Bridges TV CEO Arrested

"Jordan is basically a Muslim country and it's laws reflect Muslim practice." 

Miami, FL (AHN) - The head of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women is slamming the national press for what she calls a �deafening silence� regarding a case where a prominent Muslim businessman near Buffalo allegedly killed his wife and sawed her head off.

Muzzamil Hassan owned a television station aimed at fighting Muslim stereotypes in United States. He was arrested on Feb. 12 for allegedly murdering his wife, 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan. Aasiya reportedly was seeking a divorce from her husband and also obtained a protection order against him on Feb. 6.

NOW New York President Marcia Pappas slammed the national media for giving what she considers minimal coverage to the story, and Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita for referring to the alleged crime as �the worst form of domestic violence possible.�

�What is �domestic� about this violence,� Pappas asked in a NOW press release. �It is high time we stop regarding assaults and murders as a lover�s quarrel gone bad.�

Pappas said the story has not garnered bigger media play because many media outlets don�t want to offend Muslims.

�Are we now so respectful of the Muslims� religion that we soft-peddle atrocities committed in its name,� sahe asked in the press release.

�Had this awful murder been perpetrated by an African American, a Latino, a Jew, or a Catholic, the story would be flooding the airwaves. What is this deafening silence?�

A Google search found that the story was reported by major U.S. and international outlets, including the New York Times, Fox News, CNN and the Guardian, among many others.  

NOW New York President Slams Media Over Coverage Of Muslim Man�s Beheading Of His Wife By David Goodhue - AHN Reporter, 02/21/09, http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7014168184

I have often found myself in disagreement with NOW.  I do believe that the reason these crimes are downplayed by media outlets have more to do with the Boys� Club and the way many members of the Boys� Club treat the women in their lives and how they see and feel about women.

Muzzamil Hassan regardless of ethnicity and religion is a member of that club.  It is not so far fetched.  For decades, women went into court against domestic violence and found themselves further abused by the court system itself. 

In fact women from my mother�s generation and my grandmother�s generation can repeat too many incidences of women whose deaths were directly or indirectly related to domestic violence.

How do I know this?  Because I am blessed.  My mother empowered me by informing me of my rights as a woman and my rights as a child of God.  She used to tell her daughters, �You are not here on this earth to be any man�s punching bag.�pumabydesign001.wordpress.com

  The man Mo Hassan was barely a Muslim to get himself wound up in "Honor Killing" crap.

 Seeing his resume and if I was a woman would not have thought of saying yes for this marriage! It was a disaster bound to happen and then she served the divorce and and ejection from home order....and then visit his office...wow that was it...

Previous Marriages and Children of the Killer....

Prior to his marriage to Aasiya Zubair, Muzzammil Hassan was married twice before -- once to a non-Muslim woman with which he produced two children, and once for a year to another Muslim woman. According to the family of the latter, both of his earlier wives filed for divorce on the same grounds of severe domestic violence and abuses.

In addition to the two children from his first marriage (ages 17 and 18), he has two children (a girl age 4 and a boy age 6) from his third marriage (to Aasiya).

Now the question for the 'Honor Killing Theory" pushers

Why didn't he kill the other two women who got divorces?

Edited by Sign*Reader - 23 February 2009 at 3:11pm

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=27668

Men exploit lenient laws to murder women for inheritance, settling family feuds or to hide other crimes.

AMMAN - When 18-year-old Maha decided that she wanted to quit her family's prostitution ring, her brother killed her and alleged it was to "cleanse" the family's honour.

Maha is one of hundreds of women in Jordan and other conservative societies who rights groups say are killed every year by their male relatives in so-called honour crimes for "sullying" the reputation of their families.

The United Nations has reported such crimes in Brazil, Britain, Ecuador, India, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Uganda as well as in nations such as Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey.

Accurate figures on such killings are hard to come by because they often go unreported.

In Jordan, between 15 and 20 women are murdered annually in the name of "honour" and at least eight such killings have been reported so far this year, according to Jordanian authorities. Last year 17 such murders were recorded.

But the label "honour killings" can be misleading in this tiny kingdom's male-dominated society of about six million people.

Judges, lawyers, activists and experts agree that in most cases men exploit lenient laws to murder women for inheritance, settling family feuds or to hide other crimes.

"Maha did not want to continue to prostitute herself, so her brother killed her," Israa Tawalbeh, said Jordan's first woman coroner.

According to Tawalbeh, Maha's brother was a drug addict with a criminal record and ran the family's prostitution ring in an east Amman neighbourhood.

"After killing his sister, he turned himself in and claimed that he murdered her to cleanse the family's honour. Of course forensic examination proved that she worked in prostitution, and the brother was sentenced to two years in prison," she said.

"Nobody cared that the girl wanted to quit the prostitution business. Her brother got away because it is a male-dominated society and it is unfair."

Judge Jehad Oteibi, spokesman for the Judiciary Council, said court records show that many "honour killings" are committed for reasons related to inheritance.

"Forensic tests prove that a lot of victims were virgins, which show that there are other motives behind the killings, including family problems. It's a very sensitive issue in our society," Oteibi said.

In early August, a 26-year-old man shot dead his unmarried 23-year-old sister near Amman because she had disappeared from home for four months with a man. A medical examination, however, showed that the woman was a virgin when she died.

According to Human Rights Watch, 95 percent of women killed in 1997 in Jordan in alleged honour killings were later proved to be innocent.

"Many women are forced to give up their rights or face death. Their families might kill them and allege it is related to honour, and not money," Oteibi said.

"But we can't know the truth because the women are dead."

"Ignorance and poverty is a deadly mix," the judge stressed.

University of Jordan sociologist Seri Nasser blamed the legal system.

"Most of the judges are males who use their powers to reduce the sentence. They forget that women are victims of their male relatives' greed," Nasser said.

Perpetrators get reduced sentences as parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher sentences, despite campaigns by local and international human rights activists.

According to article 340 of the penal code, a defendant who "surprises his wife or any close female relative" in an act of adultery or fornication may invoke a defence of "crime of honour" should they murder the woman.

For women, "a wife who surprises her husband in the crime of adultery or in an unlawful bed in the marital home" may invoke a similar defence -- but there are no reports or any official figures on any "honour" killings of men in Jordan.

Article 98 of the penal code stipulates that "an extenuating justification can be invoked by anyone who commits a crime in a fit of rage as a result of an unrightful and dangerous act carried out by the victim" -- which may significantly reduce penalties for murder.

Although only few defendants were able to meet the requirements of the law, most have avoided trial for murder, rights activists say. The maximum penalty for first-degree murder is death and for second-degree murder 15 years in jail.

But even those convicted rarely spend more than two years in prison.

"In the past 50 years, only a handful of (accused) were able to meet the requirements of the law," lawyer Rehab Qaddumi of rights group Amnesty International said, agreeing with Oteibi that many of these killings are not related to "honour" in any way.

Qaddumi - along with other experts � noted that Islam prohibits such crimes and that the problem is not "purely Jordanian".

"To stop the killing of women article 340 should be scrapped. I think Islamic sharia law should be applied," she said.

Under sharia law, "punishment for adultery or fornication can't be enforced unless there is a confession by the culprit or a testimony of four reliable, sane and adult eyewitnesses who each saw the process of sexual intercourse."

Such punishments are meant to be only applied by a sate when its citizens are aware of them, and throughout history they rarely took place as it is unlikely that a man or woman would voluntarily confess of adultery when knowing its punishment.

The chances of been seen by four trustworthy witnesses while a man or a woman are committing the actual act of sexual intercourse (non penetration does not count) is even less likely.

In fact, in Islam, acts of �honour killings� amount to murder and are usually punishable by death.

Asma Khader, secretary general of the Jordanian National Commission for Women, said "the level of leniency in enforcing the law has dropped."

"The government is trying to increase public awareness to tackle this problem. The number of 'honour killings' dropped from 20 to 25 crimes a year about 10 years ago to around 15 now," she added.

Khader, a lawyer and former minister, warned that such killings "disempower women and discourage them from playing a role in public life."

"I find this more dangerous than the killings," she said.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, his wife Queen Rania and other royals have led efforts to fight "honour killings" and reform the law.

"This practice of 'honour killing' is a form of murder without trial, which is contrary to Islam," the queen has said.

"We should have no tolerance for the acceptance of 'honour killings' ... We have to change some cultural and societal perceptions of the place and value of women in society."

But such calls often are not heeded as the perpetrators of such killings are not even religious to take notice of what Islam has to say on the matter.