Month: July 2009

(Belgium) Brothers arrested in suspected honour killing
— Gulf Times reports: “Two Pakistani brothers were being held in custody in Belgium on murder charges,  a magistrate said in Brussels yesterday, on suspicion that they carried out an honour killing”
— “Hammad Raza Syed and his brother Hassan were charged with ‘deprivation of liberty and murder’ over the death of Hammad’s wife Claudi Lalembaidje, a 32-year-old Belgian woman of Chadian origin.”
— “The woman’s beaten body was found on June 29 in a suitcase in a canal in northern France. A funeral service  was held for her in Brussels yesterday.”
— “The dead woman was in the process of divorcing Syed. Her family claimed he had beaten her and wanted to  control what she wore and how she conducted her life. She went to police twice insisting he had tried to strangle her.”

— (Maldives) Woman faints after 100 lashes, says judge
— “An 18-year-old woman was flogged in public outside the Justice Building and sentenced to a year of house
arrest today for having extra-marital sex.
— ” The woman received 100 lashes after confessing to having extra-marital sex with two men on separate occasions earlier this year”

— Amnesty calls for moratorium on flogging
— Faiz’s comments came in response to news of an 18-year-old woman who was publicly flogged last week for extra-marital sex.”
— “She was sentenced to 100 lashes and a year of house arrest after confessing to having sex with two men on separate occasions.”
— Maldives “Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed said Sharia has only been enforced in the Maldives in the  last 30 to 40 years… In the past, said Shaheed, Maldivians were too ‘squeamish’ to enforce the punishments stipulated in Sharia.

Saudi religious police blamed in ‘honour’ killing of sisters
— AFP reports: “The Society for Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia said the religious police had placed the sisters’ lives in danger when they arrested them and then placed them in a Riyadh women’s shelter”
— “the society blamed the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or the religious police, for sparking the brother’s anger over his family’s honour by arresting the girls in the first place.”
— “‘The hands of the religious police, as well as the brother’s hands, are stained with the blood of these  innocent young women,’ the group said in a statement.”
— “Under Saudi Arabia’s Islamic sharia legal code, unrelated men and women are not allowed to mix together, and the religious police actively enforce the rules by patrolling areas frequented by young people”

(Afghanistan) New UN report takes firm stand on women’s rights in Afghanistan
— “The ‘Silence is Violence’ report documents the failure of state institutions to protect women from increasing violence in public spaces.”

— Malmo: Woman dies after balcony fall, honor-murder suspected
— “A 28 year old woman died after falling from her 3rd story apartment’s kitchen window Sunday evening.  The woman, from Morocco, had come to Malmo (Sweden) a few days ago and moved in with her husband (32) from the Middle East.   Police say that the couple were the only ones in the apartment at the time and suspect this was an honor-murder.”
— IPT News: “Balcony Falls — Accidents or Honor Killings?”
— “A Swedish police investigation into the death of a 28-year-old woman who fell off a third floor balcony is
trying to determine if it was an accident or an honor killing.”
— “The dead woman had only recently moved to Sweden from Morocco to join her husband, who was briefly arrested in the investigation. According to a report posted by the Islam in Europe blog, a Stockholm University researcher is studying a  similar case involving a 16-year-old girl.”