News: honor killing, hijacking

[qatarperegrine]

• The Qatari appeals court has just commuted the sentence of a Jordanian teenager who killed his sister in an apparent honor killing. Instead of three years in jail, he now gets a one-year suspended sentence. To my knowledge, Qatar does not officially soften penalties in the case of honor killings, but in practice it seems they are pretty sympathetic to the perpetrator.


• The trial has begun for the apparent attempted hijacking of a Qatar Airways plane last year. I had not previously heard the accused was a former camel jockey, nor that he was at the time applying for asylum in Israel. I hope we hear more in the paper about his asylum request. Since Qatar finally outlawed child jockeys and replaced them with robots shortly after we moved here, I hadn't given much thought to what happened to former jockeys.


• In lighter news: I'm all for imams fighting for the betterment of those in poverty, but must they look so terrifying?

Comments

IT IS A REAL CATCH 22

[(Anonymous)]

BECAUSE according to the sharia - the relatives have the right to forgive and ask for blood money instead . And the relatives do not want to lose one more child -so they forgive .

Re: IT IS A REAL CATCH 22

[qatar.livejournal.com]

So is that just? That he killed his sister in cold blood, and there are no repercussions?

Now I am not a big fan of punitive, retributive justice; I don't believe in "an eye for an eye." But it seems to me that society is sending a very negative message about the value of a woman's life if someone can commit an honor killing and suffer no consequences at all.

Re: IT IS A REAL CATCH 22

[(Anonymous)]

I did not say I am agreed on the practice at all .I am just as horrified as you are .
But the above mentioned system leads to problems of punishment .
in the wikipedia there is an interesting article on honour killing
in jordan it is allowed .

Re: IT IS A REAL CATCH 22

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry it took me so long to respond.

Yes, it did catch my attention that this was a Jordanian family. Why is this so much more acceptable in Jordan than elsewhere, I wonder?