Koran is the Killing a women, due to they being tempted by sex, grounds to kill them. "Honor Killing" is a local Cultural tradition, given by locals some Moslem cover but not derived from Islam. The tradition of "Honor Killings" is older then even the Jewish Religion in those areas were it exists, and has never been exported to another culture, except when a culture expands ("Honor Killings" seems more tied in with Agriculture in both India and the Middle East then with the surrounding herding traditions of most of Arabia for example and it is believe Agriculture first appeared in the modern day Iraq and then spread to Indus River Valley in India, you can see how the cultural rule went from one to the other (Along with a very patriarchal society). It does NOT appear to have made it to Egypt or Iran, but does appear to have expanded to the people of Jordan, Syria and Palestine.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)I realize not all Pakistani's believe like this, but the culture there that does,,,, these Taliban scum.... Frankly the planet would be a better place with every one of them dead and gone.
840high
(17,196 posts)
HeiressofBickworth
(2,682 posts)I fail to understand how the basic human tendency to protect one's off-spring and/or love one's children, fails to over-ride such extraneous issues. The prime urgency of humans has always been to reproduce -- hard to do when one kills off one's children because the neighbors might think the kid did something "wrong". So it can hardly be surprising that in the West, we think these killers are sub-human.
MH1
(19,156 posts)I suspect not. I think in that culture, females are just not valued above property. Not very valuable property, either. Kind of like throwing a glass against the wall and breaking it if you're pissed about something.
pnwmom
(110,261 posts)Clearly, the mother thought the girl was dispensable.
Divine Discontent
(21,057 posts)imagine... being killed for looking at someone... that's detestable, but made worse that her own mom and dad were to blame
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Sorry, I mean, those horrible, horrible parents...
NoodleyAppendage
(4,625 posts)Where's the recourse in that religion for the aggrieved parties? Or, are women not protected by Islamic law?
AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)Sounds like pre mediated murder to me.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)sick, just sick
BigDemVoter
(4,700 posts)Fundamentalism of any stripe brings bad things, but this is truly beyond comprehension.
Egnever
(21,506 posts)But I will never understand how someone could do this to their child.