Murder most fowl

Excuse me? The Harper government cuts off KAIROS, UNRWA and imposes its Christian-Zionist supporters on Rights and Democracy -- just because they all support human rights in Palestine and Gaza -- but boasts about its relationship with Turkey? Our ''ally,'' via NATO, Turkey? 

What's wrong with this picture?

Here's what's wrong. And sickening. And obscene.

Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Her father and grandfather have since been arrested and are due to face trial over her death.

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Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried.

"The report is blood curdling. According to our findings the girl who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood was alive and fully conscious when she was buried," one official involved in the case told the Times.

It also emerged that Medine had repeatedly tried to report to police that she had been beaten by her father and grandfather days before she was killed. "She tried to take refuge at the police station three times, and she was sent home three times," her mother, Immihan, said after the body was discovered in December.

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Official figures have indicated that more than 200 such killings take place each year, accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey.

And those are just the ''official'' figures? And PM Stephen Harper says we're in Afghanistan -- with Turkish forces, no less -- in part to help women? And he is now on about maternal health? 

Hey, Mr. Prime Minister. Time to pick up the phone.

That said, I still refuse to call these ''honour killings.'' Not just because there is nothing honourable about them, nor because they are committed to (ostensibly) preserve the ''honour'' of men, but because they involve killing women just because they are women.

Femicide. That's what it is.

I came across this quote the other day by Catherine MacKinnon, a feminist so hardcore she makes me look like a Stepford wife in comparison. But what she said seems so apt here:

"If women were human, would we be a cash crop shipped from Thailand in containers into New York's brothels? Would we be sexual and reproductive slaves? . . . Would we be beaten nearly to death, and to death, by men with whom we are close? Would we be sexually molested in our families? . . . If women were human, would our violation be enjoyed by our violators? And, if we were human, when these things happened, would virtually nothing be done about it? . . . When will women be human? When?"

Note that she does not focus on any particular culture.

Just saying.

RIP Medine.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: The Star's Olivia Ward has more.

The attacks on women are aggravated by the struggle between Turkey's government and Kurdish separatist guerrillas, which has forced families to migrate to cities, where their conservative culture clashes with the liberated urban lifestyle.

"It's a very tough social issue," says Mojab, co-editor of Violence in the Name of Honour.

"The Turkish government has some very active and dynamic programs to fight honour killing, but it's not just a family problem, it involves the entire community."

In some cases, researchers have found, families are reluctant to punish their daughters for behaviour thought to dishonour them. But communities ostracize them unless they "cleanse" the supposed stain on the family's reputation.

Comments

[Antonia]

Actually, Thomas, these crimes have less to do with religion than with ancient patriarchal/tribal attitudes.

They cross many cultures, and have occurred among Christians, Kurds, Sikhs and Hindus etc.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/murder-in-the-name-of-honor-documents/5302/

I believe your comment reflects more of your bias against certain groups than of mine.

The hate is of women.

And you are off-topic.

[DS]

It isn't that women are regarded as other than, or less than, human. As your first commenter noted, these are patriarchy rather than religious issues, and they relate to who is considered an adult, not who is human. The proof of this is that boys are molested and nothing much is done (cf. the Catholic Church's hiding of offending priests by moving them to other parishes). Also, please note that Turkey is comparatively enlightened as a country, even though the policemen the poor young woman appealed to were not: the men who murdered her are being prosecuted for murder, not succoured and protected by their community and even the police, as has happened in several countries.