http://www.theage.com.au/world/jordans-queen-joins-fight-for-action-on-honour-killings-20091206-kcrl.html
Jordan's Queen joins fight for action on honour killings December 7, 2009 Politicians oppose harsher penalties for men who slay relatives. Richard Spencer reports from Amman. ON ONE side is the fashionably dressed Queen Rania of Jordan, a symbol of progressive values for Arab women. On the other are her country's conservative social and religious leaders. At stake is a political test case for reform in the Middle East, one that pits demands for greater democracy against the need to end so-called honour killings of women. Queen Rania, who regularly appears without a head scarf, let alone a hijab, has given her quiet support to women's rights groups that want to change laws amounting to legal impunity for men involved in honour killings. But standing against her is another symbol of the country's attempts to show a progressive face. Jordan's MPs, who have been given more power to hold the Government and royal family to account than in other Arab countries, have shown little enthusiasm for the moves. ''This whole issue is being exaggerated, and the reason behind it is not innocent,'' said Sheikh Hamza Mansour, leader of the parliament's Islamic Action Front. His coalition of Islamist and tribal representatives has blocked an attempt to introduce tougher sentences for men who kill their sisters and daughters for bringing ''shame'' on their families. Honour killing is more often associated with impoverished and remote areas of countries such as Pakistan than cities such as Amman, Jordan's sophisticated and Westernised capital. But it was in Amman's outskirts that Abu Ishmael and his three brothers recently picked up their sister after a call from her husband, took her home, and stabbed her to death. The squalor surrounding her home in al-Baq'a, where third-generation refugee families live in slum-like conditions and where drug-taking is rife, means the area is a breeding ground for domestic violence. Pressure to conform to traditional customs is also strong. When Abu Ishmael and his brothers arrived at their sister's house, they were greeted by catcalls from her relatives, goading them to carry out the killing. The brothers knew what they were expected to do. They bundled their sister into the back of their van, and drove her home in silence. Within half an hour, she was dead. When her body was handed over to police, it had 28 stab wounds. Abu Ishmael insists he had nothing to do with the killing - he was, he says, outside the home when it happened. Police have arrested two of his brothers. ''I was angry with her,'' Abu Ishmael said as he sat in his lawyer's office. ''I looked at her in the rear-view mirror as I drove. She said nothing, but she had a barbarous look.'' His sister's crime was simple. Her husband complained that she had left the house in the middle of the night carrying her 16-month-old son. Police found her wandering the streets half an hour later. The dishonour such wanton behaviour brought on her own family, it seemed, could only be expunged by her death. A mother of eight, though aged just 37, thus became one of an estimated 5000 women worldwide who will die this year in the name of honour, with their killers likely to face little if any punishment. For Queen Rania, it is deeply offensive that the killing of women not only appears to be condoned, but also seems to be on the increase: the number of deaths reported in Jordan, 20 to 25 a year, is rising. Sentences are low, often as little as six months. The Government is introducing a tribunal to hear honour-killing cases, but politicians have blocked attempts to change two articles of the law. The first allows an ''in flagrante'' defence to a man who kills his wife and her lover if he finds them in bed. Article 98, a ''crime of passion'' defence, is common and gives reduced sentences to men who say they commit violence in the fury of the moment. The Government wants a minimum penalty of five years. TELEGRAPH [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
