Two weeks ago, The Observer revealed how 17-year-old student Rand Abdel-Qader was beaten to death by her father after becoming infatuated with a British soldier in Basra. In this remarkable interview, Abdel-Qader Ali explains why he is unrepentant - and how police backed his actions. Afif Sarhan in Basra and Caroline Davies report
For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.
Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.
Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.
U.S., British and other coalition troops are being killed and maimed to support that government. Furthermore, it is costing the US government (i.e., us) a fortune.
How much better off are these people than under Hussein?
How much safer is the US?
How much cheaper is oil?
(Some people in and close to the Bush Administration are benefitting from the ongoing situation in Iraq.)
Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.
She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.
"She died a virgin" - her crime was not extramarital sex.
It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.
'Death was the least she deserved,' said Abdel-Qader. 'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,' he said.
The Religion of Peace in the eyes of one of its adherents.
The Muslim Women's League here in the US has a page addressing domestic violence; it, of course, condemns domestic violence, pointing out the need for ethnic communities (not just Muslim; the Korean community is addressed, as well) to have counselors who understand their special needs. The page ends with these words:
And if a caseworker doesn't understand Islam, there can be miscommunication. At worse, Abugideiri said caseworkers might assume that violence is simply a part of the religion.
"There's a lot of negative misconceptions about Islam – that it's a religion of violence. That plays into how advocates may respond to women," she said. "God does not want anyone to be abused."
"There's a lot of negative misconceptions about Islam – that it's a religion of violence."
Now, where would someone get that idea?
Continuing with 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love':
Sitting on a chair by his front door and surrounded by the gerberas and white daisies he had planted in the family garden, Abel-Qader attempted to justify his actions.
'I don't have a daughter now, and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends. Speaking with a foreign solider, she lost what is the most precious thing for any woman. 'People from western countries might be shocked, but our girls are not like their daughters that can sleep with any man they want and sometimes even get pregnant without marrying. Our girls should respect their religion, their family and their bodies.
'I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,' he said, his voice swelling with pride. 'My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.'
Abdel-Qader, a Shia, says he was released from the police station 'because everyone knows that honour killings sometimes are impossible not to commit'. Chillingly, he said: 'The officers were by my side during all the time I was there, congratulating me on what I had done.' It's a statement that, if true, provides an insight into how vast the gulf remains between cultures in Iraq and between the Basra police the British army that trains them.
Sources have indicated that Abdel-Qader, who works in the health department, has been asked to leave because of the bad publicity, yet he will continue to draw a salary.
Again, it's not just one guy - there's a whole culture behind this. This guy considers himself a hero, and apparently he's not alone in thinking that way.
He brutally murdered his daughter because she talked to and was fond of a British soldier.
And it has been alleged by one senior unnamed official in the Basra governorate that he has received financial support by a local politician to enable him to 'disappear' to Jordan for a few weeks, 'until the story has been forgotten' - the usual practice in the 30-plus cases of 'honour' killings that have been registered since January alone.
Such treatment seems common in Basra, where militias have partial control, especially in the districts on the outskirts where Abdel-Qader lives.
While government security forces and British troops have control over the centre, around the fringes militants can still be seen everywhere on the streets or at the checkpoints they have erected. And they have imposed strict laws of behaviour for all the local people, including what clothing should be worn and what religious practices should be observed. There are reports of men having their hands cut off for looting and women being killed for prostitution.
Homosexuality is punishable by death, a sentence Abdel-Qader approves of with a passion. 'I have alerted my two sons. They will have the same end [as Rand] if they become contaminated with any gay relationship. These crimes deserve death - death in the name of God,' he said.
So we're supposed to believe that if it weren't for the militants, this wouldn't have happened?
It happens throughout the Islamic world every day. As alluded to above, there's a whole website devoted to the campaign against honor killings, and the vast majority of the incidents it describes occur among adherents of Islam.
He said his daughter's 'bad genes were passed on from her mother'. Rand's mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. 'They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin's home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,' she said.
And so now the man turns on his wife, and the man's sons are happy to turn on their mother with him.
'She was killed by animals. Every night when go to bed I remember the face of Rand calling for help while her father and brothers ended her life,' she said, tears streaming down her face.
She was nervous, clearly terrified of being found, and her eyes constantly turned towards the window as she spoke. 'Rand told me about the soldier, but she swore it was just a friendship.
'She said she spoke with him because she was the only English speaker. I raised her in a religious manner and she never went out alone until she joined the university and then later when she was doing aid work.
'Even now, I cannot believe my ex-husband was able to kill our daughter. He wasn't a bad person. During our 24 years of marriage, he was never aggressive. But on that day, he was a different person.'
The mother is now trying to raise enough money to escape abroad. 'I miss my two boys,' she said. 'But they have sent a message saying that I am wrong for defending Rand and that I should go back home and live like a blessed Muslim woman,' said Leila, who is now volunteering with a local organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra.
She would likely go back to her death.
One of those running the organisation, who did not want to be identified, said that Rand's case was similar to so many reported in Basra, with the only difference being she was in love with a foreigner, rather than an Iraqi.
This case was different because the girl was trying to practice her English with a British soldier; because of the connection to the British soldier, the case made the international news.
How many girls die in Iraq - and throughout the Islamic world - every day due to the barbarity of honor killings? The International Campaign to Stop Honour Killings says 13 a day die due to honor killings, though - if you count them - a small fraction of those are not among Muslims.
'There isn't too much to say. Rand is dead. It is a tragedy and will be a tragedy for many other families in Iraq in the days to come.
'According to information we have been given, some from Rand's colleague, we have doubts that her love was reciprocated. We have the impression that Rand was in love, but the English soldier wasn't. But, for a girl to be paid nice compliments about her beauty and her intelligence, it was enough for her to think she was in love.
'She isn't here any more for her mother to ask any of the questions she would like to. Rand's case had repercussions because she fell in love with a foreigner. But what about the other girls murdered through "honour" killings because they fell in love with some of a different sect, or lost their virginity, or were forced to become prostitutes?'
Rand's mother used to call her 'Rose'. 'That was my nickname for her because when she was born she was so beautiful,' she said.
'Now, my lovely Rose is in her grave. But, God will make her father pay, either in this world ... or in the world after.'
There are different views regarding the role of Islam in this. As we saw, the man who killed this girl justified his actions with his religion. But, according to The Plight of Afghan Women, domestic violence is un-Islamic:
The vast majority of Afghanistan's population professes to be followers of Islam. Over 1400 years ago, Islam demanded that men and women be equal before God, and gave them various rights such the right to inheritance, the right to vote, the right to work, and even choose their own partners in marriage. For centuries now in Afghanistan, women have been denied these rights either by official government decree or by their own husbands, fathers, and brothers. During the rule of the Taliban (1996 - 2001), women were treated worse than in any other time or by any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor, and forced to cover themselves from head to toe, even covering their eyes. Women who were doctors and teachers before, suddenly were forced to be beggars and even prostitutes in order to feed their families.
Taking away a woman's right to be a person; forcing women to become prostitutes to survive. This is what the Taliban's version of Islam brought Afghan women to.
According to the Muslim Women's League's Domestic Violence page:
Abugideiri said that, in many Muslim cultures, women are responsible for making the marriage work, so they feel personally responsible if they are abused. "Islam ... completely prohibits violence, but a lot of women don't realize that. So coming up in their own cultural norm, there's a lot of stigma."
Try telling that to Abdel-Qader Ali.
The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.-Winston Churchill
Hat tip to my email tipster.
3 comments:
There is only one accurate description of an attitude such as this, whether it emanates from religion, or culture, or both: BARBARISM. In the eyes of these men, women are inferior human beings - if looked upon as human beings at all.
It is the result of centuries of pernicious brainwashing. Such men - whether because they are Muslims or not - are what the pioneering feminists of the 1970s and '80s would have called "male chauvinist pigs" [an especially appropriate term in this case!].
Where are the condemning voices of feminists and other human rights activists now? Busily exculpating the "religion of peace" from any connexion with 'honour killings', or excusing such practices in the name of 'multiculturalism'?....
You often say YD, quite rightly, that many decent human beings are Muslims. So are many Westerners, but sometimes it seems that the whole world's moral compass has fatally slipped.
"Everyone knows that honour killings sometimes are impossible not to commit". In other words, "It wasn't me, guv. She made me do it". What garbage! How can there be any meeting of minds with people who think like this?
Agreed, Anti.
The feminist movement long ago stopped being about women's rights, and came to be about political power.
The environmental movement and many other movements followed a similar path.
So, there are problems in the world that need attention - discrimination based on race, discrimination based on sex, environmental destruction - and the "leaders" so many people look to for guidance don't give a damn about the issues, they only care about the political power they can get by fanning the flames of disaster.
And, I am not talking about elected political leaders here, necessariy, although there are politicians who ride these issues for all they're worth. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the National Organization of Women - these are the organizations that are candidates for hijacked causes here.
Where do women turn? Much of the Islamic world sees them as slaves - specifically sex slaves - and they have been betrayed by all these liberal (in the US sense of the word) governments and movements that are supposedly to save them. It's just like when the Muslims talk about how progressive Islam is in protecting women's rights, and then we see the truth, that in much of the Islamic world, women are out of the frying pan and into the fire: the Taliban's Afghanistan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia....
We can't get discouraged, though, Anti - we have to keep doing what we can.
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