Day: July 6, 2008

Father kills daughter in Georgia–was it an honor killing?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Very latest update:   Judy’s post today on this story.

Latest update:  The murder suspect appears in court here.  Also, see this website called News By Us and its analysis of the coverage of this case in the Chicago Tribune.

Update:  Hot off the press at Jihad Watch!  It was an Islamic honor killing!  One commenter at Jihad Watch is calling honor killings, “daughter-slaughter.”

A Pakistani immigrant strangled his daughter in a fit of rage because she wanted to leave her arranged marriage according to this brief report today in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.   Hat tip:  Robert 

A Clayton County man faces murder charges in the strangling death of his 25-year-old daughter early Sunday over her desire to end an arranged marriage.

Chaudhry Rashad, 54, apparently got mad during an argument in which the victim, Sandela Kanwal, told him she wanted out of the marriage, Clayton police officer Timothy Owens said.

Authorities were called to their Utah Drive home in Jonesboro just after 3 a.m. Sunday. Kanwal lived with her father when she was not with her husband, who is in Chicago, Owens said. She hadn’t seen the husband in three months, he said.

Both Rashad and Kanwal are of Pakistani descent.

You can bet there is more to this story, but I doubt we will ever hear it.

We have written previously on the subject of forced marriage and honor killings practiced by some adherents to Islam in our women’s issues category.

A blog that covers the abuses of women in the Muslim culture, Women against Shariah, has written 15 posts on forced marriage here, and 31 on honor killings here.

Class to teach immigrants not to beat their wives or kick their dogs

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those days when interesting news is coming from all directions.   One of my favorite (not) volags, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) has partnered with an immigration lawyer to teach refugees, men in this case, how to behave in America.   The article from Schenectady, NY started out o.k.  Afterall, we have been advocating for refugees to assimilate.

CAPITAL REGION — Artan Serjanej understands how difficult it can be for new immigrants to navigate the thicket of unfamiliar laws they encounter when they move to America.

Now 43, Serjanej fled the Eastern European country of Albania as a young man, arriving in the United States in 1990. He earned his GED, attended law school and is now an immigration attorney at Tulley Rinckey PLLC in Albany.

Serjanej is leading a series of workshops to help male immigrants understand laws regarding domestic violence, child abuse and animal abuse. He has already held two workshops, one for male Congolese refugees living in the Capital Region and another for Arabic-speaking Iraqi male refugees, and more are scheduled for later this summer.

Then it reveals that really much of this series of classes is geared toward teaching refugees their rights in our legal system.   The participants here will give you some idea of the direction this is going:

The new program, called Legal Rights and Responsibilities in the United States, began two months ago. The workshops have been organized with help from local community groups, such as the Capital Region chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union and Equinox Inc. Last month, Melanie Trimble, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Serjanej conducted basic civil liberties training with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants staff.

This is so good I couldn’t help copying a large section of the article so that you can get the full impact of what is being said here.

“I’m trying to change their idea of what it means to be a man,” he said. “These people are coming from a very patriarchal [read: Islamic] society. The man of the house is the man of the house.”

Serjanej said he understands these attitudes and why the men have them.

“Albania is a very patriarchal [Islamic] society,” he said. “When I was growing up, once in a while my dad would get physically violent with me. We didn’t have a Department of Social Services. Women had no way to complain [about abuse], and it was socially unacceptable for them to do so.”

He said one of the things he tells the men who attend his workshops is that even if their wives do not complain to the police, other people might.

“Even if the wife is silent, outsiders can call the police,” he said.

“I tell them that if you get upset, you cannot use your hands,” Serjanej continued. “I tell them that you can only talk and that you should talk in a quiet voice. A real man doesn’t have to get physical. I try to convey that they can use their mouth and voice and be respected in this country by all.

“I don’t want people to end up in trouble for something they think is acceptable,” he added. “The idea is to protect them so they don’t have any criminal records. They really need to understand how to live a clean life.”

Notice that Mr. Serjanej is not saying he is trying to protect women and pets and keep them safe from abuse, he is protecting the men from having a criminal record.    It is all about the men!

In the workshops, Serjanej talks about the age of consent and rape laws and how it’s illegal to kick or otherwise abuse dogs and cats.

Assimilating into a new culture is very stressful, Serjanej said.

“Refugees get culture shock,” he said. “They have certain expectations, and when they reach this country, things are not as great as they thought they would be.”

Not so great you say?   You know what my answer is to that!

365 suspected Iraqi terrorists applied to the US as refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Buried deep in the Washington Post article today about a post 9/11 dragnet that has revealed a shocking number of terrorists caught on the battlefield in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia have already been in the US, is this little gem of information.   Homeland Security has turned down 365 suspected terrorists who have applied to come to the United States as refugees, and we have been led to believe they have all been our good little helpers in Iraq.    Matthew Lee (AP reporter), you missed this story!

Investigators are working on ever more sophisticated ways to evaluate the data. Analysts at the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, for instance, use software to scrutinize intelligence reports from sources such as electronic surveillance and informants. They then link the information to a person’s biographic and biometric data, and look for relationships that might detect terrorists and plots.

For example, a roadside bomb may explode and a patrol may fingerprint bystanders because insurgents have been known to remain at the scene to observe the results of their work. Prints also can be lifted off tiny fragments of exploded bombs, said military officials and contractors involved in the work.

Analysts are not just trying to identify the prints on the bomb. They want to find out who the bomb-carrier associates with. Who he calls. Who calls him. That could lead to the higher-level operatives who planned and financed attacks.

Already, fingerprints lifted off a bomb fragment have been linked to people trying to enter the United States, they said.

In a separate data-sharing program, 365 Iraqis who have applied to the Department of Homeland Security for refugee status have been denied because their fingerprints turned up in the Defense Department‘s database of known or suspected terrorists, Richardson said.

There was something to laugh (or cry) about in this deadly serious story.     Demonstrating our absolutely abysmal level of understanding of Islam, a high level FBI official said this about many of those terrorists who had already been in the US:

Many of those with U.S. arrest records had come to the United States to study, said former Criminal Justice Information Services head Michael Kirkpatrick, who led the FBI effort to use biometrics in counterterrorism after Sept. 11. “It suggests there was some familiarity with Western culture, the United States specifically, and for whatever reason they did not agree with that culture,” he said. “Either they became disaffected or put up with it, and then they went overseas.”

For whatever reason, oh my God!

Earth shattering news from the WaPo: African immigrants support Obama

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somalis, Ethiopians and Kenyans,  many having entered the US as refugees which puts them on the fast track to citizenship, are organizing for Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama.  Wow!  Can you believe it!  Here is what the Washington Post had to say:

From coast to coast, Somali, Ethiopian, Nigerian and Kenyan Americans are knocking on the doors of their fellow African immigrants, registering new citizens to vote, raising money and preaching Obama’s mantra of hope and change. They hope that his prominence will change their status as one of the nation’s least-recognized immigrant groups, and that he will one day provide aid to help ease the turmoil and poverty in countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

One Somali said Obama is like a son, one of them.

“Obama is one generation away from Africa,” said Eyow, who immigrated to the United States nearly 30 years ago. “I have nothing against my brothers and sisters, black people who were born here, but his father is like me. His father was an immigrant….”

Although Eyow says he has nothing against his black brothers who were born here, we have been chronicaling the tensions that are building in the black community partially resulting from the growing realization on the part of native-born black Americans that immigrants are taking their jobs (among other brewing conflicts).

The Post goes on to report that the Migration Policy Institute (in the right hand column you can check for the number of foreign born voters in your state) says the numbers of African immigrants aren’t high enough to swing the election, but organizers have figured out how to have influence in key states like Virginia.

Endale said that in the District, Ethiopians for Obama will not try to influence the national race between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Instead, the group will target Ethiopian households in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

“There’s a possibility of getting 10,000 Ethiopians in Virginia,” Endale said. “That could be a game-changer.”

Is anyone checking to make sure they are all citizens and eligible to vote?

Ms. Conaboy: What is the answer to the good question?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Chelsea Conaboy is a reporter for the Concord Monitor and wrote an article yesterday that begins: 

Augustin Ntabaganyimana sat one sticky afternoon last month with a dozen Bhutanese people newly arrived in Concord from refugee camps in Nepal. He walked them through a cultural orientation, explaining tasks such as how to pay rent, use food stamps and apply for green cards.

One man asked how he would be able to pay $850 for his apartment and support his family if he was making just $1,000 a month.

“That is a very good question,” Ntabaganyimana said, while another man translated. “I had that question when I came here as a refugee myself.”

The reporter then goes into a long story about how former refugee Mr. N. escaped Africa and made a success of himself in America—-working for a volag resettling more refugees—for the remainder of her article. 

I would like to know how Mr. Ntabaganyimana answered the refugee’s question.  How does a refugee pay $850 for rent on a take home pay of $1000 a month and support a family?   That is one of the primary questions citizens in Hagerstown (see September Forum category for everything that happened in my county) asked last summer and fall as people struggled to understand how the economics of refugee resettlement actually works.

I know the answer—it is welfare.   See my post yesterday on Mark Krikorian’s new book.   I don’t know why the federal government and these volags can’t just be straight with the public and say it.  Everyone knows what the truth is, that the taxpayer is picking up the rest of the tab, and the obvious silence on the subject just gets people angrier.