We have another Islamic honor killing, but this one adds a horrific element: burying the victim alive. Turkish police believe that the 16-year-old girl was buried alive in south-eastern Turkey in a town called Kahta.
The family was upset that the girl was seen speaking with boys and held a “council” meeting. The result was tying her hands and burying her in a sitting position under a chicken pen outside the home. Dirt in her lungs showed she was alive when she was buried in the two-meter hole.
The BBC reports that the girl went three times to police to complain about being beaten. Each time she was sent back to the family that was beating her.
The father and the grandfather have been arrested. The grandfather had previously beaten the girl for speaking with boys. She was one of nine children.
For the full story, click here.
What an absolutely horrific story. While honour killings and torturing of women continue within Islamic families lets not forget that 3 women are killed and 600 raped daily by their spouses right in our own back yards. While women have made many steps towards equality in North America during the past 40 years there is till a long long way to go!
From the Deborah’s BBC link:
Quote:
“When girls or women are deemed to have stained the family honour, by behaviour as innocent as simply talking to boys, there is strong peer pressure from the community on the male members of the family to restore their honour, say groups working on the issue in the south-east.
The only way allowed by their code is to kill the girl or woman – usually a young man is given the task after a family council meeting, and the method and location of the killing are discussed in detail.
Emotional state
Afterwards, the family will try to pretend she never existed.”
A picture of where she was buried:
http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalDetay&ArticleID=978478&Date=04.02.2010&CategoryID=77
Thank you for posting this article. So-called honor killings need to be seen for what they are: an excuse for horrific abuse and murder. I’m kind of puzzled by the illustration, though. We’re discussing a killing in Turkey; why the photo of a woman in niqab? Turkish women don’t generally wear those, it’s more of an Arab thing.
I cannot find the words to convey my thoughts on this and the recent column of a similar nature – the flogging one.
To pinch one of Mikes thoughts, incomprehensible.
Just when I think that there’s little else that could shock or horrify me, I see a story like this.
There is more detail at the BBC website, including the information that the girl had gone to the police three times to report she was being beaten. She was sent back to her family each time. So much for Turkey’s claim that it is trying to stamp out “honor” murders.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8501181.stm
Well, she’s not alive now.
NOx,
I share your horror and incomprhension that a family could commit such an act. I imagine though that they could sleep quite comfortably afterwards because they have let their belief in a Fanatic Orthodoxy overcome their feelings. It is how certain sects can deny medical treatment to their children wrapped in the smugness of belief.
It’s almost impossible to believe….
No matter how much I tried, I cannot understand why a family could do such a horrific act to their own 16 year old kin? Whatever happened to their conscience? Can they sleep peacefully after doing that? … ???
Honor? No. I’ve said before there is no honor in killing. Honor comes from defending others. These type of killings should be called what they are: pride and arrogance killings. Those are the states of being that produce monstrous killers of young girls like these here, not honor.
Behavior like this is as far from honorable as can be.
People? Honor killing. Oh my. This is what you call it. These folks deserve the same.
Honor killings represent 50% of the nation’s murders? Wow.
Stay classy, Ankara. Capital punishment is simply too weak for these beasts. I’m starting to flip on torture….