FAMILY CONVICTED IN HONOR MURDER

"If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled."
~ Elizabeth Blackwell.

WOW! I am stupefied. A Turkish court finally did something right:

Full family jailed for honor killing act

DİYARBAKIR - A court has sentenced five members of the same family to life imprisonment for the honor killing of Naile Erdaş, 16, who fell pregnant as a result of rape, activists said Monday.

In its verdict Friday, a court in the eastern city of Van sentenced the murder victim's brother to life in jail for the 2006 murder said to have been committed to cleanse the family honor, the Van Women's Association said.

The girl's father, mother and two uncles were also given life sentences for instigating the murder, while a third uncle was jailed for 16 years and eight months for failing to report the murder in one of the heaviest sentences handed down in Turkey for such a killing.

"We can say this verdict is a first in terms of the harshness of the sentences and the fact that the entire family was convicted," Mazlum Bağlı, a researcher into honor killings at Dicle University in Diyarbakır, told AFP.

Zelal Özgökçe of the Van Women's Association welcomed the sentence as an appropriate deterrent. "It is very good that the entire family was punished for the crime," she said. "It will serve as a deterrent. People will become aware that they will face the consequences of an honor killing."

Erdaş fell pregnant as a result of rape but concealed her condition until she was hospitalized for a severe headache during which time doctors discovered she was pregnant.

When the family made threats and offered bribes to get the girl back, doctors decided to keep her in the hospital and informed police and the prosecutor's office. One week after Erdaş gave birth, the prosecutor agreed to send her home after the girl's father promised she would not be harmed. But she was shot dead by her brother a few hours after returning home.

In honor killings, generally prevalent among Turkey's Kurdish community, a so-called family council names a member to murder a female relative who is considered to have sullied the family’s honor. In most cases this is because of an extra-marital affair. In recent years, the government has stepped up efforts to stamp out honor killings.

I have never heard of such a severe sentence before and it comes non too soon. I agree with spokesperson for the Wan Women's Association, Zelal Özgökçe, and hope, too, that this punishment will serve as a deterrent to honor murder.

Now if they'd find a way to go after those who order "honor" suicides:

Among the hundreds of honor killings in Turkey, it is impossible to quantify the forced suicides. A special U.N. rapporteur, Yakin Erturk, was dispatched to the country’s south last year to investigate a rash of suicides. She concluded that some probably had been “instigated” and cited a host of contributing factors: forced and early marriages, denial of reproductive rights, poverty, migration and displacement, among others.

Victims say they’ve been ordered by relatives to kill themselves, locked in rooms with a gun or rope, watched over while they were expected to slit their wrists. The infraction can be as slight as a desire to work or the wearing of jeans, the sentence often decided in a family council.

Handan Coskun, a former journalist, started a women’s center in Diyarbakir in response to suicides she began investigating several years ago, when the rate in southeastern Turkey was two to three times the national rate. There were dozens of cases, many not related to honor issues. One consistency was that far more females committed or attempted suicide than males, which is the opposite of the worldwide pattern.

Those families who do save their daughters from conditions that would be considered "dishonorable" are often ostracized by their own communities, as in this case:

When a Turkish man rescued his daughter after she was abducted by a gang that forced her into prostitution, he was hailed a hero by many in the country. But people in his own home region of south-eastern Anatolia turned against him, because he refused to do what traditional laws of family honour say must be done in a case like this: kill the girl.

“My daughter did not go voluntarily,” the man, who did not want to be identified in order to protect his 18-year-old daughter, told Turkish newspapers last month. “Why should I kill her?”

The idea that a girl or a woman has to pay with her life if she sullies her family’s honour by her conduct is still powerful in some areas of Turkey, especially in the poor Kurdish region in the south-east. In some cases, it is enough if a woman talks to a stranger to seal her fate. Underage boys of the family are often selected to commit so-called honour killings because they can expect lighter prison sentences if convicted.

Almost 300 women have been murdered by family members in Turkey since 2001, according to a new study based on court cases that was published this month.

Osman Celbis, a researcher from the Inonu University in the eastern city of Malatya, told the Anatolian news agency that 288 women and 56 men were killed. Male victims of honour crimes are often killed after cases of rape.

“It is a problem of mentality,” said Remziye Tanrikulu, a lawyer in Diyarbakir, the main city of Turkey’s Kurdish area, and an expert on honour killings.

Yeah, it's a problem of mentality, a mentality that must change. I hope that the court system will continue to crack down on this disgraceful mentality so that change is forced. And if the force necessary to make change happen is harsh, so be it.

HONORING A STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR AND MURDERING KURDISH WOMEN

"When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."
~ Simone de Beauvoir.

Goran at Zanetî has an excellent report on Memphis and it's decision to honor the repressive Turkish regime during its annual international festival in the month of May:

The decision by the Memphis in May organizers to honor Turkey especially at such an unusual time might be astonishing to anyone who has the slightest clue about what has been going on in Turkey. Advocates of human rights might even go as far as to describe such an “honoring” as not only sad, but also abhorrent. Turkey has a long history of gross human rights violations but 2007 and 2008 have carried some of the worst in most recent years.

[ . . . ]

Just this year, as it has frequently made its way across the news ticker (making it hard to believe the Memphis in May organizers could have missed it), the Turkish military has been bombing the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Pointing to rebel bases high in mountains that create a natural border for Turkey and Iraq, the Turkish military has begun campaign of aggression against the region. Although Turkey claims to only target rebels, video and local reporting has shown that Kurdish civilians have been frequent targets, and in many cases, the only targets. Since December, the Turkish military has bombed many villages, bridges and other infrastructure, killed countless civilians, and has even launched ground invasions leading to more civilian casualties despite no recent provocations by rebels. Furthermore, the Turkish government has so far rejected all peaceful attempts negotiated by rebels through the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq even when American military officials suggested it as the only solution Turkey should be seeking.

Goran also names the congressman from Memphis, Steve Cohen, as the arrogant genocide-denier that he is. As for me, I'll add him to the list of Deep Staters in America.

Gordon Taylor has also posted his first Kurdish post at his new digs, The Pasha and the Gypsy, and he focuses on "compulsory self-administered honor killings" in North Kurdistan:

. . . The Turkish government, in response to demands from the European Union, has considerably stiffened the penalties. (Note that only demands from the EU got them to do it.) Life in prison is now the mandatory sentence. But this hasn't stopped the honor killings. Now the girls are required to kill themselves.

Think of it: "You have dishonored us. Only you can cleanse this stain from our family. Kill yourself." Now try getting it as a text message on your cell phone. That's the opening of a 17 July 2006 story from the New York Times. The girl in the story, Derya, got as many as 15 of these text messages a day from her uncles and brothers. In the end she got lucky and found a women's organization in Batman, her home town (pop. 250,000), that took in girls like her. But that only happened after she had tried without success to drown herself in the Tigris River and hang herself with a rope. (An uncle cut her down after the last attempt: presumably not the same uncle who initially texted her and told her to off herself.)

He also mentions the rise in male Kurd suicides in the TSK. Of course we know that the terrorist TSK has a long-standing tradition of making Kurdish deaths in the military look like suicides. Gordon also writes about the Kurdish mother who refused to call her son a "martyr" after his death in the mountains near Bingöl. Her point about Erdoğan's sons studying in the US should be augmented with the information that at least one of them avoided military service altogether by doctoring up medical records in secret. After all, military service is not a place where you take it easy, eh, Tayyip?

As regards honor murders, whether "self-administered" or not, things are not much better in South Kurdistan, as reported in the UK's Independent, via AlterNet:

. . . [R]ecent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. "Honor killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government," said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. "If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.

[ . . . ]

The stoning death of Ms. [Du'a Khalil] Aswad led to the establishment of an Internal Ministry unit in Kurdistan to combat violence against women. It reported that last year in Sulaymaniyah, a city of 1 million people, there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through "family problems", and threats of honor killings. Rape is not included as most women are too fearful to report it for fear of retribution.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful!

KurdishPress has something on the terrorist TSK's recent lies about its bombing of South Kurdistan, but don't you believe it. Remember what Münir Paşa said. While we're on the subject of the terrorist TSK, consider the irony of the MGK (read: TSK) giving permission for a "closer dialogue" with the KRG while the TSK continues to bomb South Kurdistan.

HEWLÊR BOMBING, DEEP STATE, AND INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES

"We have decided to run in the elections with independent candidates."
~ Ahmet Turk, DTP Chairman.

The last time that there was a bombing in Hewlêr was May 4, 2005 which killed 60 people. That was the last time until today, from the AP and carried by the hevals at KurdishInfo:

A suicide truck bomb ripped through the Interior Ministry in the relatively peaceful Kurdish city of Irbil on Wednesday morning, killing at least 19 people and wounding 80, officials said. Kurdish officials blamed al-Qaida linked insurgents for the devastating attack.

[ . . . ]

Zariyan Othman, the Kurdish health minister, said 19 people were killed and 80 were wounded, including five who were in serious condition. Hamza Ahmed, a spokesman for the Irbil governor's office, said the dead and wounded included police and civilians.

Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman blamed the attack on Ansar al-Sunnah, a Sunni Arab insurgent group, and Ansar al-Islam, a mostly Kurdish militant group with ties to al-Qaida in Iraq. Ansar al-Islam has been blamed for a number of attacks, including attempts to assassinate Kurdish officials.

Othman said authorities learned that insurgents were planning a large attack a week ago when police arrested a militant cell in the town of Sulaimaniyah.

"During questioning they confessed that were getting training lessons in a neighboring country and that was Iran," he said.

The AP gets the date wrong on the last suicide bombing in Hewlêr, citing the deadly attack of February 1, 2004 as the most recent. So, we shall see what comes of this. Since Turkey and Iran have conducted recent operations together against PKK, it's possible that they are coordinating suicide bombings together.

There have been more commentary on the murder of Doa Khalil Aswad, one from The Muslim Woman and another from Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany at Iraqi Kurdistan. The Muslim Woman has the following observation:

While the Kurdish authorities introduced legal reforms to address ‘honour killings’ they have, however, failed to investigate and prosecute those responsible for such crimes.

The Kurdistan government, who originally did nothing in reaction to this event, have now stated – after their dirty little secrets were exposed to the world via the internet – that these men will be punished. Hmm… we’ll see!

Indeed, we'll see. Of course, there will probably be a load of legal wrangling since the murder was committed outside of the KRG's area of authority. Still, The Muslim Woman's observation is consistent with many of the things Kurdish women's rights activists like Houzan Mahmoud have stated. You can check out more of what Houzan has to say at her blog, Houzan Mahmoud.

Kurdish MEP Feleknas Uca is sponsoring a petition on the poisoning of Ocalan, calling for an independent medical team to go to Imrali and conduct a proper examination of the island prison's only inmate. For more on that, head over to DozaMe.

For an update on Sibel Edmonds' case, check Lukery at Wot Is It Good 4. He's running the same post at DKOS and Democratic Underground and you can catch a read of what others are saying about the situation. It can be pretty interesting, but I haven't noticed any pro-TC trolls today, but then again they might be out protesting for the Paşas.

Lukery also picked up on another take on America's Deep State from an op/ed piece at the WaPo on former CIA chief George Tenet's latest apologia pro poor-little-me. In other words, Tenet's new book/whitewash of his involvement with 9/11. Lukery read it all so I didn't have to (and neither do you), and in doing so, he pulled out a very interesting observation:

I'm more fascinated, though, with the collateral damage of his claim: Even in a country like the United States, even with a country that is so seemingly transparent, Tenet is saying that there is great ambiguity associated with what the "state" is, who speaks for it, what the agenda is, what the truth is, even from the highest government officials, who may or may not be speaking from a position of truth or facts or based upon access to, or knowledge of, the ultimate decision-maker.

[]

Without a shred of irony, George Tenet would have us believe that the "they" are someone else, that the decision was -- and is -- the doing of secret, informal, unauthorized, incompetent officials and infiltrators. Not some otherwise innocent entity called the government."

Exactly.

The Middle East Times, out of Egypt, is reporting that DTP is going to run independent candidates in the Turkish election and speculates that Leyla Zana will be one of the candidates.

Maybe this answers something that Ilnur Cevik was crying about the other day, when he whined about knowing DTP's intentions. According to him, if DTP runs independent candidates, they could possibly win between 20 to 30 seats in the TBMM.

What's more interesting is the rest of Ilnur's opinion, especially if one keeps in mind that Ilnur is the representative of the Turkish ruling elites. He calls for KDP/PUK support for AKP because AKP is just so very Kurd-friendly and, besides, Turkey's future is on the line and Ankara would like it's clients to lend a hand in Turkey's future. Of course, Ilnur means KDP/PUK, not those 20 million Kurds of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. Those millions live in the huge void that is Turkey's own internal colony and they have no hand in Turkey's future or Turkey's stability . . . according to Ilnur, anyway. He may have a point on that since Kurds have no political rights within the TC, unless Kurds prove themselves momentarily useful by voting for Turkish parties like AKP.

The question is this: Will KDP/PUK stab DTP in the back by continuing to support the Ankara regime as Ilnur Cevik calls for? After all, KDP/PUK has enjoyed warm ties with Ankara for quite a while. Now that Ankara's business interests own most of South Kurdistan and Gulen's Islamist schools are springing up in South Kurdistan like mushrooms on manure, we'll be sure to note just exactly where KDP/PUK's loyalties ultimately lie.

Yep, there will be some heavy karma going down this year. For good or for bad remains to be seen.


Update: According to Zaman, Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Doğan, and Selim Sadak are definitely running for the Turkish parliament. Osman Baydemir and other DTP mayors will not run. For more, see Zaman. Similar news is available from Ozgur Gundem, with the added info that PKK's ceasefire is suspected to end on May 18. However, Ozgur Gundem specifies that Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Doğan, and Selim Sadak will make a final determination to run at a party council to be held at a later date. The same council will determine which other independent candidates will run.

Undoubtedly time is getting short on this, so we should expect an announcement sooner rather than later. Ditto for an announcement of the end of the ceasefire.

NEEDED: A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE

"We need a redefinition of the Kurdish identity; we need a civic Kurdish identity based on respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, not the rule of mobs."
~ Behrooz Shojai.

Houzan Mahmoud speaks out on the recent murder of Doa Khalil Aswad:

Once again the murderers of women in Kurdistan in Iraq have committed a crime. This incident, however, was uniquely barbaric. On April 7, 2007, Doa - a sweet, 17-year-old girl - was dragged out in broad daylight and publicly stoned to death. This girl's "crime" was to fall in love with an Arab Muslim man. Doa herself had a background in the Kurdish Yazidi faith. Thus, according to the bigoted values of this belief system, she was not allowed to marry someone from outside her "tribe and religious sect".

Reports suggest that Doa had left her family home three months earlier, to live with the man she loved. She gave up her religion, ethnic identity and even her family to go and share love, passion and her life with another. This was a brave decision. She took it in a heavily religious and patriarchal society that considers women as private possessions and inferior sub-humans.

Men of the Yazidi faith in Bashiqa, near Mosel, organised the handover of Doa from the place where she was secretly living with her boyfriend. They gathered in a crowd of nearly 1,000 men, at the scene of the planned execution.

They dragged her out and tore her skirt in order to shame and humiliate her. Men pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the back and stomach. Others repeatedly battered her head with a large stone. Her face was covered in blood and - despite her state of shock - she cried out for help. Not one of these men had enough humanity to step in and prevent this outrage. They became a pack of angry monsters.

In fact, hundreds of them celebrated. They whistled and some filmed her grisly death, to be uploaded later. She was stoned, kicked and battered until she died in agony. And as her sweet heart - full of life and love - stopped beating, these men rejoiced in the cleansing of the "shame" from the supposed honour of Yazidis.

Read the rest.

The KRG has also condemned the murder. At Kurdish Globe, Behrooz Shojai asks if there will be mob rule or rule of law:

The Kurdish media were silent for a long time after the incident; only when non-Kurdish fundamentalists and foreign organizations began discussing the issue did the media come forward to discuss what happened in Behzane.

The authorities used their own well-tried methods, namely finding a solution through the Elders. Mir Tehsin Beg, the prince of the Yazidi community, is one example. All solutions are welcome, of course, when it is necessary to calm society in such situations, but these solutions will ultimately be short-lived. The foundation of violence against women, particularly the collectively sanctioned violence against them, must be destroyed. For that, we need more than mediation by respected authorities. We need a change of the social context that paves the way for this kind of violence.

[ . . . ]

. . . Settling social problems by top-to-bottom methods is not enough. We have to change the mentality of the society; we have to tackle society's approach concerning human rights and democracy. Those changes must come from the bottom and be thoroughly worked out by the civil society.

[ . . . ]

We need a redefinition of the Kurdish identity; we need a civic Kurdish identity based on respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, not the rule of mobs.

One might also ask if the reason the KRG finally issued a condemnation of the murder is also because "non-Kurdish fundamentalists and foreign organizations began discussing the issue." I would add that it's not enough that this be a problem addressed by women's organizations because it is not simply a "women's problem." It is a domestic problem and a societal problem, which means that everyone, including men, are involved and must fight for change.

On April, 22, 24 Yezidi factory workers were murdered in Mûsil aas were 2 Yezidi police. It's interesting, and possibly another sign of denial by authorities, that when Yezidi workers were threatened in Hewlêr, the authorities dismissed the threatening mob as "anarchists," a stupid claim to be sure since anarchists don't generally engage in religious nutcase behavior.

By the end of April, Yezidis attacked a KDP headquarters in Khana Sor and Jazira during a demonstration against the treatment of Yezidi workers in Hewlêr, Dihok, and Zaxo. The claim about these Yezidis is that they are Ba'athist.

It looks like there are certain interests groups with a political axe to grind here and they have so far exploited old prejudices that span political and religious affiliation, and that makes Behrooz Shojai's call for changing the mentality of society, tackling issues of human rights and democracy, and creating a "Kurdish identity based on respect for human rights, democracy and rule of law" even more urgent. It's no longer enough to have a leadership that mouths the platitudes of democracy and human rights; it's time to get down to the difficult work of enforcing those values with an iron fist, if necessary.

Lo and behold, Stephen Hadley is in the news. You might remember him from a Rastî post in mid-January. Today, the dirty Hadley has been assigned the job of finding a "War Czar". Lukery has a link to the original NY Times article, and he thinks it reads like good old-fashioned propaganda . . . which it does. In fact, it's downright nauseating.

The reason that I even bring this up is because the Bush Administration has been searching for a "War Czar" since about mid-April, with no luck. At the time, a "military analyst" at MSNBC labeled the idea of "War Czar" as "another harebrained scheme" which, indeed, it is. As the analyst points out, there's already supposed to be a "War Czar," and he's usually called the Secretary of Defense. But I guess Gates is staying out of the kitchen because he can't stand the heat.

The WaPo ran an article, saying "3 generals spurn the position of war "czar." Think Progress noted that the White House was going about the "War Czar" job search "quietly." Yeah, I guess so; it's kinda embarrassin' when the Secretary of Defense can't do his job.

Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan's comment on the matter was pretty illuminating: "The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going. ... So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks.'"

Now, let's note right here that Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston was one of the three generals originally approached to become "War Czar". I guess Lockheed Martin didn't think that it would be a good business move for Ralston to take the White House up on the offer. After all, he's done so well selling all those tactical fighter aircraft to Turkey since his appointment as "special envoy" to "coordinate the PKK" for Turkey.

So much for "War Czar" stupidity.

For a lefty analysis of Turkey's most recent post-modern coup, check a little something at Lenin's Tomb. He makes a remark that more people in the West should make:

Turkey is precisely not a secular state, since the state crushes religious freedom on the one hand, and seeks to appropriate and regulate religion on the other.

Correct. All you have to do is read the Turkish constitution. Or read "Cannibal Democracies", and then read the commentaries on "Cannibal Democracies".