April 2008

Teenage girl killed for loving a British soldier

A 17-year-old Iraqi girl has been murdered by her father in an 'honour killing' after falling in love with a British soldier in Basra.

Izzat ka mamla hai: the notion of ‘honour’ in India

March 13, 2008
by: Rajashri Dasgupta
InfoChange India

The indictment of the police by the CBI in the Rizwanur Rehman case in Kolkata reveals the complicity of State and society in maintaining and perpetuating regressive socio-cultural prejudices in the name of family honour and religious belief

Iraq: Politicians resist honour crimes reforms

April 3, 2008
Human Rights Tribune
By: Basim al-Shara’/IWPR, Baghdad -

Article 111 of the Iraqi penal code - passed in 1969 - allows a lesser punishment for the killing of women if the male defendants are found to have had “honourable motives”.

Under the law, a man can receive a maximum of three years in prison if he immediately kills or disables his wife or girlfriend after witnessing her engaging in a sexual act with another man. This sentencing also applies if the defendant immediately kills or disables the other man.

Man accused of adultery has hands and foot cut off in ‘honour’-motivated attack

April 8, 2008
Pakistan Daily Times

LAHORE: Allah Dewaya, a victim of honour violence, is still under treatment at Nishtar Hospital and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is still in the process of ascertaining the reasons of the violence.

HRCP (Multan) Spokesman Rashid Rehman told Daily Times on Monday that the HRCP was still probing into the matter and would decide in a couple of days whether to take up the case or not.

A need for education, awareness and legal reform; Acid attack victim seeks justice

April 9, 2008
BBC

A day in February 2006 is imprinted as vividly on Renu's mind as her body.

In the quiet, narrow lane outside her east Delhi home, she had been bathing the family buffaloes when her father's tenant, a mug in hand, came towards her.

She thought he wanted water but he greeted her instead with threats and a shower of acid.

Her sister Rajni, who came rushing out when she heard the screams, remembers how Renu's "clothes were melting off her body as though they were plastic".

Father charged with murder in recent dis-honour killing

April 10, 2008
AFP: Al Arabiya

AMMAN (AFP) A Jordanian man has been charged with premeditated murder after his 35-year-old daughter was shot dead in an apparent honor killing, a judicial source said on Thursday.

"The suspect was arrested on Wednesday following a complaint by his other daughter that he killed and buried her sister several months ago in the (northern) city of Rasta," the source told AFP.

"The man was charged after he confessed to murdering his daughter to cleanse the family's honor because she frequently disappeared from home."

Girl secretly cremated in ‘honour killing’, family charged with murder

April 12, 2008
Times of India

HOSHIARPUR: Ravinder Kaur, just 18 and in love with Amritpal, hardly got any chance to be with the man she wanted to marry. On Wednesday, when her family left home to attend a neighbour's wedding, she sneaked out and went to meet her 25-year-old lover.

But someone spotted her with Amritpal and the word spread like wildfire in Darga Haeri village, 35 km away from Hoshiarpur. Soon, seething at seeing their Saini girl with a scheduled caste man, Ravinder was dragged home by her relatives and beaten unconscious.

Two women gang-raped in ‘honour’ motivated attack

April 11, 2008
DNA (Daily News and Analysis) India

Islamabad - Around a dozen men gang raped two women in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab to avenge a love marriage, the police said Friday.

'The men abducted the women, one of them pregnant, and raped them in a nearby jungle for two days last month in the Rohallanwali area of Muzaffargarh district,' Mohammed Rafi, a police investigator, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a telephone interview.

The gang was allegedly led by a man identified only as Latif, whose daughter had eloped with the nephew of the two rape victim.

Tajik Women’s Groups Press for Domestic Violence Law

As more and more suicides among women are attributed to violence in the home, pressure is building for a law to end the climate of impunity.

By Mukammal Odinaeva and Nafisa Pisarejeva in Dushanbe (RCA No. 522, 19-Dec-07)
Tajik women’s groups are lobbying hard for a draft bill to protect families from violence, claiming a growing number of suicides among women can be blamed on the phenomenon.

Strengthening the Protection of Women from Torture

January, 2008

Manfred Nowak

The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment submits his second report to the Human Rights Council. Chapter I summarizes the activities of the Special Rapporteur undertaken between August and December 2007 (i.e. the period since the submission of his interim report to the General Assembly, A/62/221), including updates on country visits, future visits and pending requests for invitations, and highlights of key presentations and meetings.

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