FEATURE: BLOOD AND HONOUR

by Patrick Goodenough (Middle East Digest, February 1995) BY Middle Eastern Muslim standards, Saana's arranged marriage was not unusual. Nor was the fact that her family forced her into a lifetime commitment to a man she did not love. The 18-year-old bride was beaten and maltreated almost every day. On several occasions, she fled from him, running back to her family home in a small West Bank town. But each time, her father or a brother returned her to her husband's house. F inally, Saana could take no more. She ran away one last time, this time ending up with a group of friends in Tulkarm. Word quickly reached her family, who tracked her down in just six hours. She was dragged back to their home. Early the following morning, one of Saana's brothers set out to restore the family's honour, which they felt had been compromised by her behaviour. He killed his own sister, decapitated her, and paraded his grisly trophy through the town's streets for two hours. Townsfolk, who had heard of the shame Saana had brought upon her family, praised the killer for saving the family name. No-one protested the brutal ending of a young life. Ichlas Bassam, a Druse woman originally from a Samarian village called Rama, returned to her family home in July last year, after many years of living in the United States. A successful businesswoman with a desire to help her poor community, Ichlas was interviewed on a Israel Television programme. She shared her plans to raise funds for an orphans' home and other social welfare projects for the Druse community. But her altruism brought no pride to her family, who were incensed by her adopted Western habits, her dress and what they saw as her lack of modesty. On July 8, she was murdered; her brother admitted the deed, in defence of the family's honour. HORRIFICALLY, these two cases are not unique in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Towards the end of last year, The Jerusalem Post reported that seven women had been killed in similar circumstances during the preceding six week period alone. Palestinian women's organisations report that about 40 cases of "family honour killings" are reported each year. Many aren't. Women wanting to fight the phenomenon have found it an uphill struggle. As The Jerusalem Post reported, "Arab women inside the green line and in the [disputed territories] are trying to co-ordinate an effective strategy against family-honour killings", says Nawal Assis, head of the Al Fanar (Lighthouse) organisation, whose aim it is to fight this phenomenon. Nawal says there have been meetings and demonstrations, and attempts to get religious and community leaders to condemn such murders. So far, their efforts have been virtually fruitless.

Women in Islamic societies have long been regarded as chattels, while the men are deemed the guardians of their sexuality. Marriages are arranged, tertiary education is frowned upon, and independent or headstrong women are not appreciated. The main thrust of the pressure placed on a woman is to remain a virgin until marriage, then to remain with her husband irrespective of his treatment of her. However, it seems women in such circumstances cannot win either way. Consider the case of Taghrid Diyab, a 27-year-old mother of three: TAGHRID's crime had not been unfaithfulness toward her husband. On the contrary, she had been too faithful. Married to a man who turned out to be a criminal, a drug-abuser and a suspected "collaborator", she came under massive pressure from her family to divorce him. She refused, on the grounds that she loved him despite his faults, and wanted to keep the family together. Unimpressed, her family struck a deal with the husband's family: he would divorce her in return for 1,000 Jordanian dinars -- and custody over the children. Taghrid rejected the plan, insisting she keep her children. Her unbecoming behaviour signed her death warrant. Walking down a road near Jerusalem's Damascus Gate with her children on June 20 last year, Taghrid was seized from behind and stabbed 16 times in the head and shoulder. Her throat was slit. Police issued a warrant of arrest for her brother, Nabil ...

THE PLO GETS IN ON THE ACT

SOUHA Araf, an Israeli Arab, has investigated the murders of 107 Palestinian Arab Muslim women between 1988 and 1993. But these family honour killings were different from the norm. The culprits, she says, were decency squads comprising members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. In an interview on a feminist programme aired on Radio Sweden last year, Araf explained how many young Arab women had taken on political roles during the intifada. These female activists forgot the place they were expected traditionally to take in society, and soon became a problem for their communities. Thus were born the Fatah decency squads, which assumed the role of family honour enforcers, looking for and often inventing pretexts for sorting out troublesome women. A common excuse was that the suspect women, by luring the men off the streets, were keeping them away from fighting against the Israeli occupiers. She recounted two such incidents: Soufria, a young woman living in Gaza, was married to a man who worked inside green-line Israel, and only returned home over weekends. Rumours that she was being unfaithful to him began to circulate, and she was twice confined to her home by Fatah "decency squads". Eventually, the vigilantes caught her visiting a man one night, and killed her on

the spot. Her husband did not protest, saying that if the Fatah squad had not killed her, he would have had to do so himself. Etaf, a mother of three, was accused by a Fatah squad of having an illicit affair with a man suspected of collaborating. Her husband and children were taken to another room of the house, while the squad members interrogated her in her own kitchen, then slit her throat with a kitchen knife heated over a gas stove.

Significantly, Araf said she was only able to do her job of following up reports of such killings because she lived in Israel, and had Israeli citizenship. In investigating the murders, she has worked together with an Israeli human rights organisation, Bezelel.

MURDER IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY

Researchers of "family honour killings" have identified certain characteristics: The self-styled guardians of honour invariably see the "crimes" in the light of their own interpretations of the Koran, although scholars say that the practice, prevalent in Middle East societies, pre-dates Islam. The "crime" of the victims usually revolves around illicit romance or even rumours of impropriety. Specific misdemeanours have included "immodest" behaviour or dress, associating with men suspected of "collaborating" with the Israeli authorities, leaving one's husband, pre-marital friendships with boys or men, flirtation, even "holding hands by a well" ... The "shame" is considered to have been brought upon the father's family. Hence the killers are usually fathers or brothers of the women deemed to have gone astray. The murders are exceptionally brutal, with the perpetrators often employing knives or axes. Affected communities are almost always supportive of the murder. When women protested the killing of Ichlas Bassam, for example, they were assaulted by local men. Convicted perpetrators of murders linked to "family honour" are generally given lighter sentences than are other killers. In some Arab states, men have been jailed for as little as three months. Moreover, the law often makes provision for reduced sentences in cases where "honour" is involved. For example, one Jordanian law states that a man who finds his wife or a female relative in an adulterous situation will get a lesser sentence if he kills or wounds the man and/or woman concerned. Another provides for a reduced jail term for a man who commits a crime in a fit of fury resulting from an "unrightful and dangerous act on the part of the victim."

(MIDDLE EAST DIGEST, FEBRUARY 1995)