I thought Turkey was relatively secular and modern. Evidently I was wrong. Or maybe there are two Turkeys, the secular and modern big-city version, and the deeply religious and impoverished one.
Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives, according to The Guardian. The apparent crime was done in an "honor" killing, carried out as punishment for talking to boys.
Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.
The murderers killed a girl because she was talking to a boy? Unconscionable. But let's not single out Turkey. The United States also has its version of the Taliban. It's called the Religious Right.
As of this moment, they plan to run a commercial during this Sunday's Super Bowl attacking abortion rights. (As for the group Focus on the Family, who is paying for the ad, I can quote a bumper sticker that I saw once: "Focus on your own damn family.")
The details of the case are blood-curdling. A post-mortem examination showed "large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried." (Italics mine.)
What is it about the ultra-religious of every cultural background that they can justify the oppression of women?
2 comments:
Hi Paul,
i feel like honor killings are as much cultural as religious? what do you think?
re abortion, either way somebody dies, but in abortion the baby definitely dies. in no abortion, the mother has a better chance to survive unless she gets a lousy illegal abortion.
if she keeps the baby, both live.
but i also understand this single parenting thing and how hard that can be.
when my sis kept her kid, it was the greatest blessing for our whole family. but at the time, she went through a lot of hell for her choice.
hugs to you and evie:)
I find it very disagreeable that while appearing to shine some light on an unfortunately more hidden then not torture and death of a 16 year old girl you also snub it by, instead of focusing on the crime and how we can actually do something to prevent this form of true oppression elsewhere, you instead turn all focus (and last thoughts) on a non-profit group in America's super-bowl ad and even make a bigoted statement about another entire group of people who you seem to disagree with.
And lets be even-handed here... come on,
A self-proclaimed Muslim man buries a girl alive for talking to boys.
A man who leaves the Catholic faith to be a self-proclaimed man of no faith locks his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and molests her and has children by her for no apparent reason.
Numbers of Crusaders (not all), self-proclaimed Catholics, terrorized, raped, and murdered thousands upon thousands, many of whom were innocent women and children.
Fidel Castro and Kim-II-Sung, self-proclaimed atheists murder between them, 6 million, probably half of whom are women.
A self-proclaimed "pro-life" individual shoots down an abortionist for providing what you would call a service to women.
A self-proclaimed "pro-choice" man, two months later, guns down a man holding a "LIFE" sign which displays, what they refer to, as the truth of abortion and would call a "service to women"
Self-proclaimed Protestant Christians burn women alive as witches in Salem.
Aldolf Hitler, self-proclaimed man of no-faith, orders hundreds of people to be gassed and starved to death.
People of faith murder people because they have no faith.
People who have no faith murder those that do have faith.
The hand is split. Oppression of women and of people does not come from one people or one ideology. People justify rape, murder, and oppression by God just as much as other people justify those things by a political philosophy. Religious groups offer just as much aid or more to a world in need as secular groups or those even professing atheism.
All of the "ultra-religious" as you term them are no more, in totality and unity, "oppressing women" then all of the "hard-core atheists and agnostics" are setting up dictatorships and murdering by the millions.
I look around me and see devout, "religious" Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindu, etc. practicing what they believe (although different then myself) honestly and peacefully.
I also look around me and see atheists and agnostics going about their business free of criminal activity and lack of charity.
Then too, I see horrible crimes committed by those with belief systems and those that don't. People will try to justify their perversions and bigotry anyway they can to not own up to it or face a demon that is either themselves or reality.
It is very ignorant to stereotype a whole people of devout faith as crazy terrorists who deny women rights. That is just not true.
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