2012-05-01

Chechen women in mortal fear as president backs Islamic honor killings - By Diana Markosian - Special to The Washington Times

Chechen women in mortal fear as president backs Islamic honor killings

ACHXOY-MARTAN, Chechnya — Chechnya's government is openly approving of families that kill female relatives who violate their sense of honor, as this Russian republic embraces a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam after decades of religious suppression under Soviet rule.

In the past five years, the bodies of dozens of young Chechen women have been found dumped in woods, abandoned in alleys and left along roads in the capital, Grozny, and neighboring villages.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov publicly announced that the dead women had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives. He went on to describe women as the property of their husbands, and said their main role is to bear children.

“If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them should be killed,” said Mr. Kadyrov, who often has stated his goal of making Chechnya “more Islamic than the Islamists.”

In today’s Chechnya, alcohol is all but banned, Islamic dress codes are enforced and polygamous marriages are supported by the government.

Some observers say Mr. Kadyrov’s attempt to impose Islamic law violates the Russian Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state.

“We are a traditional, conservative society, but the government has gone overboard,” said Lipkhan Bazaeva, head of the Women's Dignity Center, a nongovernmental organization promoting women’s rights in Grozny. “They are declaring unacceptable limits on women — as an individual, she has no rights even if her husband beats her, despite Russian laws.”

Though observers agree that honor killings are on the rise in Chechnya, the issue remains largely taboo among locals — making official statistics hard to come by.

“You hear about these cases almost every day,” said a local human rights defender, who asked that her name not be used out of fear for her safety. “It is hard for me to investigate this topic, yet I worked on it with [human rights activist] Natasha [Estemirova] for a while. But, I can’t anymore. I am too scared now. I’ve almost given up, really.”

Estemirova, who angered Chechen authorities with reports of torture, abductions and extrajudicial killings, was found in the woods in 2009 in the neighboring region of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Her killer or killers have not been found.

Few dare to openly challenge Mr. Kadyrov’s rule. But activists say some young Muslim women do so surreptitiously, placing themselves in a constant tug of war between two value systems.

Milana, a ninth-grader in Grozny, wears thick eyeliner, dons tight miniskirts, smokes cigarettes and dates boys: all things a proper Muslim girl is forbidden to do in Chechnya.

She said she has heard it from her father countless times: A Chechen girl who loses her virginity before marriage is a prostitute, and Allah will punish her.

“If only my parents knew some of the things I did,” she said with a giggle. “My parents are too strict with me, but it is like that here.”

Analysts say dating can be an escape for teenagers such as Milana who often live double lives.

“It is a great temptation to break from tradition when they are away from their family, said Ms. Bazaeva. “They have a good time, but it is not without consequences, not in Chechnya.”

In this small Chechen village, residents talk about the teenage girl who was killed in early February after she spent a night at her boyfriend’s house.

The 16-year-old’s body was wrapped in a traditional rug and returned to her mother’s house. Her relatives are suspected of killing her in the name of family honor.

To escape the strict mores, some of the young opt for early marriage, which they view as the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. That goes for young Chechen men, also.

Abu-Khadzh Idrisov, 20, married in his teens to simply experiment, he said. His first marriage at age 14 lasted barely a year. He married a second time at 18. He spotted his future wife at a park in Grozny and, with the help of his friends, kidnapped her.

“When I married her, I honestly knew only two things: her name and the school she studied at. We talked together once,” he recalled. “But we have traditions and extremely strict rules in Chechnya, and you can’t just ignore them. I carry my family’s name, and if I tarnish it, I will have problems.”

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  • Just another example of the "religion of peace" and its uncivilized, savage, barbaristic way of life.

  • wvobiwan

    This isn't anything new, there are 500+ million Islamic women living in bondage, under threat of their lives JUST FOR BEING WOMEN. What's despicable is organizations like NOW's complete silence on the issue, just because opposition would be viewed as supporting a conservative position. Instead, NOW prefers to savage and tear down women who stay home to raise children. The brave Islamic women like Hirsi Ali who buck the system at the threat of their lives have NO support from women's groups in the US and EU, just the opposite. These groups also attack the Ali's of the world, and defend Islam's subjugation of women as 'cultural differences'. If NOW had any credibility to begin with, it'd be a stunning abdication of their charter.

  • The Moslem Brotherhood with help from Obama just took over in Egypt and 40 million women there lost their freedom, they are now chattels to men. Jimmy Carter did the same thing 40 years ago, his meddling gave Iran to the Islamic freaks and the women became slaves subject to death sentences by stoning and the lash. 80 million women and girls lost their freedom because of Democrat Presidents and women still vote for the party that enslaves them, not to smart. Its the history of the Democrat Party even in this country, it was the Democrats that fought for slavery in the Civil War and even now enslave with food stamp handouts for votes.

  • jtrollla

    Can't all you sap-head apologists for unfettered Islam just wait for that to come here? It's coming unless we stop it. Yeah. I know. I'm a racist Islamophobe... blah blah blah...

  • "Chechnya’s government is openly approving of families that kill female relatives who violate their sense of honor"

    No doubt coming soon to our multicultural paradise.

  • Shore101

    Will the next libtard with the "coexist" sticker please go to this country and give them a stern talking to. Obviously they have not received your disapproving lectures or stares. Welcome to the world of sharia law...coming soon to many European countries and Detroit. Maybe Oblameo can have a beer summit with the Miuslim Brotherhood and get it all straightened out.

  • lonborghini

    Welcome to the world of Abrahamic monotheism; islam, judaism, christianity are only minor variations on a particularly toxic form of sky fairy worship. Isn't religion grand!

  • Welcome to lonborghini's politically correct, immoral, non-judgmental, atheist stew pot of moral relativism..

  • lonborghini

    Yes, everyone is welcome. Religion is a curable disease. There is life after faith. We can help.

  • I saw about 50 of those on every prius I saw the last time I was in San Francisco. Usually they had an Obama sticker to go along with it.

  • Yes and chew the fat over some hot dogs. And snakes and tigers.

  • Buypass

    Sharia can be fought. Samuel Colt provided the machine to do so.

  • In MY opinion THAT would be an honor killing!

  • Plumbline

    When will we learn that we cannot live as God would have us live, without the Power of the Holy Spirit. These muslim girls are given laws that are contrary to our sinful nature, and failure to measure up always follows. To condemn them to death is to be a hypocrite, as other family members may break other laws of God. God has made a different way for us to be saved from our sinful nature, with its corruption, not in the letter of the Law, but in the Power of Gods Spirit put within our hearts when we accept Jesus as our saviour.........

    ...........2 Corinthians 3:3-11......

    ............3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.............

    ............THE SPIRIT, NOT THE LETTER.........

    ............4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life............

    ..............GLORY OF THE NEW COVENANT...........

    .........7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. 11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

     

  • lonborghini

    Silence christian infidel! You do not understand your own scriptures.

    "But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst." (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

     

     

  • Robin McWilliams

    Um, that is old testament, not new testament, when Jesus said "let the one among you who has not sinned cast the first stone" and not one could say he was free of sin.

  • lonborghini

    So you're calling Jesus a liar or just ignorant?

    "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5:18)

  • I defy you to look back in the last 25, 50 even 100 years of Jewish history and find even ONE case of a girl being stoned. Islamists practice their vile religious practices TODAY...So why don't you be silent?

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