Murder in the Name of Honor

by Rana Husseini

  ‘The campaigners were calling for the cancellation of Article 340, claiming it was responsible for the killings of innocent women, when in fact the article addresses a certain condition when women are caught committing adultery,’ Rashdan said.

  ‘What do people expect from a man who catches his wife committing adultery with another man? Smile for them and apologize for disturbing them? No one has the right to end the life of an innocent woman, who may be the victim of rumour or suspicion … But in Article 340, when a woman is caught committing adultery there is no innocence.’14

  Rashdan instead suggested that women benefit from the same exemption as men.

  Our lawyer, Asma Khader, who dedicated her entire career to fighting for women’s causes in Jordan, responded to Rashdan’s suggestions by stressing that no one should have the right to end someone else’s life. ‘The article is a dangerous clause imposed on women’s lives because in almost all these crimes, women are the sole victims. The male partner, if there was any, is rarely harmed.’

  The opposition had nothing new to say and simply repeated their old conspiracy theories – the west trying to destroy the east – and their belief in the need for women to preserve themselves in order to protect society from ‘moral deterioration’.

  Almost two months later, Khader and Deputy Kharabsheh met face to face again at a lecture on Article 340 hosted by one of the Rotaract clubs in the Kingdom. Kharabsheh again accused the west and Zionists of being behind many campaigns aimed at destroying Jordan and exposing misleading information to the international community. He insisted the article remain because ‘the control over women prevents sexual diseases and mixed paternity’. He claimed he wanted women to be protected, respected and afforded dignity, but added, ‘Jordan is still a male-dominated society and men are more capable than women are. Women have not developed themselves yet; they are not experienced enough, having not held high positions in authority as men have.’

  In her speech, Khader said that the campaigns helped raise awareness. One such example of this was that two families whose daughters were murdered had come to her after hearing about the campaign, and had asked her to take legal action against the killers.

  * * *

  As a result of the increased campaign activity and pressure from so many groups, the government passed two new temporary laws in the summer of 2001.

  First, Article 340 was expanded so that women received the same reduction in penalty as men. Needless to say, offering equal treatment for women in this particular case was not one of our aspirations. We were against the concept of pardoning a person for killing another in general.

  The second new law, known as ‘Khuloe’, granted women the right to file for divorce in return for monetary compensation without having to specify the reasons. Under this law, a woman had to return the dowry given to her by her husband before the wedding and waive all of the financial obligations listed in the marriage contract.

  The government ignored Article 98 despite the efforts of the Royal Commission on Human Rights, which in November 2001 presented suggestions to the government to curb these crimes by lengthening the period of imprisonment for murderers. As it stood, a person who burgled a house or stole a car would spend more time in prison than someone who had taken the life of a female relative for reasons of ‘honour’.

  Nevertheless, both temporary amendments were seen as a victory for the women’s movement in Jordan, especially the Khuloe law, which had been in demand for a long time. It normally took several years for a decision to be given to women seeking divorce through the Sharia Courts – and the decision was very often a refusal.

  Islamist Ibrahim Zeid Kilani, who was the president of the IFA’s Fatwa Committee, did not voice any objection to the Khuloe law when I contacted him for a reaction in December 2001, but he strongly criticized amending Article 340, saying it was ‘a step to protect unfaithful women and prostitutes’. Kilani said the amendments did not protect innocent women who were killed because of rumours, suspicion or inheritance reasons, and argued that the government should have amended Article 98 instead. Again, Kilani blamed the USA: ‘The government amended Article 340 because this is what Americans want. They want to destroy our families.’

  Both temporary laws remained effective until a new Parliament was elected in 2003. In the first session of the Lower House on 3 August, MPs reviewed some sixty temporary laws, including Article 340 and the Khuloe law.

  The deputies debated and voted on all these laws before referring them to various committees for consideration. When it came to Article 340, in contrast to the 1999 vote, this time there was a hand count. A total of fifty MPs out of the eighty-nine present at the session raised their hands to reject the new amendment.

  Khuloe was also rejected outright in the same session. Their excuse this time was that Khuloe was against the Islamic Sharia and amending Article 340 was ‘dangerous and would be bad for society’.

  Some one hundred protesters, including myself, demonstrated a week later in front of Parliament. We carried banners and handed out pamphlets and intercepted deputies’ cars. Whenever I managed to stop one, I told the MP to remember their female relatives when they voted on both articles in future. Most drove on quickly, leaving their windows firmly rolled up.

  MPs Mohammad Abu Fares and Mahmoud Kharabsheh stopped to talk to us. They assured us they would always work to see the Khuloe law rejected because it contradicted the ‘Islamic Sharia and women will destroy the family if divorce was in their hands’.

  When I told Deputy Abu Fares that Egypt’s Grand Mufti from Al-Azhar had approved Khuloe in Egypt as part of Sharia since March 2000, his answer was: ‘Al-Azhar’s Mufti is an agent for the Egyptian government.’

  Other liberal deputies, such as Dr Abdul Rahim Malhas and Ghaleb Zuby, promised that they would work hard to convince the deputies who opposed the law to change their minds.

  What was most disappointing of all was that two of the six women who had won parliamentary seats, thanks to the new quota introduced by the government, voted against the law because ‘although the legislation had some positive aspects, its implementation only facilitated divorce’. Two of the remaining four did not show up for the session and the remaining two voted in favour of amending the law. None of the female deputies showed up for our protest and they all entered the Parliament building via the back door that day.

  Lawyer and human rights activist Reem Abu Hassan, one of the organizers of the protest in which the National Council for Family Affairs was also involved, said that this organization planned to coordinate their efforts with other NGOs to debate the issue with the Senate’s Legal Committee. The same scenario occurred; the Upper House upheld the decision to introduce Khuloe and change Article 340 twice. The Lower House rejected it both times.

  On 6 September, the day the Lower House rejected the draft amendment for the second time, newspapers plastered the story ‘Lower House rejects honour crime bill’ over their front pages.

  I found this headline terribly disturbing. I called some of my reliable sources, asking if any woman had been killed so far in Jordan after the newspapers had been published. The source told me there were none – so far.

  My fears, however, soon proved justified. A source called back in the evening to tell me about a horrific murder that had occurred earlier that day.

  CHAPTER 9

  Changing Attitudes

  Two sisters, aged twenty and twenty-seven, had left their family’s home three years ago. The eldest married a native Arab in a civil ceremony without her family’s knowledge and her younger sister had fled the family home shortly after to join her.

  Then, one of the defendants had spotted the sisters shopping in a local market, followed them to discover where they had been living and informed their brothers. They then paid their siblings a surprise visit. When one of the sisters opened the door, they ran inside and hacked the two women to death with axes.

  I was unable to sleep that night. I was so enraged.
Imaginary scenes from the murder replayed in my head every time I tried to close my eyes. What were the two sisters’ last thoughts on that day of horror? To be killed by their own axe-wielding brothers … it nearly broke me, it was just such a waste of life. I felt tired, lifeless; I couldn’t go on.

  But it turned out there was one vital difference. At the trial, the judge refused to offer the defendants lenience and he sentenced them to death. This was then immediately commuted to ten years in prison because the parents asked to have the charges against their sons dropped.

  This, for me, was a landmark case. It was the first sign that the Criminal Court was beginning to change their attitude to these crimes.

  One important activity that I think played a crucial role in changing attitudes in Jordan regarding domestic violence at this time was the Family Protection Project, a UK-funded scheme that was implemented in Jordan for almost six years, starting in 2000.

  This project focused on training judges, criminal prosecutors, police officers, physicians, social workers and religious scholars to be more aware of and sensitive to domestic violence. It also encouraged and trained police investigators and criminal prosecutors to take crimes against women in general more seriously.

  As a result, doctors at one government hospital started paying more attention to cases of accidental or supposedly natural deaths of women. In one of the first cases of its kind, doctors became suspicious when a family arrived with their dead daughter at a hospital claiming that she had been crushed by a vehicle carrying a water tank. When they examined her body, they noticed multiple wheel marks that led them to deduce that she had been run over several times.

  The police launched a criminal investigation. The two brothers confessed to murdering their married sister, a mother of a four-year-old child. They drove over her several times to cleanse their family’s honour because the victim ‘was divorced twice, was known for her bad behaviour and went out with many men’.

  One of the most important establishments in Jordan, the National Institute for Forensic Medicine, played a major role in breaking the social and official silence over these brutal murders. I worked with them often, once we discovered that we shared the same goals. The head of the Institute, Dr Mumen Hadidi, has been instrumental in the fight against so-called crimes of honour.

  Dr Hadidi became personally involved after the charred bodies of two sisters were brought to his autopsy table in 1996. He had performed a virginity test on the two women when they were alive a month earlier. ‘We had reported deaths of women as far back as the 1980s for reasons of honour. We felt that these families thought they were getting rid of something bad in our society. Personally, I had confused feelings about these crimes at that point.’

  But he got his answer when he saw the fear and horror in the eyes of the two young sisters, aged eighteen and nineteen, brought to his clinic one morning, escorted by several policemen, as if they had committed a major crime. They had eloped with their husbands to Egypt and hoped this would force their family to accept their marriages, but they were quickly brought back to Jordan with the help of Interpol.

  Dr Hadidi was astonished by the swift police action in the case. He attributed it to the fact that the police officers, as men, felt they needed to bring these two teenagers back because what they had done, eloping to another country, was dangerous.

  Although his official government report stated that the two sisters were still virgins, it failed to convince the family to spare their lives. ‘After examining them, I bade them farewell. I felt it was the last time I would see these two girls. I felt they were like sheep waiting to be slaughtered. I will never forget them. They are always present in my mind. They wanted my help and I could not give it.’

  The family pledged not to harm them and returned home, keeping their wayward daughters in the family home until the day they burned to death in the kitchen in an ‘accident’ a short time later. No one was ever tried.

  So much of the problem of violence against women in general, and specifically in so-called honour crimes, revolves around the hymen – the proof of virginity; a literal seal of virtue. It represents the ‘honour’ of the girl and, more importantly, of her family. For more than a thousand years, women across the world from Europe to the Middle East have been expected to be virgins on their wedding night – often on pain of death. The seal cannot be broken until then and as a result that first night together bears phenomenal importance for Arab women. Some so-called honour crimes are known to occur precisely when a woman fails to bleed as a result of penetration. The bride is then taken back to her family, who might kill her for having shamed them.15

  This has its roots in numerous ancient texts, including the Old Testament, specifically in Deuteronomy (22:13–21), where proof of the bride’s virginity could be presented to both sets of parents in the form of stains on the bedsheets. If an unwed woman was found not to have been a virgin, then she was to be punished by being stoned to death.

  Dr Arwa Amiry, a psychology professor at the University of Jordan, pointed out to me during an interview in September 2006 that Arab societies put all the weight of their honour on women and their virginity. In particular, a man’s ‘honour’ derives from the struggle to retain the chastity of the women in his family. When a man is shamed in this context, through female misbehaviour, his masculinity is damaged; it’s as if he has been castrated. Husbands-to-be consider virginity evidence of exclusive possession, proof that the ‘merchandise’ is brand new and that his wife will not be able to compare his performance unfavourably to that of another man.16

  Dozens of gynaecologists have reported that they have performed many hymen restoration operations either secretly or with their families’ knowledge just before a wedding night. In Jordan in 2002, I attended a rare and daring lecture organized by a medical centre at which psychiatrists and physicians discussed this topic. Pathologist Dr Ahmad Bani Hani of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine said the fear of not seeing blood on the wedding night is a joint factor for both men and women. ‘We have had families come to the National Institute first thing in the morning after the wedding night, wanting to examine the woman because she did not bleed.’

  Psychiatrist Dr Mohammad Habashneh said, ‘Women in this part of the world are haunted by the idea of wanting to prove they are virgins from the time they become aware of this issue until their wedding night … trust between couples should not be based on drops of blood, but it seems that women in our part of the world are guilty of not being virgins until proven otherwise.’

  Dr Mumen Hadidi, who performed virginity tests on hundreds of women throughout his medical career, told me in an interview in August 2006 that it is always a tough moment for him, professionally, when a girl is brought to his centre by police where she is ‘pressured to do the test because there was no clear cut consent for the examination’. Dr Hadidi’s job is to issue a certificate of ‘proof’ for the family. ‘On many occasions we examine a woman and find her hymen to be intact and we write a report stating just that. Still many families are not convinced by our reports and these women are returned to our morgue tables, murdered a few days later.’ It is clear that the results of this examination are often considered to be a license to kill, as in the case of Sarhan, described in chapter 2, who killed his sister and was excused in part by the court judgement which cited the medical report as proof that his sister was no longer a virgin, considering this to be a crime in itself.

  Dr Hadidi decided to conduct his own scientific research and review the cases of murdered women. ‘I felt that there was a message we, at the Institute, should convey to people. Our role is not only to open and close the body; our role is much greater than that. We can provide evidence that helps solve social ills.’

  Dr Hadidi also appointed the first female resident forensic specialist, Dr Israa Tawalbeh, in March 2003. Dr Tawalbeh told me, ‘I deplore injustice, especially actions that target women and children. At the same time, I wanted to defend people’s rights a
nd I felt by joining the Institute I would be able to do both.’ She has proven herself to be a valuable addition to the team, paving the way for the appointment of another female member of staff.

  Awareness has increased in Jordan. Judges and criminal prosecutors are keen to call to my attention harsh verdicts they have seen against men who have committed so-called honour crimes. On many instances the judiciary has rejected the fit of fury argument that is raised by the defendants and their lawyers during trial. The attorney general, Judge Yassin Abdullat, has started appealing three- and six-month verdicts passed in such cases, demanding justice for the victims. On many occasions, the Cassation Court (Jordan’s Supreme Court) has intervened to overturn six-month prison terms and has returned the case to the Criminal Court, demanding a tougher sentence. Of course the system is still nowhere near perfect, and light verdicts still slip through every now and then.

  Many Jordanians wanted the 1999 campaign to continue, believing quite rightly that more should be done to improve women’s rights. Once the flame had been ignited, it refused to die – and gradually, thanks to the will of thousands and thousands of determined people, we have started to see its positive effect; things have been changing for the better in Jordan.

  Since I became known for my work, many schools and universities have invited me to speak about my experiences. In one school, I watched in amazement as children performed a play about so-called honour crimes at the end of the school year. They told me they wanted to be part of the change that was taking place in our society. The expression of such a desire would have been unheard of just a couple of years earlier. More recently, many theatres have staged plays about so-called honour crimes and violence against women, with many of the voices opposing these crimes coming directly from male actors and performers.

  During 2005 and 2006, Jordan took part in the Sixteen-Day Global Campaign Against Gender Violence supported by Freedom House, a US NGO. Activities included plays at universities, lectures, training courses and bicycle rides to Parliament to demand just laws for women. The campaign was widely covered in the press and domestic violence was publicly discussed for a long time afterwards.