women's rights
July 4, 2008
- Below is an account of the latest Jordanian dishonor killing. It's been fairly widely reported in the print media so, in memory of my late friend Pammy, I'm choosing the version her former employer published. It's short and not very sweet, but what strikes me about this one are, well, three things:1. The perpetrator is a legal minor, probably hand picked by the adult male members of his ...
- Continue Reading » 4 Comments
June 27, 2008
- Maybe there's yet hope for us all!There was a dishonor killing in suburban Toronto in December 2007. A 16-year-old school girl named Aqsa Parvez was strangled to death by her father, Muhammad. Her "crime"? Acting too Western. In the weeks preceding her death, Aqsa had argued with her family over several issues. She did not want to wear a hijab, the traditional head scarf worn ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
June 26, 2008
- As is probably the case with most writers, I get mail from my readers. Fortunately, mine has been overwhelmingly favorable. The only "hate" mail I've gotten has been from so-called upper class women in Jordan and activists in the region (there is overlap and cross fertilization between these two groups). When I first started working on dishonor killings, I thought they would be ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
June 19, 2008
- For some time now, I've been waging battle with myself. When I lived in Jordan, images of dishonor killings never appeared in print media. Not the victims as they appeared in life. Surely not the victims after their slaughters. And not the perpetrators because, after all, their transgressions in the eyes of the law are only misdemeanors, the equivalent of writing a bad check or driving ...
- Continue Reading » 6 Comments
June 18, 2008
- Yesterday Amnesty International in London announced its 2008 media awards. Its new media award had to be given posthumously because its recipient, 45-year-old journalist Sahar al Haideri, was gunned down in her home city of Mosul, Iraq for reporting a series of stories about dishonor killings, the influence of religious extremists, and the rising tide of violence against women in her ...
- Continue Reading » 5 Comments
June 15, 2008
- Almost every day I go online and Google for news about dishonor killings. It's a bleak and grim ritual, but one I feel compelled to do in honor of all the victims, and one that keeps me ahead of the curve as an activist/humanitarian.Somehow I stumbled upon this case:http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/06/14/contractkilling_0614.htmlFor those who don't care to read it, ...
- Continue Reading » 5 Comments
June 13, 2008
- It was the summer of 1866. Congress with much rancor and many protests passed the 13th amendment. Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and outspoken supporter of women’s rights had campaigned long and hard for the amendment. He worked with anyone to forward his agenda of justice and opportunity for all. "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong," he would ...
- Continue Reading » 7 Comments
June 10, 2008
- I am a shutterbug. Not a good one, but I like having photographic evidence of my daily life. When I am in my dotage and losing some of my marbles, my pictures will help me while away the time and jog my memory about my adventurous youth.When I was living and working in Jordan, I snapped thousands of photographs. Just last week, I finally finished developing and/or organizing them, a ...
- Continue Reading » 2 Comments
June 8, 2008
- (This is a record for me! I never blog two days in a row, but lately I've had some wonderments.)More drama in dishonor killings land. As if the crimes themselves weren't enough.There is an activist/journalist who has been talking for years about an upcoming nonfiction book she is writing about dishonor killings. Despite all the talk about the book, her publisher, and the launch, nothing ...
- Continue Reading » 8 Comments
June 7, 2008
- I am a marketer by training and profession (there, I admitted it! and, yes, I've read most of your blogs about book marketing, but haven't contributed because I usually market bank products or technology and, thus, know too little about book marketing to be useful). There are some writing genes circulating in my pool. A distant uncle on my mother's side was a poet. My father was a ...
- Continue Reading » 11 Comments
