Thursday, March 13, 2008

The brotherly love of Islam

The late Amina and Sarah Said (copied from Debbie Schlussel, original source unknown).




It is very sad that the disgusting phenomenon of "honour murders" not only cannot be eliminated from the world but is spreading out of its endemic territories into the West. On Dec. 20, 2007 I wrote about murdered Canadian schoolgirl Aqsa Parvez and mentioned three other victims in France and Denmark. Of course my post wasn't a thorough review. According to Stephen Brown, 48 Muslim women were honour-murdered between 1996 and 2006 in Germany alone. This post is about a recent double honour murder in the USA. Let me first quote Robert Spenser's Honor Killing in Texas:

"Amina Said, 18, and her sister Sarah, 17, smile happily in one widely circulating photo, and Amina is wearing what looks like a sweatshirt bearing the name “AMERICAN.” But their fate may have been the herald of a new, disquieting feature of the American landscape: honor killing. Amina and Sarah were shot dead in Irving, Texas, on New Year’s Day. Police are searching for their father, Yaser Abdel Said, on a warrant for capital murder. The girls’ great aunt, Gail Gartrell, told reporters, “This was an honor killing.” She explained that Yaser Said had long abused the girls, and after discovering that they had boyfriends, had threatened to kill them -- whereupon their mother fled with them. “She ran with them,” said Gartrell, “because she knew he would carry out the threat.” But Said found them, and apparently did carry it out. Honor killing, the practice of murdering a female family member who is believed to have sullied the family honor, enjoys widespread acceptance in some areas of the Islamic world. However, Islam Said, the brother of Amina and Sarah, has denied that the murders had anything to do with Islam at all. “It’s not religion,” he insisted. “It’s something else. Religion has nothing to do with it.”"

You can read more e.g. at Atlas Shrugs and Debbie Schlussel.
For me, in the entire terrifying story, least understandable is the attitude of the victims' brother Islam. Debbie Schlussel quotes the girls' aunt saying he was in fact his father's accomplice: "I believe with all my heart that ISLAM, the brother, is just as guilty as his dad. Why? Because Amina would not go back home! He went over, where she was staying and was crying. "Please come home Amina and talk things out with Dad! He will not hurt you, I give you my word! I promise, you will be safe!" She trusted those words and went with him. Not an hour later....Sarah made that infamous call! She died immediately after she called as he took his time killing her."

Islam showed no compassion for his sisters after their death, either. Phyllis Chesler reports, "Islam Said blames his sisters’ deaths on their boyfriends. On March 8, 2008, the Lewisville High School celebrated the lives of the honor murdered Amina and Sarah Said. Local media was there. I watched as Islam grabbed the microphone and characterized his sisters’ boyfriends as “gang members” who “killed his sisters.” He also said: “They pulled the trigger, not my dad. My dad is the victim here.” "

I find it also worrying that this case wasn't reported by the "big" mainstream media, at least not widely, so I had to compile my post exclusively from Islamophobic sources.

5 comments:

Karen Tintori said...

Thanks for blogging about these two murdered sisters. And for keeping the topic of honor killings before the public eye.

Karen Tintori, author
Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family
www.karentintori.com

Unknown said...

Gegen die Wand
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347048/

This is a must movie to watch
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-On

Suad Husni
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suad_Husni

acted in a famous film about Honor Killing called

Chafika wa Metwalli (Chafika and Metwalli) (1979).

Suad Hosni: Ya wad ya t'eel
youtube.com/watch?v=801L40TVok8

nytimes.com/2007/04/20/world/
middleeast/20honor.html?fta=y

'Honor' Killing of Wives Is Outlawed in Brazil

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/
fullpage.html?
res=9D0CEEDC153AF93AA15750C0A967958260

Maya M said...

Thank you both!

Marla said...

I did not hear about this. My heart breaks when I hear these stories. Thank you for working to bring this to light.

Maya M said...

Thank you, Marla! A heart-breaking story, isn't it? I find it somewhat similar to Karen McCarron's - parents killing their own children because of failure to accept them as they are.