csua.org/u/50z -> seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001793273_honorkilling17.html
Female virtue and virginity define a familys reputation in Arab cultures, so its women who are punished if that reputation is perceived as sullied. Victims rights groups say the number of honor crimes appears to be climbing, but at the same time, getting little attention. Israelis and Palestinians are too busy with political and military issues to notice what they dismiss as domestic disputes, says Suad Abu-Dayyeh, who works for the Womens Center for Legal Aid and Counseling in East Jerusalem. Poverty and war have exacerbated the problem, says Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a social work and criminology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an expert on violence against women.
Palestinian police reported 31 cases in 2002, up from five during the first half of 1999, according to the centers study. Police in Israel investigated at least 18 honor killings in the past three years. But the number of killings is likely higher, given that Palestinian police investigate only crimes that have been reported, said Yousef Tarifi, the Ramallah prosecutor assigned to Qaouds case. Shalhoub-Kevorkian says her research showed the likely number to be 15 times higher than the number of reported cases. Qaoud says her husband, Abdul Rahim, 52, told her the Quran forbade such killings. But neither his pleas nor those of Palestinian crisis counselors swayed her. According to court records, Rofayda was raped by her brothers, Fahdi, 22, and Ali, 20, in a bedroom they shared in the familys three-room house.
He has been adopted by another Palestinian family, court records show. Rofayda, meanwhile, wanted to return to her parents in the Ramallah suburb of Abu Qash. Mustafa Isa called a meeting with the family and village elders, demanding they pledge in writing not to harm the girl. He asked me if everyone in the family and the village would promise not to bother this girl, but I told him I couldnt give him a guarantee, Abu Qash Mayor Faik Shalout says. Rofayda returned home in late January without notifying the authorities. Her elder daughters husbands wouldnt allow them to visit because Rofayda had returned home.
They, in turn, called Palestinian police in Ramallah, who have jurisdiction over Abu Qash. The police said they couldnt get to the Qaoud home because of Israeli checkpoints. Qaoud, meanwhile, sent her husband, who suffers from heart disease, to a doctor in the nearby village of Bir Zeit. Tarifi, the prosecutor, says hes convinced Qaoud had an accomplice, but Qaoud insists she acted alone. Qaoud turned herself in and, after four months in jail, was released pending the resolution of her case. While honor killings committed in the heat of the moment for example, by a husband who catches his wife in bed with another man generally carry a six-month to one-year jail term, Qaoud will likely be sentenced to three to five years in prison, Tarifi says. The fact she is a mother who was trying to protect her familys honor mitigates the crime of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death under Palestinian law, he adds. The brothers are serving minimum 10-year sentences in a Palestinian jail in the West Bank city of Jericho for statutory rape of a relative, Tarifi says. Qaoud says she ripped up all of their photographs and burned their clothes. She eases her pain by doting on her three children still living at home, especially the youngest, Fatima, 9, whom she lavishes with kisses. My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people, Fatima explains with a shy smile. Copyright 2003 The Seattle Times Company More nation & world headlines .
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