Two girls murdered in Texas taxi: Were they honor killings?

[arely staircase]

By Stella Dawson

WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The last words from Sarah were “Oh my God, I’m dying.” Then the 911 emergency operator heard a barrage of gunshots. Sarah, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were found shot 11 times in the back of their father’s taxi, abandoned in a hotel parking lot.

Their father Yaser Said has not been found since that New Year’s Day seven years ago when he told his daughters to climb into his cab, he was taking them out to dinner.

The chilling emergency call opens the documentary "The Price of Honor", which recounts the lives of two vivacious American teenagers growing up in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas, and their attempts to escape the grip of an Egyptian father who planned Muslim marriages.

http://news.yahoo.com/two-girls-murdered-texas-taxi-were-honor-killings-212713046.html

[brooklynite]

1. Just a lone wolf....

I'm sure religion had nothing to do with it.

[riderinthestorm]

2. K&R & a small sob nt

[hifiguy]

3. "Science flies you to the moon and back.

Religion flies you into buildings."

Victor Stenger

[LanternWaste]

6. One wonders if the victims of the Charleston church shooting would have agreed with that sentiment..

One wonders if the victims of the Charleston church shooting would have agreed with that sentiment....

[riderinthestorm]

4. And another thread about women in America drops like a stone

(Probably) futile am kick

[smirkymonkey]

10. +1000

Yep. Makes me sick.

[Pooka Fey]

22. Such as post 21, "Papa whacked his kids" NO he murdered his DAUGHTERS

because they wouldn't agree to the husbands he had picked out for them, a custom still practiced in many ME and Asian Muslim cultures.

I may be a Democrat, but I don't agree to allow the deliberate obfuscation and/or outright falsification of facts in the service of protecting a questionable ideology (cultural relativism). Bill Maher is correct on this issue.

Add another kick for this thread.

[Brickbat]

5. No.

They were patriarchy-inspired killings. Control killings. Male supremacy killings.

Using the term "honor killings" accepts the narrative, which I refuse to do.

[arely staircase]

8. yeah, 'honor' doesn't belong in the term for what this is nr

[prayin4rain]

7. Just disgusting. n/t

[lpbk2713]

9. Vanity can be really really dumb some times.

Taking two lives for the sake of the family's honor is such a stupid contradiction.

Is it honorable to have a double murderer as the head of the family?

[Recursion]

32. The narcissistic injury makes no sense from the outside (nt)

[smirkymonkey]

11. Even Yahoo has more outrage about this than we do here.

Amazing.

[Ex Lurker]

12. The accused perp is Muslim

and Muslim extremists get less scrutiny on DU than other kinds of extremists. That is a fact. Not by everyone, but by many. Criticism of third world cultures seems to make them uncomfortable, even when it's indisputably justified.

[smirkymonkey]

17. Of course, cultural relativism and all that.

We can't possibly criticize the Islamic practice of honor killing because that would be racist.

[whathehell]

26. Yes. Thank you.

You are correct.

[struggle4progress]

21. There's been some discussion here in the past

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3779780
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025928553

Looks like papa whacked the kiddies, then fled: so what more can be said?

[chervilant]

30. What more can be said?!

Certainly, you could have gone the rest of your life without posting "papa whacked the kiddies, then fled." The two young women who were murdered by their father do not deserve such disrespect.

[okasha]

13. This behavior is not exclusive to Islam

or to Third World cultures. Honor killings have been occuring in the US for centuries. We call them "crimes of passion."

[Pooka Fey]

14. I shit on your post. "Crimes of Passion" are between jilted LOVERS, not dads and their daughters

Honor killings have been occuring in the US for centuries. We call them "crimes of passion."

There is NO history of Dads murdering their daughters in the USA because the girls want to choose their own husband. This is an imported cultural practice, it has nothing to do with American culture.

Your post is a steaming crock.

[okasha]

15. You can shit in tbe middle of your livingroom rug for all I care.

Honor killings are not limited to fathers and daughters. Husbands and wives, jealous (not necessarily jilted) lovers, parents who think a child is LGBT, and yes, historically, fathers whose daughters took up with one of "them," whoever "them" might be. 'Them" was usually dark-skinned, of course, and it was "them" Papa usually killed.

The hell it never happened.

[Pooka Fey]

16. Okasha: "This behavior is not exclusive to Islam or to Third World cultures."

Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2015, 10:54 AM - Edit history (3)

You made a false statement, and I corrected you. "Honor killings" ARE exclusive to Islam and Third World cultures.

If it is possible to make sense out of your post 15 (not an easy task), you are attempted to redefine MURDER as it is known in the West, into "Honor Killing" something which it is not. I refrain from speculating as to your reasons for this.

Crimes like those in the OP, when they occur in the West, are perpetrated by immigrants or people from those Middle Eastern or Asian cultures where "honor killings" are an accepted cultural practice. In their own Muslim Asian and Middle Eastern cultures or origin, these crimes are not considered "murder", and are not treated as such by their own ME justice system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing#General_cultural_features

Laws

Legal frameworks can encourage honor killings. Such laws include on one side leniency towards such killings, and on the other side criminalization of various behaviors, such as extramarital sex, 'indecent' dressing in public places, or homosexual sexual acts, with these laws acting as a way of reassuring perpetrators of honor killings that people engaging in these behaviors deserve punishment.[55][56]

Nevertheless, when these crimes are committed in the West, our justice system treats these crimes as MURDER. MURDER in the Western world has several legal considerations such as 1st degree, 2nd degree, pre-meditated, negligence, in cold blood, in the heat of passion, etc.

However, the concept of Honor Killing does not exist in the WEST as you so wrongly claimed in your original post, that I denounce in the strongest terms possible. People who confuse these two diametrically opposed ideas need to have these 2 different concepts explained to them.

ON EDIT: the USA justice system will also, of course, note any family connection between the victim and the murderer (i.e. domestic violence i.e. child abuse). In the West, a family connection does not change the fundamental nature of the crime of murder.

[smirkymonkey]

18. +1000

[romanic]

19. Agreed 100%

The truth is uncomfortable and the truth is: honor killings are practically unheard of in the West.

[whathehell]

27. +100. nt

[Recursion]

34. Because we call them "family annihilators" here (nt)

[Recursion]

33. Sort of. When it happens in an Islamic context we call it an honor killing

In a white context we call it family annihilation.

[Pooka Fey]

52. "I know how to invent an "Honor Killings" equivalent for the WEST - A new MADE UP word!!!

Today is June 22, 2015. You have used the phrase "Family Annihilation" at least 5 times on this thread. In stark contrast to this meme you are spreading, the OP is about a father shooting his 2 DAUGHTERS because they refuse to marry the husbands he has picked out for them.

Today is the first time in my over 50 years as a well-read, well-educated, and involved American citizen that I have been introduced to the word "Family Annihilation". Not only as a new concept, but used in an attempt to convince me that "honor killing" is a Western cultural"Thing", and always has been.

As I said elsewhere on this thread, the fact that such pretzel-logic arguments are being pushed with such persistence is evidence of ideology.

[Recursion]

53. If you think I coined it you should probably read up on the subject (nt)

[Pooka Fey]

54. The "I'm smarter than you" argument. CLASSY!

Do "Family Annihiliators" kill only their DAUGHTERS, as is discussed in the OP?

[yardwork]

37. Not true, actually. Honor killings = domestic violence often.

They are prevalent among people in fundamentalist religions and we have those here too.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

41. "Honor" killings are perpetrated because the killer believes the women are being unchaste.

[Pooka Fey]

50. A USA dad can "honor kill" his daughter for refusing the husband he picked for her? Really?

Without having to worry about legal consequences because he is perfectly within his religious rights in our culture?

Is the USA a country where a young woman expects her parents to choose her husband for her? When did that happen?

In the USA, we have two concepts which you are confusing:

1) Domestic Violence which occurs between ADULTS in a romantic relationship, who may also live as spouses or domestic partners
2) Child Abuse - which is where an ADULT physically or mentally harms a CHILD in his/her care.

Pointless to discuss something that we can't clearly define first.

[boston bean]

38. Honor killings could include men who feel they have been dissed by

their wife, and then kill the entire family off.

I think the reason we don't see much outrage is because we are use to seeing females being murdered on a daily basis because men feel they have been somehow wronged.

It probably has less to islam than it does the way the way women are viewed as victims in these crimes... They don't get the coverage they deserve.. Here in the US or anywhere else. Common link is they are women.

[leftynyc]

20. Was just waiting for the

"we're just as bad" bullshit argument that I've come to expect from somebody on DU every time a story like this comes up. Like people here can't help themselves from proving Bill Maher right - that liberals give Islam a pass every single time. Post #13 - sure didn't take long. May those girls rest in eternal peace.

[okasha]

23. Clean 180 degree miss.

Calling attention to the same vile behavior in non-Islamic cultures is not "giving Islam a pass.". It's refusing to give those other cultures a pass, as the person I was responding to seems quite insistent on doing.

[leftynyc]

24. No -it's just more deflection

and in addition to that, you're trying to redefine what honor killings are and who is committing them. It's a MAJOR problem in Islam and you want to ignore and deflect from that fact. It's a common pattern on DU.

[boston bean]

39. three women a day are murdered by their boyfriend or husband...

here in the US. Why??? Because they were perceived to shat upon the honor of some psycho.

Common link here is the victims are women... that is the reason for the comparison.

[tkmorris]

49. Compare and contrast...objectively...

To Iraq or Afghanistan or Muslim dominated nations and territories in Africa, or any other fundamentalist Muslim population.

That is not to say that we don't have serious issues with violence directed at women here in the United States. Of course we do. To minimize what occurs in the Muslim world in order to emphasize what happens here however is not really an honest accounting.

[Pooka Fey]

25. It takes a herculean effort to clean up after your falsifications

and outright fabrications. I see what you've done in your post 23, so I will point it out publicly.

It's refusing to give those other cultures a pass, as the person I was responding to seems quite insistent on doing.

You've just claimed in writing that I, Pooka Fey, have tacitly defended CHILD MURDER when it happens in the West. This is not only false, it is a truly schizophrenic assertion.

No intellectually honest person would assert that, by my action of DENOUNCING the ME and Asian cultural practice of "honor killings", I have ACCEPTED, that I have "given a pass", to filicide, murder of a child by his or her parents as it has been known to occur in Western cultures though is by no means a common or regularly occuring practice.

Your Post 23 is an example of insanity in action and in the printed word. That such an outlandish statement would appear IN WRITING on a public message board means that we have left the world of the RATIONAL and entered the world of pure IDEOLOGY.

[whathehell]

28. Again, "honor" killings are all but unheard of in the West, so

I'm afraid it is not the "same vile behavior".

Western parents don't kill their own daughters in the name of "honor". It's not part of the culture.

It's a fact. Get over it.

[Recursion]

35. No, they really aren't. Google "family annihilators" (nt)

[whathehell]

47. Family annihilation in the West is rare, and perhaps

most importantly, it's not culturally sanctioned. That is the difference.

[boston bean]

40. You are giving cover to the asshole honor besmirched killers here in the US. Why?

Is it because we view these types of killings of women differently here in the US.

Think about it, really!

[whathehell]

45. I have no idea what you're talking about

but again, we don't have "these kimds of killings" outside of Islamic culture.

Do we have other kinds of killngs? Yes, and too many of them, but we don't ktill our children out of some sense of "honor". It's not culturally sanctioned.

[boston bean]

46. So, the types of killing I describe aren't committed against a woman?

Wives aren't honor killed?

Men here in the US don't wipe out their whole family?

Sure we call it something different, but it stems from the same place. Entitled men who feel in someway that their honor was besmirched and death was the only way to regain control.

[whathehell]

56. So now we're broadening the topic to include the entire subject of violence against women?

LOL. I don't think so, but good try.

You see, however widely you want to view this, to include the Patriarchy, male entitlement,
whatever, it won't work. You see, all those points are severely mitigated by one simple, indisputable fact.

What's that? It is that there is nothing in Western culture that is viewed as MORE heinous, more
shocking or depraved than murdering one's own child. We not only LACK a cultural mandate to do so,
we possess a strong mandate to NOT do so.

That's it, and no willful misunderstanding or desperate attempt at political correctness can change it.

[boston bean]

57. But it does happen...

You aren't denying that, are you?

The reasons for it are similar... We don't have an official state religion that condones it that wields political power, however, these crimes are common in the US... And they are perpetrated for many of the same reason sick cultural reasons.

I think you are splitting hairs.. Because we have laws against it, doesn't mean that the same sickness doesn't exist here. It does.

[whathehell]

59. Um, no. American and European families of non-Islamic heritage don't murder their kids for "honor"

and it's not a matter of "laws", it's a matter of cultures -- Some Islamic countries now have

laws* against it, too, but it persists because it's culturally accepted to varying degrees.

As to "splitting hairs" , it seems you didn't read my last post: A culture in which a

practice is accepted and one in which it is ABHORRED, are clearly quite different.

That being said, I'm afraid the splitting hairs metaphor doesn't work -- it would be more like

splitting anchor chains than hairs.

Reality and Political Correctness don't always match, Bean...It's a fact that we all really need to acknowledge.


* Weakly enforced and when they are, draw light sentences.

[Pooka Fey]

60. This thread is the conversational equivalent of an M.C. Escher lithograph

If someone had told me 30 years ago, that in 2015, I would have to take the time to write the posts I've made on this thread, I would have thought I was speaking with a Martian. I was wondering if you share that impression with me...

Only just today, am I truly capable of appreciating the genius of M.C. Escher, because he was perfectly able to sum up the mind-bending futility of modernity.

[whathehell]

62. 'The mind bending futility of modernity'. Yes, I agree!

Thanks for the great pic!

[Pooka Fey]

64. ...

I'm so glad you liked it!

[Pooka Fey]

58. +1

[chervilant]

29. Given this egregious response,

I can only deduce that you did not read the article linked herein above. If you had, you might not have written such an insupportable post.

But, then, you double down, as though your original post--the egregious post to which I am responding--is true and accurate.

Apparently, you will not accept that you are incorrect. Apparently, others have so noted: you are incorrect.

I would recommend a self-delete, if I thought such a recommendation would make a difference. Alas, I must admit, it will not.

[Separation]

31. Very chilling

Every time I hear a story like this I am brought back to a incident that I was involved in. In 1994 I had graduated high school, and left for Marine Corps boot camp. After you graduate you get to take boot leave, and normally what happens is you get to get a temporary billet to recruit back at your high school since there can be 2-6 months before you go to your specialty school.

When I was on my rectuiting duty I was able to hang out with all of my friends, try to get them to join up, lol that wasnt ever going to happen in my circle of friends. One person who I was able to get through was a girl named Asal. We were very good friends all through high school, I would have liked to have asked her out but she was not allowed to date and had very strict parents. The last year and a half of school she would confide in me that she wanted to leave her house and get away from her family. She signed up with me to join the Marine Corps, she was unable however to go to the MEPS station to have her physical done because of the control her family had on her. She would have to have done her physical and immediately left for boot camp.

The recruiter asked me to get in touch with her as she was scheduled to go get her physical and leave for boot camp in 5 days. I managed to get a hold of her and told her the plan. The day of I was to pick her up at the pizza hut in town, bring her down to the Memphis Tn MEPS station and check her into a hotel so she would be able to go the following morning for her physical.

Except it never happened. I waited at Pizza Hut for a couple of hours, tried calling her house one time as to not arise suspicion with her parents. I checked back in with the recruiter telling him that she was a no show and probably got cold feet and changed her mind. That I would go to her house the next day and figure out what was the deal. I went to her house and her brother answered the door. I asked if Asal was home and was told no. I tried calling the house again an hour later and got her sister on the phone. She was hysterical saying Asal was gone and never was coming back and it was all her fault. I tried to calm her down and get to the bottom of what was going on. Turns out, the night before she was to meet me at pizza hut she confided in her sister that she was leaving tomorrow. That was a bad idea, she immediately told her brother who started assaulting her dragging her downstairs by her hair to her parents. He then told their parents what she intended to do. Her father took her immediately out of the house and came back the next day without her. The sister told me that her father sent her to family in Canada and then was to be flown immediately back to Iran to live with an Uncle.

There have been quite a few times in my life where my life has been rocked. This was the first time, it hits me harder now 20 years later. I have never been able to find out what happened to her other than she is back in Iran.

[Recursion]

36. “Family Annihilators”: Understanding What Drives Fathers to Kill

http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/15/family-annihilators-understanding-what-drives-fathers-to-kill

The newspaper accounts of 59 cases contained enough information for the researchers to classify family annihilators into four types of men: what they called self-righteous, anomic, paranoid and disappointed.

The “self-righteous” men were those who defined themselves as breadwinners and were devastated by losing that identity, often after breaking up with their spouse. After a family split, the researchers believe some decide to exact revenge through murder, blaming their actions on ex-partners who they see as responsible for the change. “The self righteous family annihilator … engages in a dramatic performance of his domineering, masculine identity,” they write, providing the example of a man who picked up his kids on Father’s Day, filled the car with deadly amounts carbon monoxide and tried to trick his wife into setting off an explosive device.

“Disappointed” fathers like Riaz felt that the family had let them down, dashing their expectations and destroying whatever he desired from the familial relationships. The word anomic describes a state in which social norms are absent; those subjects viewed their families as economic indicators or a means of displaying economic success. And if the father failed financially, the researchers say, “the family becomes obsolete,” as in the case of a millionaire who killed his family after falling millions of dollars into debt. The “paranoid” father likely has mental health issues and believes that there is some external threat to the family; he might, for instance, be willing to kill his children because he so feared losing them in a custody battle with his ex-wife.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

42. Family annihilators kill because they feel they are no longer the head of the household.

Honor killers kill because they perceive the victim as having developed an individual, and hence, immoral sexual identity.

[Recursion]

43. That's the exact same thing

Or at least, I don't see a difference. The father sees the family as an extension of himself. They are responses to a narcissistic injury.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

44. I see a difference.

Honor victims are perceived to have committed a moral transgression, a sin. The killer has lost his position of dominance, he's acting upon it in the name of correcting that perceived sin. HKs are motivated by their daughters wearing "slutty" clothes and dating.

FAs are motivated by the loss of being head of household but may have no problem with their daughters dating. Also, HKs are pretty much female centered. FAs don't carry a gender bias.

It's horrible either way; as I've no doubt you agree. I'm glad you can dialogue without the acrimony that many times accompanies these sorts of issues.

[Recursion]

51. I guess I see the "sin" in the Islamic case as secondary: he does it from shame

Because the "sin" shows him to be a father whose daughter does not obey him. Which at least to me is like the American salesman who misses his commission and kills his family. But, yeah, this can be hard to discuss in general, and thank you too.

[WinkyDink]

48. PC precludes further comment.

[Pooka Fey]

55. Honor Killings = Girls killed. Family Annihiliation = Boys and Girls killed.

Last edited Mon Jun 22, 2015, 11:11 AM - Edit history (1)

Don't be hoodwinked, dear Reader, by the deliberate obscuring of specific and important differences in the service of a questionable ideology.

[Recursion]

61. You do realize Muslim fathers sometimes kill their sons, right?

Last edited Wed Jul 1, 2015, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)

The western media just doesn't have a name for that.

[whathehell]

65. Yes, but again, this is not sanctionred, legally OR culturally in the West.

[Recursion]

66. Where is it "sanctioned" in southwest Asia? Imams issue fatwas against it

And governments outlaw it, and polite society condemns it; fathers often are giving up their social standing when they do it.

[whathehell]

67. Obviously, soutwest Asia is a small part of the Islamic World..

In Pakistan alone, the number of 'honor' killings is estimated at between 1,000 and 2600 a year, and even that,

researchers feel, may be underestimated as they are frequently disguised as suicides or accidents.

You might get a better picture by exploring these links from Human Rights Watch and others.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling.html

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/28/world/asia/pakistan-honor-murders/

https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/04/19/honoring-killers/justice-denied-honor-crimes-jordan

[pnwmom]

63. No, they were hate crimes. Gender-based murders should carry Federal penalties, as hate crimes.

Do they?

[whathehell]

68. They used to..

With a strong Republican congress, not sure if they do anymore.