Turkish girl, 16, 'buried alive by her father because she had friendships with boys'

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I know that there are unrepealed laws from the earlier half of the 20th century that permit a husband to beat his wife on certain days of the week. At least in a couple of US States.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

If you remember the 70's and 80's as a time when husbands were alowed to kill their wives in the United States then you are, to use a Bush-ism, clearly misremembering...

Not misremembering. Most likely, you are unaware that this is a fact.

[nicole&efe 0]

Historically, there has been a lot of tension in Turkey between the Kurds and the Turkish state largely over the recognition of a separate, specifically Kurdish state. If you're looking for a parallel its not terribly different to the situation of the Basque separatists in Spain.

That's a good analogy, comparing the Kurds in this area to the Basque's in Spain.

I did actually read this article from an online Turkish newspaper yesterday, and these stories never fail to blow me away. There was another one a few weeks ago about a Turkish girl who committed suicide because she wrote a note to a boy she liked in class and the teacher found this note, and the girl was afraid that the teacher would tell her father. The worst part was that in the end, her father said that it was ok, and if she really liked him, he would have arranged their marriage. What great losses of life.

When I bring up these stories to my fiance (who is from a very liberal city on the west coast of Turkey) he is always frustrated with his country, because this is the image of Turkey that the rest of the world sees. As a Turk, he sees Turkey as two completely separate identities, sort of cut in half down the middle, with the West being more European, and he doesn't even identify himself with Eastern Turkey, because the population is more Kurdish, and they have different mentalities.

My fiance is in the army right now in Southeastern Turkey, in a completely Kurdish town, and he says that the army's presence is greatly resented. There have been many Turkish soldiers killed in this area for that reason. The area is especially unstable right now with the recent banning of the PKK party in the government. I just hope that he comes home safe.

[sandinista! 1,816]

Not misremembering. Most likely, you are unaware that this is a fact.

italy too.

In Italy, several episodes in recent years suggest that violence against women is still tolerated both by some Italian authorities and parts of society when the victim is perceived as having dishonored or upset her murderer.

Last year local church authorities defended a man in Macerata, a small town in central Italy, who had attempted to kill his wife because she asked for a divorce. Francesca Carletti-Baleani wanted to leave her husband because he had cheated on her. Bruno Carletti responded by beating her until she was unconscious, wrapping her body in a plastic bag and dumping it into a trash bin on the outskirts of town.

Carletti-Baleani miraculously survived, and her husband confessed to attempting to kill her. "It was an act of love," wrote Father Igino Ciabattoni, a leader of the White Cross Catholic organization. The priest also accused the victim of "torturing her husband" because she refused to take him back.

In 2007, in the Sicilian town of Palermo, Renato Di Felice served only two days in prison, despite being found guilty of purposely killing his wife, Maria Concetta-Pitas, in 2003: the couple's children had testified that their mother had been disrespectful toward her husband, moving the judge to a mild sentence.

Passion and honor-related crimes against women seem so engrained in Italian society that in 2006 a German court granted extenuating circumstances on the basis of "ethnic and cultural background" to a Sardinia-born man who had his girlfriend gang-raped because he feared she might have cheated on him.

"All Italians, and those living in Sardinia particularly, felt insulted and outraged by this German sentence," notes Sabahi. "Yet when similar crimes take place among the Arab immigrants, Italian authorities tend to blame it on Islam, without caring about offending the Muslim community."

http://www.alternet.org/rights/145527/west..._culture?page=1

[nicole&efe 0]

An opinion article I came across while reading my daily dose of Turkish news.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=c...ings-2010-02-05

It discusses this honor killing in relation to the Kurds and Islam.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

italy too.

Well, we must compel the Italian government to stop those savage Catholics from practicing their religious barbarity!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

An opinion article I came across while reading my daily dose of Turkish news.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=c...ings-2010-02-05

It discusses this honor killing in relation to the Kurds and Islam.

This article is correct. Honor killing predates the spread of Islam to the ME and is antithetical to it. Islam outlawed the treatment of women as property, allowed them to accumulate and control wealth, forbid their murder due to a perference for sons, and instructed that they be educated. Practices that Islam disallows nonetheless have been sanctioned by some clerics as a means of maintaining male dominance in predominately tribal societies. There is a tug of war between tribal interpretations of Islam that place the desires of men before the commands of God and interpretations that place the teachings of the Quran and the Sharia above pre-Islamic traditions. Ironically, the latter is considered by many clerics to be "too western". I will be the first to admit that too manyof our clerics do not do justice to the faith, which is why I was compelled to educate myself.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Well, we must compel the Italian government to stop those savage Catholics from practicing their religious barbarity!

Stay ON topic please.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It is on topic. You'd know that if you had actually taken the time to read the thread.

Unfortunately, you're too lazy. The drive-by one-liner is the best you can manage.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

blah blah blah blah

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Case in point. How typical.

[FortLaudy 10]

Well, we must compel the Italian government to stop those savage Catholics from practicing their religious barbarity!

LOL, definetely not, I don't give a ####### what the Italians do to themselves: it's their country, their culture and their people and their rights. When they try and do the same things in My neighborhood, then I'll have a problem with it. I feel the same way about any other domestic problem of another country, whether it's religiously based or not, it doesn't matter one bit. When certain countries stop interfering abroad with their international policies and BS in other countries and start minding their own business there will be a whole lot more peace and prosperity on this planet - that's my opinion.

[_Simpson_ 250]

I'm saying exactly what I said. Read up on the Kurds before you ask irrelevant questions.

Sound like a cop out to me Gene, quit dancing around this with irrelevant statements. I read the story and I know a little about Kurds so need to try to spin this into something its not.

[_Simpson_ 250]

When the interference stops, the attacks will stop.

You are very naive if you think that this will stop the attacks. Many of these extremist despise our way of life and want us to see things their ways.

[_Simpson_ 250]

I don't think the religion of the family has jack to do with the story. People want to assume that they're muslim because they have preconceived ideas that muslims do this sort of thing, and that there is something within Islam that justifies it.

Most of these things, IMO are motivated by sectarian and cultural issues specific to the particular community, rather than broad level theological ones.

When we used to talk about the problems Northern Ireland, you never heard people simply write it off as being the work of "savage Christians", what you did hear about were Nationalists and Loyalist.

Why is it that when it comes to other cultures, that we don't make similar conclusions about the nature of the issues?

Will you people quit it, we have had this crammed down our throat since 9/11. We know that not all Muslims are terrorists or in this case Neanderthals that believe killing your children is acceptable in the name of honor.

The whole "Well the Christians did it too" response is getting a little old too.