i hate the world today

[harborshore]

Hate it. Hate it.

Sometimes there is no right way to write about something. Sometimes all you can do is cry your eyes out and manage three paragraphs of nothing and collect links.

For 14valentines Day 7, Domestic Violence.



Medine Memi was buried alive in Turkey forty days ago. She was sixteen. She was found two days ago. According to the autopsy report, she was conscious when they buried her 20 meters below a hen house sitting up with her hands tied behind her back. Her family (what a curious word it is, family) did this to her. Why? She had male friends. Source

It happens closer to home, too. The most famous cases in Sweden were activist Fadime Sadindahl, who was murdered in 2002, because she had a boyfriend her family didn't approve of and because she'd chosen to speak out against her family (she spoke in front of the Swedish parliament on her situation and on what society should be doing to help), and Pela Atroshi in 1999, who wouldn't marry when she was told. It happens way too often; it's still happening, all over the world. Forgive me for not looking up more recent cases, my heart hurts too much to take it right now.

Don't call them honor killings. There is no honor in this. Instead, there is such deep shame that I am hard pressed to find adequate words for it. Don't call them honor killings, please. Call them murders, and call them shameful, and call them hate crimes, and god, please, let people know you feel this way.



Here is Amnesty's resource page where you can contact US senators and ask them to vote to authorize the Office for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department. Obviously, this is most likely to have effect if US Americans do it. (I did it anyway.)

Here is a link to possible actions you can take at the SKSW Campaign (Stop Killing and Stoning Women).

Women Living Under Muslim Laws is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. They work to link together organizations and people all over the world.

Here is the link to the Kurdish Women's Network against these killings, though their website has not been updated in a while.

If you want to pass on the links or reblog this (I've pasted the code for the links below) or support the organizations, that would be good. This should be talked about; this should be something politicians hear about. We as a society have a responsibility to these women, because fuck everything, this isn't the world I signed on to live in.

This should not be happening.

Code for the links:

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8501181.stm">Source</a> <a href="http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=12572">Here</a> is Amnesty's resource page where you can contact US senators and ask them to vote to authorize the Office for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department. Obviously, this is most likely to have effect if US Americans do it. (I did it anyway.) <a href="http://www.stop-killing.org/node/7">Here</a> is a link to possible actions you can take at the SKSW Campaign (Stop Killing and Stoning Women). <a href="http://www.wluml.org/">Women Living Under Muslim Laws</a> is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. They work to link together organizations and people all over the world. <a href="http://www.kwahk.org/">Here</a> is the link to the Kurdish Women's Network against these killings, though their website has not been updated in a while.

Comments

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

This is a late reply but I've been trying to make my thoughts on this neater. I'm afraid I haven't really managed to do that :( I agree with you that these need to be stopped and isn't honor. It's murder. I agree with you so much on this. Last year there was a highly publicized honor killing in my home country and the thing I did not understand then and still do not understand now is how academics could come out and say that it was ok. I remain horrified that they made the argument that it was a case of western cultural insensitivity to treat the perpetrators as murderers because they were only doing what was culturally appropriate. I know it's maybe a slippery slope but it seems like in the case of so-called honor killings it doesn't matter if they are a part of a culture or not - the act itself is still murder and should be treated as such. The idea that because the perpetrators were from a different culture it was alright and that these women were actually at fault because they weren't conforming to that culture still enrages me. Thank you for the links.