Georgia Man Kills Daughter for Honor
This is a sad story. When police arrested him, you get the impression he was really sad he did it, and caught up in something he regretted.
Georgia Man Charged in ‘Honor Killing’
CNN
Posted: 2008-07-08 22:21:56
Filed Under: Crime News, Nation News
ATLANTA (July 8) – A Pakistani man is charged with killing his 25-year-old daughter in Georgia because she wanted out of an arranged marriage, police said.
Chaudhry Rashid, 54, of Jonesboro, an Atlanta suburb, appeared in court Tuesday afternoon to face murder charges in the death of Sandeela Kanwal, according to court records.
He was arrested early Sunday, after his wife called police at about 2 a.m. She reported that she had been awakened by screaming but couldn’t understand the language, a Clayton County police report said. She said she was afraid and left the house to call police.
Officers found Kanwal dead in an upstairs bedroom of the home, according to the police report.
Rashid’s wife told authorities Kanwal recently had been married in Pakistan — an arranged marriage, she said. The young woman’s husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father’s home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.
You can read the rest of the story on AOL News by clicking here.
The Wire, Season 4
This show, The Wire, is one of our all time favorites, all the more so because our son also loves this show and passes along the entire season when he has finished watching.
Season 4 is the very best so far. The major theme is a subject near and dear to my heart – the schools, keeping kids in school, and trying to find ways to help them learn. Two former policemen end up in Tilghman Middle School, working with the poorest kids in the Baltimore school system.
First, you need to know that teaching middle school is the stuff of heroes. At very best, middle school kids are dealing with those raging hormones of adolescence. They can’t sit still. They are so full of energy, and sitting and reading is the last thing they want to do.
New teacher “Prez” suffers total loss of control over his class on his first day, but slowly finds ways to engage their attention – such as teaching them to use math to figure odds rolling dice. Once they understand the value of the new information, they are enthusiastic learners . . . or at least, they co-operate with the boring stuff because he finds ways to reward them with interesting information, relevant to helping them cope with their lives. The teachers learn from the students – to keep it real, keep it relevant.
The teachers in Tilghman Middle School are HEROES. Most of the children they deal with have huge problems outside the school, poverty being the smallest of the problems. For many, their parents are their worst problems, literally stealing the food out of their mouths for another fix. The kids bring their baggage into the schools every day, their anger, their acting out. The teachers have to be a mix of tough, compassionate and flexible. They know they are going to lose some of them, and they have to keep on, hoping a few will make it. It is truly a war zone, and the teachers are the stand-up soldiers in this season.
We follow a tough race for the Mayor’s office, the rise of a drug lord, two stone-cold killers who figure out how to “disappear” their victims, and one very clever schemer who manages to pull off a major drug heist, and then sells the product back to his victims. It’s an amazing show.
If you follow this season via DVD, choose to use the subtitles. A lot of the language is slang, much of it is street talk, mumbled, garbled – real speech. It helps to use the subtitles.
BBC 9-11 Third Tower
I am not much on conspiracy theories. This is on today’s BBC – a slow Saturday, I don’t imagine it will get a lot of attention.
9/11 third tower mystery ‘solved’ |
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The final mystery of 9/11 will soon be solved, according to US experts investigating the collapse of the third tower at the World Trade Center.
The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.
Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse.
Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition.
Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, based near Washington DC, is expected to conclude in its long-awaited report this month that ordinary fires caused the building to collapse.
That would make it the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s lead investigator, Dr Shyam Sunder, spoke to BBC Two’s “The Conspiracy Files”:
“Our working hypothesis now actually suggests that it was normal building fires that were growing and spreading throughout the multiple floors that may have caused the ultimate collapse of the buildings.”
‘Smoking gun’
However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a controlled demolition.
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The founder of the group, Richard Gage, says the collapse of the third tower is an obvious example of a controlled demolition using explosives.
“Building Seven is the smoking gun of 9/11… A sixth grader can look at this building falling at virtually freefall speed, symmetrically and smoothly, and see that it is not a natural process.
“Buildings that fall in natural processes fall to the path of least resistance”, says Gage, “they don’t go straight down through themselves.”
Conspiracy theories
There are a number of facts that have encouraged conspiracy theories about Tower Seven.
- Although its collapse potentially made architectural history, all of the thousands of tonnes of steel from the skyscraper were taken away to be melted down.
- The third tower was occupied by the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defence and the Office of Emergency Management, which would co-ordinate any response to a disaster or a terrorist attack.
- The destruction of the third tower was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. The first official inquiry into Tower Seven by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to be definitive about what caused its collapse.
- In May 2002 FEMA concluded that the building collapsed because intense fires had burned for hours, fed by thousands of gallons of diesel stored in the building. But it said this had “only a low probability of occurrence” and more work was needed.
But now nearly seven years after 9/11 the definitive official explanation of what happened to Tower Seven is finally about to be published in America.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent more than two years investigating Tower Seven but lead investigator Dr Shyam Sunder rejects criticism that it has been slow.
My comment:
If you go to the BBC News Link (this if filed under Conspiracies) you can watch a video of the third tower going down. It looks pretty controlled to me, too.
Khadra and The Swallows of Kabul
While waiting for our luggage to be offloaded, we were passing time, visiting with our greeter / expediter, asking about his family, his life in Zambia.
“How does this work, travelling with your son and your daughter-in-law?” he asked us. “Do you like her?”
Nothing on earth could disguise the delight on our faces as we both said “Yes!” We truly adore her.
When our son was only seven years old, a Christian speaker passing through said that if you have children, it is likely that their mates have also been born, so to start praying now for the unknown mate your child would choose, and we did.
When our son called us from university, and told us there was someone he wanted us to meet at graduation, and graduation was still months away, we knew, we just knew, that this might be THE ONE.
We were so delighted when we met her, we liked her immediately. What parent isn’t happy to see his/her son/daughter happy, and choosing well?
“But!” our meeter/greeter added, “how do you like her family?”
And we laughed again! We love her family! Her father is smart and very funny, and her mother is kind and practical, and we all share the same values on family and friends and living our lives. She comes from a large rowdy family that gathers when they can, and so do we.
And YOU are thinking “what does all this have to do with The Swallows of Kabul?” but I am getting there.
On the trip, we all had books for our quiet time, and I could see EnviroGirl deeply engrossed in this book. When I asked her, she said she had gotten it from her father’s wife, a woman with whom I often talk books, and that she (EnviroGirl) was trying to finish it so that she could leave it with me.
And thank goodness that she did! I couldn’t put it down!
First, you think it is written by Yasmina Khadra, but that is a pseudonym. The real author, Mohammed Moulessehoul, was Algerian army officer, and he used the pseudonym to avoid having to submit the manuscript for approval by military authorities. That got my attention right away.
The book is about Taleban era Afghanistan, and starts out with utter hopelessness, describing the deterioration in life brought about by the arbitrary imposition of religious rule, as interpreted by men who have memorized the Qur’an, but have a poor understanding of what they have memorized. Women lead a dismal, limited life, at the mercy of men who treat them as detestable if they are seen in public, even totally cloaked.
His language is beautiful, poetic and compelling, even describing despair and desolation.
We meet two couples, Atiq, a jailer, and his wife, Musarrat, who risked her own life to save his life back when he was seriously wounded and left for dead, and Mohsen, former member of a moderately successful merchant family, married to the love of his life, Zunaira, who is beautiful, educated and from a wealthy background. These men love their wives, and have a strong, genuine connection to them. Their ability to maintain that connection, and to stay connected to their own values, withers in the dry, dusty context of fundamentalist rule.
Their lives and relationships have been changing gradually, increasingly limited and undignified under the stress of Taleban rule, and the novel follows a rapid spiral of deterioration and folly. The steady decline of their lives speeds when Mohsen makes a terrible impulsive decision, has to live with the consequences, and confesses to his wife.
Atiq, too, faces dismal consequences. Even though we know he is limited, he becomes a sympathetic character. His hardness of heart covers a genuine grief that his wife is dying, and he can do nothing to stop it, nor to alleviate her pain.
We all face hard times. In our family, when someone lashes out unjustly, we often ask “is it something I have done, or am I just the nearest dog to kick?” It always gets a laugh, and it puts things back in perspective, puts us on the same side. Sometimes we can’t always vent our frustrations against those people or events creating the frustration, so we take it out on those we love – and who love us. It’s not right, it’s not fair or just, but it is very human, and once you get that out on the table, it is easier to discuss the real issue.
When Zunaira ends up in jail, Atiq’s world is shattered as if by an earthquake – the earth moves under his feet, all his understanding of life is shaken.
“As he cleans up, he cautiously lifts his eyes to the roof beam looming over the cell like a bird of evil augury, and his gaze lingers on the anemic little lightbulb, growing steadily dimmer in its ceiling socket. Screwing his courage to the sticking point, he walks back to the lone occupied cell, and there, in the very middle of the cage, the magical vision: the prisoner has removed her burqa! She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her elbows are on her knees, her hands are joined under her chin. She’s praying. Atiq is thunderstruck. Never before has he seen such splendor. With her godess’s profile, her long hair spread across her back, and her enormous eyes, like horizons, the condemned woman is beautiful beyond imagination. She’s like a dawn, gathering brightness in the heart of this poisonour, squalid, fatal dungeon.
Except for his wife’s, Atiq hasn’t seen a woman’s face for many years. He’s even learned to live without such sights. For him, women are only ghosts, voiceless, charmless ghosts that pass practically unnoticed along the streets; flocks of infirm swallows – blue, yellow, often faded, several seasons behind – that make a mournful sound when they come into the proximity of men.
And all at once, a veil falls and a miracle appears. Atiq can’t get over it. A complete, solid woman? A genuine tangible woman’s face, also complete, right here in front of him? He’s been cut off from such a forbidden sight for so long that he believed it had been banished even from people’s imaginations. . . ”
Atiq has a friend, Mirza, who thrives under Taleban rule, as a soldier, and also running illegal businesses highly profitable under the current regime. He encourages Atiq to abandon his cancer-striken wife, to get rid of her and to find a fresh, young wife. He offers Atiq shady business opportunities, and tells him a wise man bends with the wind. Ignorance and chaos benefit Mirza, and he has no wish to see the good old days return.
In spite of the bleakness, the desolation, the crushing arbitrariness and inhumanity, there is hope, love, and compassion in a thin, steady stream throughout the book.
Once I started reading, I had to finish. It was a great book for the long trip back to Kuwait, one I am eager to pass along to the next avid reader.
Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions
This article, from The New York Times (you can read the entire article by clicking here) gives me a big grin.
I can’t imagine American lining up because the government says we will have our waists measured, and be expected to meet a certain standard or lose weight and be penalized. Can you imagine Kuwaitis allowing the government to tell them how big their waists can be?
Japan is one of the most law-abiding nations on earth – I guess you have to be, when you have so many people occupying so little space. When you think of the Japanese, you think of politeness, courtesy. Outbreaks of rage are an anomoly.
And the government is right – obesity causes more and more expense down the road because it exacerbates other conditions. But someone’s weight is a very personal thing!
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: June 13, 2008
A poster at a public health clinic in Japan reads, “Goodbye, metabo,” a word associated with being overweight. The Japanese government is mounting an ambitious weight-loss campaign.
Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.
But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.
Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.
To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.
The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the country’s postwar history.
Jody Shields and The Fig Eater
This is one of those books I picked up off the staff recommendations shelf at Barnes and Noble – one of the very best sources for cult classics like Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, books that don’t get a lot of press hype but whose readership grows slowly by word-of-mouth.
The cover caught my eye. This woman is dressed modestly enough, all the important parts are covered, but look at her eyes – there is a sultriness there, and a challenge that I find intriguing. This shows signs already of being an-out-of the-ordinary book.
The book opens in the early 1900’s with a murder. We follow the investigations of the chief Inspector, and we follow the parallel investigations of his wife, a Hungarian, Erszebet, and her ally, the English Wally. It’s a mystery, and in this exquisite book, the process of solving the mystery is so much more interesting than who actually did it, or even why.
The most fascinating character in The Fig Eater is the nature of fin de siecle Vienna, it’s customs, it’s caste system, it’s manners, and the fusion of East and West. Entire meals are described, cafe’s, cakes, cooking methods. Clothing is described in loving detail, and we visit a tuburculosis sanitarium as well as an insane asylum.
We study Kriminalistics with the Inspector and his assistant, we learn the fundamentals of early photography from an three fingered photographer. We experience early Viennese medical practices.
We learn all kinds of Hungarian superstitions and beliefs, we dance at the Fasching Balls of Vienna, and we simmer with the repressed sexuality of the times. We mourn with the bereaved, we shiver in the cold winter, and we steam in the brutal heat of an extended summer.
The end is so totally unexpected that I had to go back and read it again. My bet is, that if you accept the challenge of reading this book, you will have to, too. Even after you have read it again, you will not be totally sure what has happened, and yet . . . it is a satisfying ending.
This was a wonderful read.
I will leave you with a quote:
The Inspector has always prided himself on his ability to listen, as a good Burger is confident of his business acumen. During interrogations, he can distinguish the different qualities of the witnesses silence, as if it were a tone of voice.
He had admonished Franz more than once for interrupting him. Don’t be so hasty. Slow down and listen. In the Pythagorean system, disciples would spend five years listening before they were allowed to ask a single question. That was in the 4th Century BC. Another philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, wrote about Banquets of Silence, where even the correct posture for listening was determined.
In Kriminalistic there is a text on the subject. He orders Franz to read it as part of his lesson. “To observe how the person question listens is a rule of primary importance, and if the officer observes it he will arrive at his goal more quickly than by the hours of examination.”
Pat or Scan?
Thank you to my good friend who sent this in an e-mail this morning. I had no idea the new scanners could see in such intimate detail. Makes me stop and think – would I prefer a pat down (shudder) or an invasive scan?
NEW YORK (AFP) – Security scanners which can see through passengers’ clothing and reveal details of their body underneath are being installed in 10 US airports, the US Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday.
A random selection of travellers getting ready to board airplanes in Washington, New York’s Kennedy, Los Angeles and other key hubs will be shut in the glass booths while a three-dimensional image is made of their body beneath their clothes.
The booths close around the passenger and emit “millimeter waves” that go through cloth to identify metal, plastics, ceramics, chemical materials and explosives, according to the TSA.
While it allows the security screeners — looking at the images in a separate room — to clearly see the passenger’s sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger’s face is blurred, TSA said in a statement on its website.
The scan only takes seconds and is to replace the physical pat-downs of people that is currently widespread in airports.
TSA began introducing the body scanners in airports in April, first in the Phoenix, Arizona terminal.
The installation is picking up this month, with machines in place or planned for airports in Washington (Reagan National and Baltimore-Washington International), Dallas, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Miami and Detroit.)
But the new machines have provoked worries among passengers and rights activists.
“People have no idea how graphic the images are,” Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, told AFP.
The ACLU said in a statement that passengers expecting privacy underneath their clothing “should not be required to display highly personal details of their bodies such as evidence of mastectomies, colostomy appliances, penile implants, catheter tubes and the size of their breasts or genitals as a pre-requisite to boarding a plane.”
Besides masking their faces, the TSA says on its website, the images made “will not be printed stored or transmitted.”
“Once the transportation security officer has viewed the image and resolved anomalies, the image is erased from the screen permanently. The officer is unable to print, export, store or transmit the image.”
Lara Uselding, a TSA spokeswoman, added that passengers are not obliged to accept the new machines.
“The passengers can choose between the body imaging and the pat-down,” she told AFP.
TSA foresees 30 of the machines installed across the country by the end of 2008. In Europe, Amsterdam’s Schipol airport is already using the scanners.
Rape for Chatting
Also from today’s Arab Times – rape is every big as horrifying when it happens to a man. I am glad this young man had the courage to report it to the police, and to prosecute his attackers.
I wonder how they found out their sister was chatting with this man?
Brothers kidnap, rape man in revenge for ‘chatting’ with their sister
KUWAIT CITY : The Criminal Court Monday dismissed an objection latter submitted by a bedoun identified only as Ali A., requesting the court to cancel a five-year jail sentence which has been issued against him in absentia in a case filed against him and his brother for kidnapping and molesting a Kuwaiti man.
During a previous session the defense lawyer had told the court there was no evidence to prove his client had committed the crime.
He added the victim’s testimony was contradictory and requested the court to cancel the verdict of the Court of First Instance and acquit his client.
Case papers indicate the victim filed the case against two brothers accusing them of kidnapping and molesting him after learning about his relationship with their sister via the Internet.
The victim explained he chatted with the sister of two men on the Internet and they exchanged messages on their cell phones. When the girl’s brothers learnt about this relationship, one of them called him and said he wanted to meet him.
When the victim met one of them, identified only as Essa, the latter asked him to get into his car and drove off. On the way, Essa stopped the car and his brother Ali got in.
The two men took the victim to a building under construction and ordered him to take off his clothes and molested him. They threatened to kill him if he talked to anybody about the incident.
On April 2, 2005, the Court of First Instance sentenced Essa to five years in jail to be followed by deportation and Ali to five years in absentia because he was not arrested or interrogated.
The session was presided over by Judge Abdullah Al-Sane.
By Moamen Al-Masri
Special to the Arab Times
Cormac McCarthy and No Country For Old Men
“Did you get a chance to watch the DVD?” I asked my friend, “because I have the book, and the book is SO much better. You understand so much more.”
“No! No! I started, but I could not watch it,” said my friend, “It was too violent!”
No Country For Old Men was a very violent movie, done by the Coen Brothers. I reviewed it HERE. When we finished watching the movie, I called our son and said “what happened? I’m not sure I understood what happened!” and indeed, there was a lot I missed. My son didn’t tell me anything – he bought me the book. On one of those long Seattle – Amsterdam – Kuwait flights I read it, and at the end – WOW.
My friend hit the nail on the head – the movie was violent, because the book is about violence, about violence in our societies, about increasing violence, violence without conscience, violence with no understanding of suffering of the victims, violence for no purpose, violence with no meaning, no goal, violence, literally, at the flip of a coin.
The movie is an indictment of violence, taking a circumstantial event and building an entire plot around it, a drug trade gone bad. There are a lot of deaths in this movie, most of them just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and tangling with people who have no morals, no scruples, no compass by which they live. Even money matters less to the drug dealers, and their employees, than an arbitrary code that takes tribalism to the limit – us or them.
The main character, a sheriff and grandson of a sheriff, takes on a case that leads him to wonder more and more if his service to his community and fellow human beings is even making a difference. He ponders on the changing character of Texas, of youth, and how we are raising our children. It is thought-provoking and unforgettable.
I understand someone, not the Coens, are currently making a movie of an earlier book I read by Cormac McCarthy, The Road which is another bleak story. There is an elemental relationship between the father and son, the father is all goodness and protection in a world driven to brutality and unimaginable behavior by an apocalyptic event.
In No Country for Old Men there are decent, moral, sweet relationships, faithful marriages, men of honor who serve their fellow-man as law enforcement officers, men who have served their country as soldiers, etc. but the point McCarthy seems to be making is that the decent people in the world have little hope of surviving against those who band together in gangs using brute force to get what they want.
No country For Old Men is available from Amazon.com for $11.20 + shipping or from $6.00 used. Yes, I own stock in Amazon.com. 🙂
Follow Up on Honor Killing Prevented
This is from today’s Arab Times, and is a follow up to Saved By a Scream.
Bail in honour killing
Kuwait : Citing lack of evidence the Public Prosecution has released on KD 200 bail each the two people who had been detained for interrogation for allegedly attempting to kill their daughter in Saudi Arabia, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily.
The daily added the daughter will be referred to the Psychiatric Hospital.
Earlier it was reported the Saudi immigration officers manning the Al-Riqei border had foiled an attempt by an unidentified GCC family to kill their daughter to save their honor.
According to a security source the parents with their daughter and another sibling traveled to Salmi post and to prevent the ‘victim’ from screaming for help the family’s relative who allegedly works at the post hurried through the process of stamping the passports to help the family cross into Saudi Arabia as the family waited in their car.
When the girl reached the Saudi border post she screamed for help and told the immigration officers that her father planned to kill her.
The family was temporarily detained at the post until the Saudi authorities contacted the authorities in Kuwait. After the family was returned to Kuwait under guard, the relative who helped them at the Salmi post was arrested and detained for interrogation.
The girl was reportedly involved in an affair with an unidentified youth inside an apartment in Salmiya and became pregnant.
Maybe the psychiatric hospital is the only place where she can be safely held against attack from her family?
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