In June, I got a cell phone and used it on a trip to British Columbia to talk to a man who's unrelated to me. To think that this might upset my two brothers who then might start plotting to kill me for it is laughable-- in the safe confines of western society. Fadia Najjar, who lived in Gaza, got a cell phone too and it cost her life. Her father, Jawdat, turned himself in to police last week, the day after Fadia was beaten over the head with an iron chain and punched and kicked for 40 minutes before dying of a fractured skull. Jawdat had been furious about his daughter owning a cell phone and believed she had used it to talk to a man unrelated to the family, according to police reports obtained by two human rights groups, Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and cited in the Jerusalem Post. Three of her brothers are suspected of being complicit in her killing.
According to figures released by the United Nations, Fadia is one of 5,000 women who will die this year in so-called honour killings. The Jerusalem Post notes she is the 10th woman to lose her life in 2009 in honour killings in Palestinian areas and in Arab communities within Israel.
After writing about honour killings on Wednesday, I received a number of e-mails from people who object to the term and want to lump these incidents in the category of domestic abuse, to avoid casting the faintest shadow of aspersion on a non-western culture.
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11:16 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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