Here’s a story from CNN.com about a Pakistani man in Atlanta accused of killing his daughter because she wanted out of an arranged marriage.
Guess what word was left out of this story about the honor killing?
Chaudhry Rashid, 54, later said he was “very disturbed” and “not in a state of mind” to talk because of the death of his daughter, Sandeela Kanwal. He told the judge he’d done nothing wrong.
“My client is going through a difficult time. As you can imagine, he is distraught,” attorney Tammi Long said after the hearing.
Officers found Kanwal dead in an upstairs bedroom of the family’s suburban Atlanta home early Sunday, according to a Clayton County police report.
Police discovered possible ligature marks on her body and made note of an iron and a necklace as potential causes of the bruising. Authorities arrived at the home around 2 a.m., shortly after Rashid’s wife called police…Rashid’s wife told authorities that Kanwal recently had wed in Pakistan in an arranged marriage. The young woman’s husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father’s home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.
“The victim was not interested in marrying, nor remaining married to her husband,” the police report said, citing information authorities received from Rashid’s wife. “This was causing a great deal of friction between the victim and her father,” so much so that the two had not spoken in two months, the report said.
Police found a “distraught and possibly mournful” Rashid sitting behind a vehicle in the driveway. “My daughter is dead,” he told police. When asked how she died, police said Rashid did not answer. “He just dropped his head,” the report states.
“Apparently she and the father had argued over the marriage and the fact that it was arranged, and at some point during the altercation he did end up killing his daughter,” said Clayton County Police spokesman Tim Owens.
Hmmm. No mention of Islam there. Now surely they’re going to mention it when they generalize the issue in the ensuing paragraphs.
“Honor killings” — the slaying by family members of a woman or girl thought to be bringing them shame — are usually kept quiet, making it difficult to determine how frequently they occur.
The United Nations Population Fund estimated in September 2000 that as many as 5,000 women and girls fall victim to such killings each year.
Ajay Nair, associate dean of multicultural affairs at Columbia University, said many immigrant families struggle over cultural and generational gaps, but that most South Asian communities enjoy “wonderful” relationships within their families.
“My immediate reaction was that this is an anomaly in the South Asian community,” Nair said Tuesday. “This isn’t a rampant problem within South Asian communities. What is a problem, I think, is domestic violence, and that cuts across all communities.”
Any particular community? Don’t you think if this guy was a Christian who killed his child for religious reasons, it would’ve warranted a mention. Something tells me that if he were Catholic it would’ve warranted news specials, television movies starring Scott Baio, and a Greta Van Susteren marathon.
Why won’t news organizations report news. Why must they color facts to fit their worldview?
July 11, 2008 at 7:29 am
For the same reason that the killing of Father Ragheed and his subdeacons in Iraq was treated just as “sectarian violence”… You know, because Father Ragheed was going to celebrate Mass somewhere… And all >2% of the Iraqi Christian population represents a REAL dog in the sectarian fight.
This is Islam!
Pray for the defeat of “Islamism”.
July 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
A buddy of mine served in Iraq and he’d said that Catholic churches were essentially in hiding. He said they used subtle signals to each other so they’d know where Mass was to be held that Sunday.
He said the people going to Mass in Iraq were the bravest people he’d ever knew.
Hmmm. The media missed that story too.
July 11, 2008 at 1:05 pm
True. Pakistan is a very small part of South Asia. However, isn’t it odd that most of these cases come from Pakistani communities. I can’t recall any similar cases from India and Sri Lanka, among the others. Peaceful families those are, generally.
July 11, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Kevin, you’re off the mark there. In the area that I live in the UK we have a very large South Asian population and stories like these appear in the local press about Hindu and Sikh families too.
July 11, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I was quite amazed to hear an interviewee (Muslim woman) commenting (and trying to educate us poor dolts) on Fox News about how this incident has nothing to do with Islam, but is a “cultural” thing. Her parting comment was something about how this was also quite common among Roman Catholics up until a hundred years or so ago.
Amazing.
July 11, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I’ll do you one better. When the story originally came out on Sunday, it was covered by MSNBC which not only didn’t mention the word “Muslim” but neither did it mention “honor killing” (which, for all intents and purposes evokes Islam). I sent out an email campaign to reach MSNBC and get them to cover the story without bias or moral cowardice. It’s sad that these days Mohammedanism is so powerful that one cannot even publicly state the facts when they put it in a bad light.
Kevin – the anonymous poster is correct on this. Most honor killings in the world are infact commited by Hindus in India (over 15,000 a year). They are usually over dowry and the victims are usually burnt alive. Pakistan comes in second with approximately 1000 victims a year.
July 12, 2008 at 6:47 pm
lvschant: i saw the same interview on fox and was appalled, my jaw was on the floor… so i fired off an email to the show. no response yet. i told them i hoped bill donohue was watching.