Reason #238 For (Dis)Honor Murders: Phone Pics of Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ

Algerian dad sees pictures of actors in 16 year-old daughter’s phone, slits her throat.

Oh.

Visits from Azerbaijan

I love the new WordPress feature that give you a little map of where people come from. Today, I had a couple visits from Azerbaijan! I know who

Hi there!!! Hoping to get everything worked out soon…

Kinzi in Kurdistan

I just got back from my first trip to Iraq, in the Kurdistan, to speak at a women’s conference. It was a beautiful, moving, blessed time.

The first day I was there was the Kurdish new year holiday, Nowruz. It was wild, crazy fun. Me, my friends, and all 2.5 million Erbilians headed to the hills for a day of costumed dancing, eating and celebration with bonfires.

The costumes are AMAZING. The women wear a lovely sequined or beaded sheer-ish dress over metallic trousers, with a bolero vest in dazzling colors and a sheer shawl around their arms and tied in the back.

What makes it even more crazy fun is that all the gold they wear is REAL. Belts, heavy necklaces, ankle and wrist bracelets, coins sewn on the boleros as tassels. One woman I talked to had two kilograms of gold on. The women were the most beautiful I have even seen; very little make-up, ordinary long curly hair and joyous hearts.

The men wore earth-tone gathered-waist pants, with fitted, colorless V-necked jackets tucked in, and ornately knotted fabric belts held it all together. Very dashing.

BEST THING: the men and women danced and mingled together with no shame, no ill-ease, much mutual joy, and no leering what-so-ever. Their joyous trains of debkah were so free. As I took pictures (yes, some for the blog too) they grabbed my hands and pulled me in, eventually they gave me the Kurdish flag and had me lead the procession: Dances With Kurds. I was a horrible failure, but had fun anyway. Sigh.

 

 

Arabic Song of My Year: You Return My Soul – Tarodu Nafsi

• ترد نفسي … ترد نفسي … ترد نفسي … للحياة
  حملت آلامي… دعوتني باسم جديد … اخدت خزيي بدلته بأفراح
  تأخد نوحي تحوله لرقص …تأخد بكائي تبدله بضحك
  تأخد نوحي تحوله لرقص … ترفع حزني وتعطيني افراح
  هلليلويا هلليلويا … صار الكل جديدا

This song has set my heart on Good Friday, the images from The Passion, especially Jesus with the woman caught in adultery, left me weeping on the keyboard in gratitude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-0Jte8oxbQ

Here is the English original, and I must say, the Arabic version supercedes it in all ways

You’ve taken my pain and called me by a new name.
You’ve taken my shame and it’s place you give me joy.
You take my morning and turn it into dancing.
You take my weeping and turn it into laughing.
You take my morning and turn it into dancing.
You take my sadness and turn it into joy.
You bring restoration, you bring restoration
You bring restoration, to my soul. chorus
Hallelujah hallelujah, you make all things new,all things new
Hallelujah hallelujah, you make all things new.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LcyQOLVS_U

Off Line For a Bit

See you later, alligators.  For those who pray, please do. Just that I can be a blessing.

suicide as self-determination – these women get the last word

A Moroccan 16 year-old committed suicide to avoid having her rapist as a husband until the end of her life. She ended it herself as a final act of self-determination.

Self-immolation is a common form of self-determination for women in Kurdistan. Determining death is better than life with the man you marry.

Now, an Ethiopian domestic worker has done the same, after being captured on video as he dragged her into a car after escaping.

Somehow, I can’t blame them.

In Jordan, I know of a Filipina who was similarly dragged back to her place of employment, after running away and being beaten. She has never been heard from since.

BEIRUT — An Ethiopian housemaid in Lebanon committed suicide on Wednesday, Ethiopia’s consul general said, a week after video footage of her being dragged along the streets by a man and forced into a car sparked national outrage.

Last week, Lebanese television channel LBCI sparked nationwide indignation after broadcasting footage of a man violently dragging Dechasa along a street in Beirut and screaming at her to “get into the car.”

Another man was then seen helping to force Dechasa into the back of the car while she squirmed and screamed “no, no, no.”

On Friday, the Lebanese Cabinet condemned the violent incident and asked for an investigation into the matter.

After the video was aired, LBCI used the car’s number plate number to identify one of the men.

Outraged by the video, activists in Lebanon posted the man’s contact information on internet social media sites and called for action against him.

Reports of domestic worker abuse are rife in this small Mediterranean state.

The hospital was not immediately available for comment.

Abuser Gets 20 Years

Good that he is paying the price rather than she, that she did not become an honor statistic. There is growing hope for change.

AMMAN — The Criminal Court has sentenced a 34-year-old man to 20 years in prison for engaging in sexual activities with a minor in April 2011.

The court declared the defendant guilty of engaging in sexual activities with an underage female (aged between 12 and 15 years) and handed him a 15-year prison term.

The tribunal also decided to increase the sentence by five years because the minor was a virgin.

Pondering that a number is attached to the value of virginity.

Court papers said the girl, who was 14 at the time of the incident, knew the defendant, who was a friend of her father and would often sleep at their house.

One day in April, the defendant engaged in “consensual” sexual activities with the child “and repeated his actions twice”, according to the court.

Right. ‘Consensual’.

The matter was disclosed when the victim became pregnant and had a miscarriage, according to the verdict.

“A paternity test conducted on the male foetus proved that the defendant was the biological father,” the court added.

The defendant had pleaded guilty in court and asked for “the tribunal’s mercy”, the verdict stated.

The court comprised judges Fawzi Nahar, Hazem Saeed and Hussein Tharaba.

The Cassation Court has started reviewing the verdict, which was issued in late February.