Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2000, pages 99-100

Human Rights

A Day of Solidarity With Chechnya

Muslims around the world observed “A Day of Solidarity” with the Chechen people during this year’s three-day celebrations of Eid al-Adha. Washington-area Muslims held a demonstration on March 17 in front of the Georgian Embassy in Washington, DC, to protest the Georgian government’s policy of denying access to Muslim aid and medical teams into Georgia to assist the Chechen people. The demonstrators joined with a delegation of 26 ethnic Chechens residing in the United States who delivered a petition with their grievances to the Embassy of Georgia. Washington demonstrators included representatives from the Peace and Justice Foundation, the Muslim Students Association at the University of Maryland College Park campus, and students from Howard and American Universities.

Several days after the rally, El-Hajj Mauri’ Saalakhan told the Washington Report that the Chechens who had traveled to Washington to deliver the petition expressed gratitude to the local groups that had showed their support and solidarity.

The Georgian Embassy has responded to the petition by saying refugees are given badly needed food, medicine, blankets and clothing from the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, Red Cross and Red Crescent, International Committee of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Counterpart and UNICEF. The embassy also declared that the Georgian government has not refused donations, except in one case when some medicine from Turkey had no documentation.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Resistance Group Shows Secret Video From Iran Prison

The National Council of Resistance (NCR) of Iran held a press conference on March 9 at the Madison Hotel in Washington, DC to reveal a documentary videotape allegedly smuggled to the U.S. from the files of prison authorities inside Iran. The videotape recorded the gouging of both eyes of a prisoner convicted of blinding a woman, and the amputation of four fingers from the hands of convicted thieves. After attendees viewed the very graphic video, shot in 1984, the NCR’s representative in the U.S. Soona Samsami said, “The reality is that these inhuman punishments—like stoning, eye-gouging and amputation—continue. It is quite probable that even now, as we gather here today, the executioners of Iran are busy blinding or mutilating another victim, behind prison walls or even in public places.”

Rana Husseini Discusses Crimes of Honor in jordan

Jordan Times journalist Rana Husseini, a leader in the movement to end honor crimes in Jordan, spoke at the National Democratic Institute in Washington, DC on March 30. Husseini wrote her first news article about a so-called “crime of honor,” a term used to describe the murder of a female relative for a real or perceived illicit relationship, for her English-language daily in 1993. She noticed that such crimes were rarely reported in the media and the murderers usually received very light sentences, which in turn encouraged the belief that the crimes are socially acceptable. She discovered that oftentimes women who needed protection from relatives who had vowed to kill them were placed in “protective custody” in prisons as if they were the criminals. Each year around 25 women are killed in Jordan in reported crimes of honor, while some suicides or accidents may, in truth, be unreported crimes of honor.

“I saw that something was very wrong and no one was doing anything about it,” Husseini said. She said honor killings tarnish her country’s image but she also noted this crime is not unique to Jordan. Murders committed in fits of fury or crimes of passion occur all over the world, including the United States, Husseini said, and they often result in lighter sentences for the murderer. She also warned her audience, “Don’t make the mistake of tying this up with Islam. Crimes of honor are not related to the Islamic religion but are a cultural practice by certain people, mainly poor and uneducated families.”

Actually Husseini uses Islam as her weapon as she points out in her articles that crimes of honor contradict Islam. “Shariah law makes it very clear that four witnesses are needed to convict a criminal and, even after conviction, an individual does not punish the criminal –that’s up to the courts of law. Life is given by God and taken away by God, not by men.”

“Every time I hear about a woman who is killed I get upset. Maybe the death of 25 women isn’t a big number, but every person has a basic right to life. ”

In researching her articles on honor killings Husseini has determined that most killers “hide behind honor” and that 45 percent of their victims were innocent of any moral wrongdoing. Murderers killed to conceal rape, incest, and inheritance disagreements or sometimes to avoid a tribal conflict with another family when a crime has been committed.

Husseini interviewed a young killer in Jordan just before her visit to Washington, DC. He felt he had been pushed by society to kill his sister, who had been raped by a relative. “I loved my sister,” he said. “But if I didn’t kill her people wouldn’t respect me.” When asked what punishment he deserved, he said, “Execution. If my family knew they would lose their son, they wouldn’t have pressured me to do it.”

Rana Husseini’s newspaper articles and resulting e-mail discussions launched a grassroots campaign in Jordan. When a daughter of a princess nominated her for the 1998 Reebok Human Rights Award, the resulting publicity when she won the coveted award brought a groundswell of public interest in Jordan and abroad. The Campaign to Eliminate Crimes of Honor recently circulated a petition that gathered 15,000 signatures in four months asking Jordanian legislators to abolish Article 340, which provides reduced sentences to perpetrators of such crimes. Government officials and several members of the royal family have whole-heartedly joined the campaign. Queen Rania has marched with Husseini, and Princes Ali Al-Husseini and Raad bin Zaid have marched, lobbied deputies and even spoken to parliament. In late 1999, the appointed upper house of the Jordanian parliament voted to annul the law, but the elected lower house overrode this effort, twice rejecting any amendment to the law.

This campaign marked the first time that an independent, unaffiliated committee of local activists organized around a domestic social issue in Jordan. As a result, there now is public debate on a subject that once was taboo, and this alone may change society’s attitudes. For additional information about the campaign to abolish honor crimes contact by e-mail: < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > or < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >, or call 011-962-7-954-5776.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Human Rights Lawyers Honor Pakistani Activists

Hina Jilani and Asma Jahangir have launched the “Pakistan Human Rights Commission” and the first all-women’s law practice in Pakistan. They seek to abolish “honor” killings and hold the state responsible for failing to protect the innocent victims of this crime. They also are leaders in their country’s efforts on children’s rights, prisoner’s rights, women’s rights, and judicial and constitutional reform. One of their clients, Samia Sarwar, was shot to death in April 1999 at their office and the father, already responsible for his daughter’s death, has called for Jahangir to be hanged for giving his daughter legal advice. For their efforts and the very real dangers they face in their fight to protect the rights of women, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights presented its Human Rights Award to the two Pakistani attorneys on Oct. 19, 1999 in New York.

—Delinda C. Hanley