Monday, August 17, 2009

For the love of god...

How do you define honor killing?

Or is there really honor in killing?

Upon my random researches in the net, I chanced upon this article about the horrible incident occurred 2 years ago, where a 17-year old Kudish girl was stoned to death because she did something that is prohibited in their religion.

She got married to a Muslim man and she was eventually converted to her husband’s religion.

She ran away yet she decided to go home – and that decision led her to a pit of merciless punishment.

The Yazidi or Yezidi is Kudish ethnicity where most of the people reside at Mosul, Northern Iraq and there are also traditional communities in Syria, Armenia, and Turkey. Their religious beliefs differ from Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. For them, too much contact with non-Yazidis a form of polluting their humanity. So if you’re a Yazidi, getting married with someone who was baptized under a different religion is definitely a grave offense.

According to this site, killing women for honor, shame, and religion really happens in Kurdistan and Iraq. Indeed there are issues when violence against women was used as a political and religious weapon. I once wrote a blog about the women who were being raped outside the camp.

Honor killings are usually part of practices that some religions groups observe. In Middle East, this is quite rampant since they are firm when it comes to marriage. There are reports that these honor killings are sometimes ordered – resulting to “honor suicides” (which technically touches a foul play since some people "pressure" a person to commit such just to avoid penalties).

I don’t know if I conclude things right but religion sometimes becomes the root of unnecessary practices that do not respect human rights. I am not pertaining to the Yazidi alone because I suppose it is wrong to generalize these people. And I suppose, if someone would consider this statement as an accusation, well this accusation is not only applicable in their country but to different countries around the globe as well. Here in the Philippines, I heard stories about a certain religion where in they murder preachers from a group that opposes their teachings. The murderers weren’t caught, apparently because they are influential that even politicians woo them for support in their campaigns.

So, is killing considered honorable when you do it because of disobedience to the god you worship?

What kind of god allows his people to violate the right to live?

Does this god refuse to send a plague to punish the people’s defiance and he just uses his followers as a channel to castigate the offenders instead?

Doesn’t he know how to forgive?

Questioning other religions’ beliefs would be a long battle and nobody has the right to judge their faith.

But we have the intellect and freewill isn’t? So we can evaluate and choose what is right or wrong.

Now, to assess if religion poisons a person’s notion is up to our own judgment.

And to gauge and follow the credo inspired by the gods is our choice.

Video: Here

1 comment:

Unknown said...

subra naman...

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