A breath from the pit
Bastards bastards bastards.
It can tip you right over the edge sometimes, contemplating how unfathomably foul people can be.
A girl stoned to death in Somalia this week was 13 years old, not 23, contrary to earlier news reports. She had been accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was killed on Monday 27 October, by a group of 50 men in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu, in front of around 1,000 spectators…Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander…[N]urses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue.
In sane places, a child of 13 can’t commit ‘adultery’ even if she tries to. But Duhulow didn’t commit ‘adultery’ anyway…
An Islamist rebel administration in Somalia had a 13-year-old girl stoned to death for adultery after the child’s father reported that three men had raped her…A lorryload of stones was brought to the stadium for the killing. Amnesty said that Duhulow struggled with her captors and had to be forcibly carried into the stadium…Duhulow’s father told Amnesty that when they tried to report her rape to the militia, the child was accused of adultery and detained. None of the men Duhulow accused was arrested.
So. A child of 13 and her father try to tell the authorities that she was raped by three men, and the authorities in response arrest her, order up a truckload of stones, bury her in the ground up to her neck, gather a crowd of a thousand people, and throw the truckload of stones at her head.
It’s hard to figure out what’s going on in the heads of people like that. It’s not just violent lashing out – it’s religious legal official punishment – carried out in cold blood and the pure odor of sanctity. It’s hard to figure that out. What kind of monster do they think they worship, that wants children smashed to death with rocks for being raped? What kind of hideous loathsome savage bloodthirsty tyrannical cruel monster do they imagine wants them to act like that? What kind of nightmare world do they live in? How do they look on their work and approve it?
Speechless. I almost hope there *is* a God, one that had no power of people in this life (for if he did, he would not have allowed this to occur) but that can send people to hell.
I’d actually rather the men who did this realise what they have done, and suffer a life-time of guilt and shame. But somehow I doubt they will. Because “god” is already on their side, isn’t it, Borboski? So I don’t think that hoping for a punitive god to exist helps that much at all. Those men were just taking a punitive god’s wishes into their own hands, weren’t they? I find the idea of a punishing and judging sort of god absolutely revolting, and is a precursor to this sort of tragic ugliness that is just so tragic and ugly that there are no words to describe it.
speechless.
They should let the father judge these bastards. Given the UHDR is nothing to the bastards, the father should not be restricted in his method of punishment for this once – at least as far as the leader of the pack is concerned – most probably the rapists were part of this militia & God the usual excuse for the covering up of their bastardness.
God as an excuse is one of the reasons to get rid of Him, it is the only real manifestation He seems to have – serve as an excuse to sociopaths.
Allah
Yeah I know. And it seriously puzzles me. One of the stock phrases is ‘For Allah is beneficent, merciful.’ I really do puzzle over how they understand this Allah if it’s someone who thinks children should be smashed with rocks for (at most) having sex. (And then presumably sent to hell for eternity after that.) What, exactly, do they see as beneficent and merciful about that?
Beneficent to themselves, I guess, and full of wrath for anybody else.
But only if ‘anybody else’ is defined as co-believers who commit minor crimes and if ‘beneficent, merciful’ is taken to be compatible with smashing children with rocks for committing minor crimes. That strikes me as a very very bizarre understanding of words.
I’m not being disingenuous (at least not intentionally) – I just don’t fully understand how people combine the two.
As sad as this is….this is one child. Not to veer too far off topic, but I must point our a question: How many children have died directly because of policies that BOTH our choices in tomorrow’s election fully support (e.g., the Eternal, Ever expanding War on Terror)and that many of us here fully support? http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/28/africa/29syria.php
Here’s another question. How many children have died because BOTH our choices in tomorrow’s election dragged them kicking and screaming into a stadium, buried them up to their necks, and threw stones at their heads?
A less fatuous question is how many children have died in equally horrible ways in eastern Congo; as far as I know the answer is many thousands (the total death toll is c. 5 million).
The trouble with the juvenile ‘War on Terror’ question is that the ‘War on Terror’ does not have as its goal a world where militias drag raped girls into stadia and bury them up to the neck and stone them to death. It may or may not be a terrible idea, it is doing a lot of damage in the process of trying to get rid of al Qaeda, but its ultimate goal is not in fact a malevolent one. This does matter.
‘…Muslim somewhere in the world has expressed outrage, regret, sorrow, concern or even mild misgiving over the stoning of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in Somalia, or for that matter over the deaths of any of the other innumerable victims of the abysmal religion of Islam.’
Really? Have you tried looking? Quite apart from the fact that the militia had to fire on the crowd to prevent a rescue (which suggests mild misgiving at the least) many of those campaigning against this barbarity describe themselves as muslims. But perhaps we shouldn’t take them at their word.
Me neither, Ophelia, me neither.
This article
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174906
‘Blowing Them Away Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry
Globalization Bush-style
By Tom Engelhardt’
describes how the the Americans flew a drone over Somalia and murdered innocent Somali civilians in an attempt to kill suspected ‘terrorists’.
‘Local district Commissioner Ali Nur Ali Dherre told CNN that three women and three children had been killed and another 20 people wounded.’
These extra-judicial killings seem to have passed Ophelia by without any condemnation of Western Imperialism. Did these unnamed women and children not deserve her anger and sympathy – or perhaps she actually doesn’t give a damn about Somalis unless it gives her a chance to condemn a whole religion.
What a hypocrite!
Now, ‘resistor’ – I doubt that you know what I have and haven’t said about ‘Western Imperialism.’ But yes, of course innocent victims deserve anger and sympathy – but some of the anger should be directed at al Qaeda boffins who hide among civilians.
You’re right, I don’t give a damn about ‘Somalis’ as such, or ‘Americans’ or any other national group; I give a damn about Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow.
If you could read – you would have noticed that I didn’t ‘condemn a whole religion’ – I condemned these particular shits who claimed or pretended to be acting in its name. I’m perfectly prepared to criticize Islam, but you can’t find a word in this particular post which does that.
So you think the pre meditated brutal stoning murder of a young child can be compared with the acidental killing of civilians in an air strike do you resistor?
Resistor
If the leaders of al Qaeda are going to put ‘their’ people at risk by living amoungst them while plotting terror attacks on anyone then they bare a chunk of the responsibility of the effects that brings, equally people knowingly allowing such international criminals to hide amoungst them can also be said to hold some responsibility for the repurcussions. That being said, and i won’t to make this very clear, i don’t agree with indiscriminate bombing on the off chance you might get a target, and any innocent victims is a tragedy. But when anyone starts dropping/planting bombs then innocent people get hurt. so i don’t think it is fair to only accuse the americans of being indiscriminant.
I really have to second OB’s statement about trying to equate the stoning to death of a young girl who’s only crime was to be raped and the bombing of villiages that, i have to assume intelligence strongly suggested, contained legitiment targets, you know those international terrorists who want to bring the whole world under the thumb of the kind of bastards who stone people.
I can’t help but feel that the sickest part of all of this is the lack of prosecution of the rapists, i am not, in any way trying to defend the stoning, the reason i think it is more disturbing is that it is a clear indication that the offence against ‘God’, the alleged adultery, is so much worse than the actual physical assault that the assault is not worth punishing. what kind of sick and twisted people can either belive, or attempt to defend a position that puts the delicate sensibilities of a sky daddy over the actual harm to a person? all of a sudden offence is more important than physical damage? I suppose when you are omnipotent (and imaginary) then sticks and stones can’t break your bones, only words can hurt you.
This story was originally reported by the BBC when thy still thought it was a woman who committed adultery, rather than a child who was raped.
So far, they have not seen fit to update or correct the story.
In the original, they thoughfully included a quote from a local Islamist leader, who explained: “She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply.”
OK, they have updated now, four hours after I lodged a complaint. Probably a coincidence.
Well done either way, David.
Don: ‘Really? Have you tried looking? Quite apart from the fact that the militia had to fire on the crowd to prevent a rescue (which suggests mild misgiving at the least) many of those campaigning against this barbarity describe themselves as muslims. But perhaps we shouldn’t take them at their word.’
Really? Have I tried looking?
Well after reading that I googled ‘somalia, militia fires on crowd’ and came up with a number of stories of people being fired on in Somalia (for the sin of watching a soccer match) and also this:
http://www.aftenbladet.no/english/940794/13-year_old_stoned_to_death_in_Somalia.html
which gives the incident you mention. It also mentions that the girl reported the rape on her own initiative to the militia, and got stoned to death for her trouble, adding: “However, it would seem that the men whom 13-year old Aisha tried to report for rape have little to fear. None of them have been arrested.”
Any imam who cared to denounce this publicly for the abomination it was would make it into the same media reporting it. Distraught relatives may have tried to do something, but the silence from institutional Islam has been deafening, which was my main and original point.
Islam is silent. It always has been, and will probably continue to be in future. Such stonings occur with monotonous regularity in the Muslim world.
Silence is consent.
Really? Yes, really.
Ian,
This is Somalia, there is no law so arrest is a meaningless concept. The people who did this were an occupying militia.
You asserted that no muslim was at all disturbed by this and implied that any that claimed to be so were probably disingenuous.
This is simply untrue. That is where I take issue with you. See previous post.
OB writes
‘some of the anger should be directed at al Qaeda boffins who hide among civilians’
That’s just repeating war propaganda.
as for
‘the bombing of villiages (sic) that, i have to assume intelligence strongly suggested, contained legitiment (sic)targets’
…and you lot think that believers in religion are gullible!
Can I point out that even if the attacks were occurring during a war, they would be in breach of the Geneva Conventions. However it’s revealing that Ophelia’s supporters here see the bombing of villages, and the consequent killing of civilians, as legitimate – or even accidental.
Finally, Benson claims that the so-called War on Terror’s ‘ultimate goal is not in fact a malevolent one’.
To quote Orwell, ‘There are also about eighty ways in the English and American languages of expressing incredulity—for example, garn, come off it, you bet, sez you, oh yeah, not half, I don’t think, less of it or and the pudding! But I think and then you wake up is the exactly suitable answer to a remark like the one quoted above. ‘
For the enlightenment of the ignorant
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17223
‘USA/Somalia: What measures were taken to protect civilians in air strikes?
Posted: 11 January 2007
Amnesty International has written to the US government expressing deep concern about reports that at least 30 civilians have been killed in recent US air attacks in southern Somalia.
In a letter to US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Amnesty International requested urgent information about the air strikes and an explanation of what measures were taken by US forces to avoid civilian casualties during the attacks.
Senior Director of Amnesty International’s Research Programme, Claudio Cordone said:
“We are concerned that civilians may have been killed as a result of a failure to comply with international humanitarian law. What we want to know from the US government is whether their forces took the necessary precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants when they chose the means and methods of their attack.”
International humanitarian law prohibits direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects; attacks that do not distinguish between military targets and civilians or civilian objects (indiscriminate attacks); and attacks that, although aimed at a military target, have a disproportionate impact on civilians or civilian objects (disproportionate attacks).’
I agree with AI (unsurprisingly), as I said above. I’m not sure what you think you’re arguing with.
While I am uncertain about agreeing with resistor, and we are being somewhat unfair and off topic….I guess the bottom line, thogh, is that this case is at the core discussed as an “example” of how “Islam” works.
All we are pointing out is that our own political-ideological system (the one that invented the concept of “War on Terror” and that believes we in the United States have the right to rain death wherever we want in the world) causes more death and destruction every day than Islamist militias. There is a little bit of “mote in the neighbors eye versus beam in our own” going on here.
That doesn’t mean that I think that you, OB, are pro-Iraq war or anything. The frustration is, though, that we assume that this militia killing is part of the fundamental nature of Islam. Yet, our very own political system is totally unable to provide any alternatives to the “War on Terror” narrative that has arguably killed far more people and devastated far more families than this admittedly horrible crime. Obama and McCain agree on almost everything-War in Afghanistan, increased military spending, increased pressure on Iran up to and including direct support for attack on said nation, and the Somalia campaign. Our system provides no choice…yet we eagerly search out examples of scattered atrocities by the Islamists.
I am no fan of Islam. I think it is a horrific religious system. It’s just that we need more humility and we need to spend more time looking in the mirror. That may indeed not be the purpose of this blog, but…
No it isn’t being discussed ‘as an “example” of how “Islam” works.’ I think Islam is extremely retrograde and oppressive in many ways, but I don’t think this is an example of how Islam works, I think this is Islamism run amok.
But look. In many places Islamists have won, in many others they are winning; in other words in many places Islamist laws and punishments are in effect. That means that situations not enormously more fair or reasonable or compassionate than this one happen all the time. Women in Islamist places – including Pakistan – can be raped with impunity because the laws make prosecution not just impossible but risky – as in this case (and for the same reasons).
There is no obvious solution to this situation. Surrender, at any rate, is not an attractive option.
Nor am I counseling “surrender” whatever that means.
At the same time, we in the west are not innocent in at least helping to create social conditions that help bring Islamists to power. Sometimes we directly fund and support such groups for geopolitical reasons. Iraq-we overthrow an admittedly horrible dictator (who was propped up for decades by us) and insitute instead theocratic rule by pro-Iranian Shiite elements who indeed engage in these kinds of behaviors (read about Basra!) Hezbolah-largely funded by Israeli secret police as a counterweight to the resolutely secular Al Fatah movement. Afghani jihadists-funded and trained in big part by western interests playing The Great Game with Russia.
So…no surrender, but at the same time, we have to ask: does the kind of aggressive interference we have been conducting-or condoning-for generations in the Middle East and South Asia really “work”, or is it counterproductive? Even Somalia is partly-just partly, the victim of decades of Cold War back and foth posturing by the US and the former Soviet Union that has devastated the country. The current humanitarian crisis was directly funded and supported by the United States through our proxy state in Ethiopia. Civil wars are nasty places for youth, sadly enough.
Surrender means the alternative to war.
I know all this about the background. I’ve spent decades trying to remind (or just plain tell) people about Mossadegh and the CIA. And of course we have to ask questions of that kind. But again, I don’t see where I’ve argued anything else.
“a crowd of a thousand people”
Gathered and gazed and did absolutely nothing (apart from some of the witnesses to the killing, who attempted to save her life).
By their inaction, the group of 50 men are as guilty of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow horrendous murder on Monday 27 October, in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu.
They should be held accountable.
It leaves one cold just merely contemplating on the cowardly evil actions of these perpetrators.
In the name of culture and religion these monsters murdered a virtual female child. Not a male adult.
It is mostly girls who suffer.
Do the same people, I wonder, sit around their own respective family tables, and dwell on murdering their own female offspring if they should have female youthful thoughts that do not coincide with their adult ones?
Why do they simply not just rid of the whole female population.
Be done with them altogether.
They have such venemous thoughts about them – so why bother having them in their midst.
Life would be far easier for them and they would not have to resort to exerting themselves in having to kill them in dribs and drabs.
It must be so wearisome for them having to contunually pile trucks loads of stones over female young bodies and bashing their heads.
OB writes. ‘Women in Islamist places – including Pakistan – can be raped with impunity because the laws make prosecution not just impossible but risky’
Whereas here in the UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/25/rape-trials-ruling
‘Only 6.1% of rapes reported to the police, and 34% of all cases prosecuted, result in a conviction.’
Meanwhile more deaths unmourned by Ophelia Benson
http://www.worldbulletin.net/author_article_detail.php?id=1874
‘Will the civilian massacres stop? Friday, 07 November 2008 07:53
Thirty-seven civilians — 23 children and 10 women — were killed in an air strike conducted by American forces in Kandahar, a southern Afghan city, on the day when the black Democrat Barack Obama was elected the new president of the United States.’
and
‘The US military has announced that 33 civilians were killed in an air strike in Azizabad on Aug. 22. The Afghan government and the United Nations, however, said 90 civilians — 60 of those being children – were killed in the strikes. The US initially announced seven civilian casualties, subsequently increasing the death toll after publication of cell phone footage. Likewise, 47 civilians were killed in another air strike against a wedding ceremony in Nangarhar in July. Human Rights Watch notes that 116 civilians were killed in air strikes in 2006, 321 in 2007 and 540 in the first eight months of this year.’
Can you imagine Ophelia’s response if Muslims were doing this to the UK?
Marie-Therese O’Loughlin seems to me to have got the right angle. These horrible men would like to get rid of women, or at least have women without brains, or have women that only did what they want, or have no sexual feelings. Pity god didn’t design things better, really. But of course, they can’t get rid of women, because then there would be no more men… Islam provides only the most publicised examples of how women are punished for being – well, for being. In this case the father seems to have supported his daughter, and I suspect that this is where the report about the girl demanding Sharia to apply (to her attackers) originally came from. The message is clear: let no woman complain about anything a man does to her, because this is what will happen. Religion is only one of the ways men shore up their rulership over women. We need to promote and defend women’s rights more, and shout
more loudly. Religion is only part of the problem. If we got rid of it tomorrow, this sort of thing would still happen. All exclusively male “values” have to go, or women will never be free.
Was this not said of you before?
“Resistor, in a hotly contested field, you are by some distance the most charmless commenter in the history of Harry’s Place.”
resistor: ‘Only 6.1% of rapes reported to the police, and 34% of all cases prosecuted, result in a conviction.’
Why should a prosecution necessarily result in a conviction? It’s a criminal trial ffs! Any given defendant may or may not actually be proven guilty. But if you assume in advance that guilty is the “correct” verdict, then why bother with a trial at all?
The interesting thing is, your posts suggest that you aren’t exactly fond of when the US government uses this kind of logic…
I notice that resistor couldn’t spare a single of outrage over the oppression of women and female children. What a fucking monster.