Who knew? I was amazed to see this little nugget in the Washington Examiner yesterday. I bet I’m not alone in thinking that Muslim honor killings are a recent phenomenon in the US. Wrong! Here, in 1991, the parents were given a death sentence for killing a teenager who became too Americanized.
We’ve written a bunch about honor killings; you can find previous posts by searching ‘honor killing’ or you might want to check out our ‘women’s issues’ category, here.
From the Washington Examiner:
On this day, Dec. 20, in 1991, a Missouri court sentences the Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria to death for the honor killing of their daughter.
The FBI planted listening devices in the family’s St. Louis apartment hoping to hear evidence of terrorist activities.
Instead, what the agents heard were the screams of 16-year-old Palestina being stabbed to death as her father yelled in Arabic, “Die quickly!”
The parents were unhappy that they could not control Palestina, who had taken a part-time job without their permission and was dating a black teenager.
Zein Isa died of diabetes in prison in 1997. Maria’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison.
Also interesting is the news that the FBI was investigating Islamic terrorists in 1991. Guess they didn’t do such a great job investigating since the first highly visible terror attack on the US came just two years later—-the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.