A while ago I read a story to you about a young girl in Iraq who was horrifically murdered by her father and then thrown into a makeshift grave whilst her family spat on her body.
I have been sitting on this information for a while but I have a sad follow up to the story. The girl who was killed was called Rand Abdel-Qader, and now her mother Leila has been murdered also.
It was two weeks after Rand's death on 16 March that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step. Leila told The Observer in April: 'No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq. But I would prefer to be killed than sleep in the same bed as a man who was able to do what he did to his own daughter.'
Her words were to prove prescient. Leila turned to the only place she could, a small organisation in Basra campaigning for the rights of women and against 'honour' killings. Almost immediately she began receiving threats - notes calling her a 'prostitute' and saying she deserved to die like her daughter.
Even her sons Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, whom she claimed aided their father in their sister's killing, disowned her. Meanwhile, her husband, a former government employee, escaped any charges, and even told The Observer that police had congratulated him on what he had done.
It is not known who killed Leila. All that is known is that she was staying at the house of 'Mariam', one of the women's rights campaigners, whose identity The Observer has agreed not to reveal. On the morning of 17 May, they were joined by another volunteer worker and set off to meet 'a contact' who was to help Leila travel to Amman, where she would be taken in by an Iraqi family.
'Leila was anxious, but she was also happy at having the chance to leave Iraq,' said Mariam. 'Since the death of her daughter, her own life was at serious risk. And this was a great opportunity for her to leave the country and to fight for Iraqi women's rights.
'She had not been able to sleep the night before. I stayed up talking to her about her plans after she arrived in Amman. I gave her some clothes to take with her and she was packing the only bag she had. She was too excited to sleep.'
Mariam said that when she awoke Leila had already prepared breakfast, cleaned her house and even baked a date cake as a thank-you for the help she had been given. After the arrival of 'Faisal', the volunteer (whose identity is also being protected), the three left the house at 10.30am and started walking to the end of the street to get a taxi. They had walked less than 50 metres when they heard a car drive up fast and then gunshots rang out. The attack, said by witnesses to have been carried out by three men, was over in minutes. Leila was hit by three bullets. Mariam was hit in her left arm and Faisal in her left leg. 'I didn't realise I had been shot for a few seconds, because as I heard the gunfire I saw Leila falling to the ground and saw blood pouring from her head,' said Mariam. 'I was so shocked, I didn't immediately feel the pain.'
Since February 2006, two other activists from the same women's organisation have been killed in the city. One of them was reportedly raped before being shot. The other, the only man working for the non-governmental organisation (NGO), and a father of five who was responsible for the organisation's finances, was shot five months ago.
Read the full article.
I’m going to stop there. I recommend that you read the full story which I shall link in the video description and in my blog. It goes into more details of how Mariam had to take sedatives to help her sleep at night because of continuous nightmares, and how the police stated that her death was just a coincidence. I don’t buy it.
Here’s what gets me.
Feminists, apparently, are THE people who beat the female drum more than others do.
Apparently, they’re THE cheerleaders for the woman crowd.
This is to the feminists.. Doesn’t this shit piss you off?
When I made the original video all I got were dismissals to the argument, not one feminist stood up to the plate and rebuked this behaviour. Which was what my original point was, that feminists take pot shots at their own culture which reveres women above all others, and fail to criticise a truly misogynist oppressive culture.
They mainly said things like “the fact that there is oppression in other cultures doesn’t mean that we can ignore the problems in ours”. I’m fed up of being asked to defend a position I didn’t posit. This was not the point of my original video.
But I know why they made this point, the idea of criticising Islam so frightens these politically correct cowards that they will grasp at any straw that they can to avoid the real issue, this ranges from making strawman arguments like I read to you or discussing the wage gap. If you do this in response to this video then you are avoiding the truth because the truth is so ugly that it burns to look at it. It’s like the sun, it’s so painful to stare directly at that people will cast their glance askew to avoid it.
It hurts to look at abject evil, but we need to do it.
Also I want to say. Making a comment along the lines of “these oppressions exist in other cultures and doesn’t apply to our own” is not sufficient…
Do the Dutch not have to deal with the religious sensitivity of the Muslims because the Muslims are only in the Middle East? No! The Muslims are there in their own country.
Did the riots in France not happen because the Muslims are another culture? No! The Muslims are in France.
So the evils of Islam are applicable to western cultures. Because they are IN those western cultures. Maybe feminists want to reconsider their attitudes to Muslim immigration if the rights of women matter to them so much. Here in the U.K. the Muslims are gravitating towards implementing Sharia law into the law of the U.K. How does that bode for women’s rights?
Anyone of any stripe who does not have his or her head in the sand, needs to discuss these issues.
So I must reiterate, doesn’t a story like this make you angry dear feminists? It made me furious, I’ve not seen a feminists rebuke this and if you know of one then please let me know:
Rebuking bad behaviour is not difficult, all it takes is a little testicular fortitude. I rebuked the use of the term “feminazi” in a video. I rebuked the commenter who said that Wendy McElroy was just another evil feminist who was tricking us all. Wendy does good work on men’s rights issues and I value her contribution.
And I find it interesting that the one highlighting these issues is a Men’s Rights Activist, it should show you how far feminism has come. And of course, I’m pandering to the bigoted ideas of the radical feminists here because being a Men’s Rights Activist doesn’t mean you’re a misogynist. In fact, after the reactions I got to this horrific event I think we actually care more about women then the feminists do.
And if you want to help women, don’t donate to the western feminists, donate to this women’s charity in Iraq which helps women leave the country, I’ll try to find their identity. That’s all I’ve got to say. This video is in memorandum of Rand and Mariam Abdel-Qader, may they rest in peace.