Early member of this site will remember that ICAHK staff used to send out a monthly round-up of stories and articles, until pressures of time and other work meant that we were unable to continue. I am now pleased to restart the service with a monthly round-up for August:
PAKISTAN
In Pakistan five women were buried alive in a horrific mass 'honour' killing, allegedly by the brother of a Minister for the Pakistan People's Party. Three girls were killed because they proposed marrying by their own choice, and two older women were also killed because they tried to protect the younger ones. The Asian Human Rights Commission has asked for action on this case. Senator Israr Ullah Zehri condoned the murders as 'Baloch tradition' stunning other senate members. Further investigaions have been ordered into these crimes.
IRAN
Iran has succumbed to international pressure, including pressure from ICAHK members, to suspend some sentences of death by stoning. However, we share reservations as expressed by campaigners against stoning who point out that as long as stoning remains within Iran's penal code, there will always be a possibility that this sentence will be passed:
Although the draft code stipulates that the prosecutor or judge may determine if stoning will reflect poorly upon the regime in a particular case and may therefore commute the sentence to execution or whipping, there are no standards by which the judge or the prosecutor could base his decision. Neither is there a clear-cut definition of the authority of the judge or prosecutor. The ambiguity of the law in this regard means that anyone is at risk of being arbitrarily sentenced to die by stoning. “Don’t forget. One cannot remove the punishment of stoning from the law” Mr. Jamshidi was quoted during his press interview on 4 August 2008, according to Sanaz Allah Bedashti, a reporter for www.meydaan.net.
Also in Iran, around 2000 people protested against the police action in freeing Ali Nejati, who slit his daughter's throat in the street. He was unhappy with her wish to divorce a man chosen for her when she was just 14 years old.
EUROPE
European feminists united to criticise Tariq Ramadan's campaign against forced marriage. French organisations ASFAD, GAMS, Elélé, MFPF, le Réseau "Agir avec elles" and Voix de femmes, (which include Turkish and Algerian women's groups) issued a statement criticising the lack of acknowledgement of the psychological, physical and sexual violence involved in forced marriage offences, while in Germany, Necla Kelek claims that the campaign counterproductively extols the very atttitudes that underpin forced marriage by using statements such as 'In family cultures, the family is more important than the individual. The family understands itself as a unit and a whole and is recognized as such…Each member must act in the interest of the family,’ and 'In this group, honour is a collective possession, and the responsibility is carried by all the family members, whatever their place in the family hierarchy.’
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