3 Muslims Charged With Honor Killing Of Iranian Activist In Texas

A Jordanian Muslim immigrant family (a father, mother and son) have been charged with murdering an Iranian woman in 2012 because she helped their daughter convert to Christianity. Where did this happen? Right here in the U.S. Houston. They also have been accused of killing the daughter's husband.

Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a 30-year-old researcher at MD Anderson, was shot to death outside her parents home in the Galleria area.

Ali Irsan, 57, is charged with capital murder in the case. His wife, Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, and their 21-year-old son, Nasim, are charged with murder. Irsan is also reportedly accused of killing Coty Beavers, his daughter's husband, 10 months after Bagherzadeh was shot to death. Coty Beavers was the twin brother of Bagherzadeh's boyfriend.

The station reports that Bagherzadeh was best friends with Ali Irsan's daughter and he blamed her when the daughter left home and married a Christian, according to investigators.

"Nesreen Irsan would not succumb to her father's complete domination and rule of her. And she left his home without his permission and went into hiding," said Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson.

"These two murders are linked by the belief on the defendant's part that his honor as a father and a Muslim has been violated by his daughter, who defied his rule and married a Christian man," said Anderson.

The Irsan's daughter Nadia is charged with stalking her sister while trying to find out where she and Beavers were living.

Authorities are now taking a second look at the death of another son-in-law Amjad Alidam back in 1999, which was deemed self-defense at the time- but not according to Alidam's wife, and Irsan's daughter Nesreen.

Irsan, Shmou and a daughter have been jailed for a year as part of a fraud investigation.

Fraud. Murder. Such good Muslims.

The rest here.

Pakistani Family Butchered In Honour Killing

While a conservative Muslim male in places like Pakistan can have multiple wives of his choosing, the woman usually never has that same choice of whom to wed. And if she does, she might wind up dead. Many a young couple who have married for love are subject to "honour" killings. It happens all the time. The couple run off but are eventually tracked down and murdered. In one recent case, it took 3 decades to catch up to a woman who married for love after her first arranged-marriage husband passed away. After thirty or so years, her son from that first marriage, with her former brother-in-law in tow, butchered his mother along with her 2nd husband and four of their kids. With an ax. Because marrying another man, for love, dishonoured him.

The couple’s 13-year-old daughter was critically injured in the attack on Tuesday night and is fighting for her life in hospital, while four other children escaped unharmed. “Ghulam Fatima, who was in her sixties, had married the man of her choice after her husband died and they moved to Punjab from Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa after threats from Fatima’s former inlaws,” Allah Ditta, a local police official told AFP. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a conservative northwestern province where it is frowned upon for a woman to marry for a second time, especially someone of her own choosing.

Allah Ditta added that Fatima’s former inlaws had been searching for her in vain since she fled her old home, finally tracing her to her house in the Athara Hazari neighbourhood of Jhang city on Monday. Her son and brother-in-law were invited to stay as guests but murdered their hosts a day later. “Her son and his uncle came to her house on Monday and stayed there until Tuesday night when they axed Fatima, her husband and four children to death,” Ditta said. Mian Aslam, a second local police official, confirmed the incident and said Fatima’s son Mohammad remained at large but his uncle Gul Zameen had been arrested.

The brother-in-law has been arrested, her son Mohammad is still on the run.

Source: Arab Times

No Hate Crime- Shaima Alawadi's Husband Goes On Trial For

Remember Shaima Alawadi? She was the 32-year-old Iraqi immigrant woman who was beaten to death in El Cajon, Califronia in March, 2012.  Everyone was convinced it was because she was a hijab-wearing Muslim woman. "Hate crime!" was the rallying cry from clueless liberals, after all there was a note left by her badly beaten body that said: Go back to your country, you terrorist. People were blaming right-wing Islamophobes in this country for inspiring some nut job to murder an innocent Muslim woman simply because she wore a hijab. Someone even created a Facebook page- One Million Hijabs For Shaima. But there were too many oddities surrounding the case, and it seemed to me more like an honor killing by a husband who Shaima was planning on divorcing. Or perhaps murder- Shaima's young daughter was terribly upset over an impending arranged marriage to a cousin.

About 8 months later, surprise, surprise, Shaima's 48-year-old husband Kassim Alhimidi was arrested for the murder. They didn't call it an honor killing, though- not the politically correct thing to do- no, they called it domestic violence.

Anyway, Kassim's day in court has arrived.

An Iraqi man wailed Tuesday during opening statements of his U.S. trial on a charge of murdering his wife, prompting the judge to halt proceedings briefly.

Two years after the Shaima Alawadi’s fatal beating in her California home drew international attention, the weapon remains missing but prosecutors said other evidence proves her husband, Kassim Alhimidi, killed her.

Prosecutor Kurt Mechals told jurors that local and federal police investigated the March 21 death initially as a hate crime because of a note found near her body, but street camera footage and the information from the couple’s eldest daughter about a troubled marriage led police to Alhimidi.

Defense attorney Douglas Gilliland said no blood was found on Alhimidi, who has cooperated with authorities.

I still wonder if the daughter had anything to do with the murder, but not surprised at all that it was a family member.

And that Facebook page no longer exists. It was gone after the arrest of Kassim.

Afghan Couple Eloping Shot Dead By Family

And because families would rather see their children dead than happily married to someone they did not chose- we have the following story from northern Afghanistan:

A 20-year-old girl and her boyfriend (age unknown) were honor killed by her family as they tried to escape by car. They were trying to elope.

"While they were fleeing, suddenly their car crashed and locals arrested them. People wanted to stone them on the spot but some elders disagreed," the provincial head of women's affairs, Khadija Yaqeen, told Reuters on Monday.

"The next day they decided and shot both of them dead in public. Our findings show that the woman's father had ordered to shoot both man and woman."

According to RFE/RL the local elders gave the order to kill the young lovers.

Other Source: Afghanistan Times.

Unsolved Murder of Pakistani Girl Was Honor Killing By Her Dad

Another Pakistani honor killing, although the murder of 16-year-old Musarrat Ahmad wasn't initially designated as that.  Not much information regarding why, other than the fact that the young girl went off somewhere on her own at 10 p.m. without telling anyone. When she finally returned, her dad allegedly beat her to death. Her brother finally confessed that the father was the culprit.

The investigation into the murder of a young girl at the Air Force Complex, E-9, took a stunning turn when the victim’s younger brother alleged that their father was the killer. According to him, his father threw the dead body from the apartment and later lodged an FIR with the Margalla Police Station against the unidentified assailants.

Musarrat Ahmad, 16, was found dead with multiple wounds in different parts of her body and a broken arm near her apartment.

The Air Force official allegedly tortured his teenage daughter to death over the ‘honour issue’, beating her with an iron rod and a cricket bat and kept hitting her head, stomach and back till her death, the investigators, quoting his confessional statement, told ‘The News’.

Pakistan isn't Saudi Arabia, and women have more freedom there, but obviously not this teen.

Details here.

Latest Honor Killings- April, 2013

The latest honor killings for April 2013.

In Pakistan: Father kills 16-year-old daughter Kainaat and her boyfriend because he saw them in "an objectionable state", which could mean something as simple as holding hands. No shotgun marriage for those poor teens, death was preferable. Sad thing is the boy, Bilal Khan, was able to escape- even though he was shot in the back- and ran into a neighbours house, they shoved him back out and he was shot dead.

In Afghanistan: A 25-year-old married woman was killed after she ran away from home with a stranger. Probably escaping from an abusive marriage. She was publicly executed after she was found guilty by the local council and religious clerics.

In Gilgit-Baltistan:  Yes, I had to google.  In northern Pakistan, Qasim, a 45-year-old man murdered his 40-year-old sister. He turned himself in, claiming it was an honor killing. No reason why. Punishment for honor killings isn't as severe, so he could be lying about the "honor" part to get off with a lighter sentence.

Let's not forget this one, again in Pakistan, where two sisters were killed by their brothers.

Or this pregnant Jordanian woman who was killed along with her unborn baby,

And that's just the ones we hear about.

Pregnant Jordanian Woman Honor Killed- Throat and Belly Slit Open

Pregnant women have had their stomachs horrifically sliced open and their unborn babies removed by crazed strangers who wanted a child of their own but couldn't.  In Jordan, the same thing happened to a young woman, but it wasn't a stranger who murdered her, it was possibly family members who slit her throat and belly in what is thought to be an "honor" killing. At least the police believe so.  After she was butchered, she was thrown into a garbage bin like trash and set on fire in a town near Amman.

According to a police spokesman:

"The belly of the woman, in her twenties, was cut open and we could see her four-month-old unborn child, who was dead too. Investigations are still under way."

There are witnesses:

Witnesses said they saw two men, driving a truck, pull up to the dumpster before throwing in the body and setting it on fire with a flammable liquid.

How sad.

Source: NY Daily News