uk honour killings

[Socod_badne]

Munira0220,

 

You're spot on, there's nothing honorable about killing the labor of your own loins. More like placating their own over-sized pride.

[FatB]

the thing i dont understand is, what goes thro peoples minds when planning an honour killing. am no parent, but i would assume that were would be little or no love prior to contempating such action, wat do u think?

[Malika]

There is fine line between love and hate,I as a parent,I can never comprehend killing of my own for the sake of family name.But many are living in bondage of culture ,tradition and honor...were thy shall living within the context of these boundries.

[N.O.R.F]

Men who decided a daughter had to die - for the good of the family

 

 

· Father and uncle found guilty of murder plot

· Kiss in street sealed fate in close-knit community

 

Karen McVeigh

Tuesday June 12, 2007

The Guardian

 

 

It began with a kiss on a south London street. For Banaz Mahmod, 20, and the secret lover she called "my prince, my shining one", it was a symbol of their love and the freedom they longed for.

But in the eyes of her family the public display of intimacy was a step too far. Banaz had already, they thought, shamed the family by leaving an arranged marriage with a husband who she claimed beat and raped her. Her new boyfriend, Rahmat Sulemani, 29, was not of their tribe, nor a strict Muslim.

 

 

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Within weeks, Banaz had vanished. Her body was finally discovered, crammed into a suitcase and buried in a pit, in April 2006. She was half-naked, the shoelace used to kill her still around her neck.

Yesterday at the Old Bailey her father, Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and her uncle, Ari Mahmod, 51, from Mitcham, south London, were found guilty of her murder. An associate, Mohamad Hama, 30, of West Norwood, south London, had earlier pleaded guilty to murder. Two other suspects have since fled to Iraq.

 

In court, her father told the jury: "I loved her, I loved all my children. I could not harm her." But prosecutors said nothing could be further from the truth.

 

To the Mahmod brothers the family name was everything.

 

They had already suffered the shame, as they saw it, of one of Banaz's four sisters moving out of the family home.

 

The additional embarrassment of having Banaz divorce and then remarry a man they deemed unsuitable would have been unacceptable, in their eyes.

 

Ms Mahmod left Iraq for London with her family at the age of 10, after their successful asylum application.

 

But she never escaped the strict rules imposed by her violent father and uncle.

 

When she and Mr Sulemani, a friend of the family, fell in love, they met in secret. But in the close-knit Kurdish community in Mitcham where she lived nothing was secret for long.

 

A few months into their relationship they were spotted out together by a group of men in a car. They were followed and, when they kissed, those watching captured it on a mobile phone.

 

The court heard how, after evidence of Banaz's "betrayal" - the kiss - was passed to her uncle he called a family meeting on December 2 2005.

 

It was decided that she and Mr Sulemani were to be killed.

 

The jury was left in no doubt about the violent nature of the Mahmod brothers. Banaz's older sister, Bekhal, 22, told the Old Bailey how she was subjected to a campaign of physical and verbal abuse by her father, and placed in foster care for her own protection.

 

After she moved out she was battered over the head with a training weight in what she alleged was a murder attempt ordered by him. Her uncle Ari also told her she deserved to be "turned to ashes".

 

Bekhal told the court that she still fears for her life.

 

The first attempt to kill Banaz ended in failure on December 31 2005, the Old Bailey jury was told, after she managed to escape. Her boyfriend described seeing her later that day, bloodied and covered in bruises and scratches, as "a moment I can never forget".

 

But in what became a crucial piece of evidence in the trial, he filmed her account of what happened on his mobile phone.

 

Lying in a hospital bed, terrified and bleeding, Banaz described how her father forced her to drag a suitcase to her grandmother's house.

 

Her voice still slurred from the alcohol, she described how he made her drink most of a bottle of brandy, against her Islamic beliefs. It made her "sleepy and dizzy", she said.

 

"It was just me and my dad in the living room," she said. "The curtains were shut and it was dark. He said: 'Turn your back to me'. I turned around every now and again because I didn't trust him."

 

Terrified, she escaped through the back door, cutting her wrists in a frantic attempt to raise the alarm by smashing a neighbour's window. When an ambulance was called she kept repeating to the crew that her father and uncle had tried to kill her. She told police what had happened but said they did not believe her.

 

Later, her father told the court she had made up the allegation because she wanted a council house.

 

That night she stayed at Mr Sulemani's house. But after promising her that she would not be hurt, her mother persuaded her to return home.

 

But nothing had changed. In fact, time was running out for the Mahmod brothers. They knew that police had been alerted. They had to move quickly.

 

On January 22 2006 henchmen tried to abduct Mr Sulemani from a street in Hounslow, west London.

 

He was protected by friends, but was warned: "We're going to kill you and Banaz because we're Muslim and Kurdish. We're not like the English where you can be boyfriend and girlfriend."

 

The next day the young couple agreed to go to their respective local police stations. Ms Mahmod reported everything, but even then found it difficult to believe her parents would not protect her.

 

She refused offers of a refuge, telling officers that it was her uncle she was worried about.

 

"I'll be OK with my mum," she said. It was the last time she was seen alive.

 

Her father left home with his wife and youngest daughter the next morning, on January 24, leaving Banaz to her fate at the hands of her uncle's associates, the jury was told.

 

There was a flurry of telephone calls between the brothers that morning and the night before. Further telephone evidence showed the plotters were all kept informed as to when it was safe to approach the house.

 

Banaz's decomposed body was discovered in Handsworth, Birmingham, three months later.

 

A catalogue of missed opportunities

 

The key question for the police disciplinary inquiry into the death of Banaz Mahmod will be the actions of officers on New Year's Eve 2005. On that day Ms Mahmod told PC Angela Cornes how her father had plied her with alcohol and tried to kill her. PC Cornes dismissed her as being manipulative and melodramatic. She failed to record the murder allegation and instead, together with her inspector, considered charging Ms Mahmod for a broken window that she smashed to escape.

 

Ms Mahmod had repeatedly reported her family were planning to kill her. On December 4 she went to Mitcham station to report her uncle's threats and threatening telephone calls. A week later, on December 12, she handed in a list of names she suspected of being involved in a plot. The last contact she had with police was on January 23 2006, when she told of further threats on her life and an attempt to kill her boyfriend the previous night.

 

Police should have known that an older sister, Bekhal, had been placed in foster care due to fears for her safety.

 

Ms Mahmod said she wanted the threats recorded, in case anything happened to her. She told police she did not want any action taken. She refused an alarm and, the day before she died, she also refused offers of a refuge. But the investigation will examine whether, while respecting her wishes, police did enough to reassure, to help, and ultimately, to protect her

 

guardian.co.uk

[N.O.R.F]

Very sad indeed. I thought NG was refering to the other murder of a yound Kurd girl by her father in 2002. Didnt know it happened again.

 

A preventable tragedy

The police are right to blame themselves over the 'honour killing' of Banaz Mahmod: the lessons were there to be learned long ago.

 

The police, with unexpected humility, are busy crying mea culpa in the fallout from the murder convictions of two Kurdish men, Ari and Mahmod Mahmod, for the brutal strangulation of Banaz, a young woman, who had "strayed", and therefore dragged her family honour through mud. All she had done was leave a violent husband, to whom she was forcibly married at the tender age of 16, and then fallen in love with a family friend who was not a "good" enough Muslim.

 

Of course, humility is the only hiding place left for the police. Ever since the murder of Heshu Yonez in 2002, in chillingly similar circumstances, the police went on record for saying that the issue of honour killing must be tackled. Commander Andy Baker of the Metropolitan police set up a special taskforce to research the issue. Five years later, we might be forgiven for expecting that the police would be up to speed and ready for action. Since then, the only action that has been taken, according to Hannana Siddiqui of Southall Black Sisters, is the issuing of internal guidance to the force on honour-based violence and better monitoring of such crimes.

 

The good intentions of senior police officers have not translated into action on the ground. Those working with women escaping domestic violence are familiar with police inaction, failure to take allegations seriously, and reluctance to intervene in "cultural" practices. What takes the cake in Banaz's case is that one police officer even considered charging her for criminal damage for breaking a neighbour's window in a frantic attempt to raise the alarm that her father was trying to kill her. After all the progress that has been made in terms of legislation such as the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, public awareness, zero tolerance of domestic violence and vast quantities of police training, the police officer thought that Banaz was being melodramatic!

 

Although the police did offer Banaz a refuge space, which she refused for fear of inflaming the situation, they do not appear to have referred her to a specialist women's organisation where she could have discussed her options and been given the counselling and confidence she needed to get to a place of safety.

 

Of course, if Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, has her way, specialist organisations dealing with a single ethnic group would no longer receive funding because their very existence threatens social cohesion. Her commission on integration has also recommended that translation services be cut back. If leaflets on honour crimes were only available in English, then learning English would become, literally, a matter of life and death. Integration is being touted as the magical solution to the shortcomings of multiculturalism, in which the state allowed community leaders to police their own to avoid charges of racism. Under both policy regimes, it appears that minority women will remain unprotected.

 

Mature multiculturalism, which advocated respect for diversity but also state intervention to protect human rights in all communities, has been trampled in the rush towards integration.

 

CiF

[YoniZ]

The problem lays with those communities and how they treat the family concerned.

Remember, the family is acting according to their community's cultural prjudice, and have to act if they are willing to be part of that community.

The ****** thing is, killing your own child in order to be accepted as honourable member of the communinty.

The joice looks clear, either the community or your kid.

[Malika]

^^Folks forget that when your facing your creator,there wont be your child,parent,community,clan,society..but only you and what you brought with you..your camaal!

[YoniZ]

This culture thig is sometimes more important than the relegion for some people. SubxanAllah!

I am not that good in somali maahmaahyo, but there is one says "Nin rag ah ciil cadaab ka dooray".