Over the past two years (ever since I came to Jordan) the language used in “honor crimes” news reports have not changed. Despite of the social outrage towards these crimes and the call for a legal reform, the Jordan Times, is still parroting the radical voices of a tribal mindset instead fighting them or at least being objective. The cold-blooded murder is always committed for “reasons related to family honor” for example, and there is always a mysterious official source or two that can not be revealed and despite of their shady identities and gossip-like statements they make, the JT insists on quoting them just for the heck of it.
Sometimes we also have a relative talking about what happens or why it happened and God knows why does that relative get to be quoted, we don’t even know what kind of kinship ties him/her to the victim. Most of the time, I feel that The Insider is more credible than those reports.
The language is very suggestive of guilt and a well-deserved punishment on the part of the victim. The language also suggests that there is an honor that’s to be defended by killing a related woman, and that relationships with the opposite gender are a cause of family dishonor that has to be “cleansed” by shedding blood.
I wish that Jordanian newspapers would take more responsibility in reporting such incidents. Where is the condemnation of such murders? where is the criticism of the law and the reduced penalty those criminals are guaranteed before they hold that knife? Get a freakin expert to talk about it, a psychologist maybe or a sociologist!
AMMAN - Criminal Prosecutor Tareq Shqeirat on Wednesday said he charged a 25-year-old man with premeditated murder in connection with the death of his sister who was stabbed over the weekend for reasons related to family honour.
The 19-year-old victim, who was not identified by officials, was stabbed to death, allegedly by the suspect, on Saturday at their family home, one official source told The Jordan Times.
The suspect then headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in and handed over the knife he allegedly used in the murder, the source added.
A second source told The Jordan Times that the victim was involved in an “illegitimate” affair with a man who videotaped her and then blackmailed her to have sex with him and other men in return for money.
Its funny that these perps seem to always turn themselves in!!!! They must be quite confident that the law wont punish them much!!!
That’s if they get reported in the first place. Arabic newspapers do not write about each honor crime, and I suspect if it’s not for Husseini, Jordan Times would’nt be reporting about them either.
This draws my attention most among other arabian women issues.
I prefer to call it femicide or femicrime to disassociate it with any honor terms, as some women activists in Palestine also refer to it.
Reportedly as the fourth in a month, means once per week, it is believed ten times more left unreported.
Sugarcube, is this inhumane murder to women happened only to the less educated, poor, villager, close minded people?
morning dew, honor crimes or let me rephrase this, reported honor crimes (or femicrimes) in Jordan are only a few per year.
Such murders have nothing to do with economics or geography, they happen to the poor as well as to the wealthy, and to those sent to private schools as well as drop-outs.