A family in Pakistan is living in poverty and avoiding neighbors calling for their deaths. Their offense? The oldest daughter was raped and the family did not kill her as demanded as a matter of honor. Unlike hundreds of such girls killed in honor killings each year, Kainat Soomro, 17, is being supported by her family and refuses to back down in demanding justice for her kidnapping and gang rape.
Soomro was kidnapped in Mehar, Pakistan and held for days as she was gang raped. After she escaped, she and her father went to police who allegedly refused to act. In the meantime, the family was told by religious elders to kill the girl.
They declared her kari (or “black female”) for losing her virginity outside marriage.
The local court has ruled against her due to the lack of independent evidence. However, the lack of evidence is reportedly due to the police failing to investigate. Her case is again focusing on the abuses of these religious edicts in Pakistan and the mistreatment of girls under radical Islamic principles.
Source: The Atlantic
And there’s a ginormous crapload of a lot more rocks within the Tea Party/John Birch Society/Koch minions from hell and their corporate friends than anything Pakistan can muster. They are the true homegrown terrorists.
Aren’t we teaching hatred in this country just as much as is done in the extremist Islamic nations? Are we not more afraid of our neighbors than any other country in the world? And a nation filled with fear and hatred is a threat to everyone’s national security.
I didn’t want this discussion to stray this far from women’s rights. Gaining equality for women is a major issue (if not the most major) for the growth of human society into a compassionate and caring one contrasting it to our barbaric past. But the current political climate in the US is a threat to a lot more than the gains women have made here at home. We are the major threat to world peace because, if for no other reason, the global corporations own our government and they have NO soul, no compassion, no love … only unbridled greed and lust for power. If they are not stopped the atrocities against women in Pakistan will pale in comparison for what is to come.
HenMan
but a nuclear weapon can only kill once (well, plus fallout but i’m trying to make a point here).
but if you teach them to hate, and give them enough rocks, they can keep throwing and throwing and throwing.
there’s a lotta rocks in them thar hills.
@HenMan
Interesting observations but nothing new.
If you think that there’s any separation of church and state left in the US I fear you are sadly mistaken. It went with Bush’s Thousand Points of [Darkness] and the coffin nail has been school vouchers and the use of public school space for conservative and extremist xian religious indoctrination.
The reasons, excuses and rationalizations over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, justifications notwithstanding, the fact remains that we are the only country to, so far, use those “weapons of mass destruction” and if you believe that we won’t do so again I once more fear that you are sadly mistaken.
Hey! Dawn Shevlin knows an Israeli CIA man.
I’m sorry. That was just mean. My appologies Dawn.
i guess getting seal team 6 together for rescue mission would be out of the question.
Their religions don’t have the power……….Yet
They’re working on it. Who thought extreme Islamic societies would become a role model for American Republicans
And Alice fell down the rabbitt hole and….
Charlie Poole-
The small-time Sharia Republicans who have absolute power in their states are in full attack against women, beginning with Planned Parenthood and abortion providers. The only difference is their religions don’t have the power that Islam has. Fortunately, the separation of church and state still exists despite the Republicans’ burning desire to kill it.
As to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese had other options than absolute fanatacism available to them. The end result was an end to the carnage and undoubtedly far fewer casualties than an invasion of Japan would have caused to both sides. Okinawa was a bloody preview of an invasion of Japan and strongly influenced Harry Truman’s decision- which was the correct decision.
@angrymanspeaks
Yes, I do see that correlation. It’s about women being treated as property with men telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies, minds, money and property whether by force of “law” or physical restraint.
@HenMan
I’m not so sure that the “West” is much better. We couch our barbarism in pretty, patriotic, nationalisms while we rape and torture around the world in the name of instilling freedom and democracy while fighting terrorism. And remember that the US is the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons and I don’t trust that we won’t be the first to do so again.
@molly
I’m sorry you feel that way. Maybe it’s inappropriate, being male, for me to comment on the state of women’s issues in the world, but…
I’m a child of WWII (before the boom) and I’ve seen tremendous and very positive changes in the state of women’s rights globally. There’s still a lot to be done for women to be treated with equal respect and this is but one example of just how far some still have to go. But, OTH, if you have a chance to read the new constitution of Libya written by the National Transitional Counsel you might notice that it’s guarantees of freedoms are stronger than those of the US and, especially, that women and men are constitutionally granted equal treatment (which even the US Constitution doesn’t state — remember the ERA amendment?). Of course, it remains to be seen if the equal treatment will be enforced. I hope so.
Again, we have a long way still to go but I hope you do recognize the strides we have made. Either way I’d be happy to engage you in a dialog on the subjects of what’s been accomplished, what’s left to do and how we, as caring people, are going to go about creating a better world for all people regardless of their sex or any other individual characteristics.
HenMan,
On the other hand and purely from the perspective of sheer efficiency, you can kill a lot more already brutalized women by throwing nuclear weapons at them rather than rocks.
angrymanspeaks, ‘…this I know, bcause my bible tells me so…’ (kids song)
Blouise-
Sick, sick, sick… and they have nuclear weapons. People of this mentality shouldn’t even be allowed to have the rocks they use to murder their own women.
Is it just me or does anyone else see a corelation between killing rape victims in Pakistan for losing their virginity and killing pregnant women in Texas (Perryland) who might want an abortion by taking away their health care?
Sick, sick, sick …
So glad to know that these are our allies in the “war on terror/radical Islam/whatever it is called these days”.
Ah. What a beautiful day to be a woman all around the world. Isn’t it wonderful that the good men stand for our protection? That they speak up and demand change when it comes to homicidal maniacs dressing up like religious men? ain’t it grande how we send out troops into places where half the human beings are being systematically murdered bc the other half is crazy? Like…Oh wait…forget it. Maybe we should act like the men in Pakistan are genocide monsters who are killing humans with specific traits…oh wait…men are allowed to butcher women. I keep forgetting.
Sick! The religous ideals that allow a young girl to be murdered because men raped her,is disgusting.
“Honor” … where have we heard that notion before?
The glory daze seems to be everywhere these days.
Frankly sickening. I bet someone finally gets her and kills her and is celebrated in the community for “following allah”.
And radical Islamist wonder why the Great Satan calls them barbaric!!! Islam it’s long past time that you stood in condemnation of these perversions of the teachings of your Prophet … otherwise your silence is deafening.
OMG….But we are civilized….of course we are….