Posted on 01/24/2002 2:36:23 PM PST by knighthawk
UPPSALA, Sweden: A Kurdish woman in Sweden who campaigned against so-called "honour killings" has become a victim of the phenomenon, having been shot dead by her father because she had a relationship with a Swedish man, police said on Tuesday.
The slaying late Monday of the 26-year-old woman, known to the public only as Fadime, prompted Swedish Integration Minister Mona Sahlin to say the government was considering changing legislation to help protect immigrant women in similar situations.
"It is very tragic," Uppsala police spokeswoman Lena Larsson said of the killing. The father confessed to the murder, described by police as an "honour killing".
Fadime became a well-known figure in Sweden after bringing a highly publicised court case against both her father and brother in 1998 for threatening to kill her for having a relationship with a Swede rather than marrying a fellow Kurd.
"The only way for the family to regain its honour now that I have spread dishonour over it is to kill me," she said during the trial.
The father was given a suspended sentence and a fine for the threats, while the then 17-year-old brother, whose threats were considered most serious, was sentenced to probation for one year.
Shortly after the trial, Fadime's boyfriend died in a car accident.
Her brother was later sentenced to five months in prison for continuing to abuse Fadime.
Fadime later moved to northern Sweden to pursue sociology studies and travelled around the country speaking about her situation, at times living in hiding from her family.
According to Kurdo Baksi, a Kurd living in Sweden who knew the family well and is often quoted in the media on Kurdish-Swedish relations, Fadime's family was "one of the most conservative families I know of."
"They didn't want their daughters to marry non-Kurds and they wanted control over the women," he told the Swedish news agency TT.
Sahlin said the government was aware of the problem of "honour crimes" in Sweden, and said it had "tried to change the views of police, prosecutors and social workers."
"But we must do more. Change the law, among other things," she told Aftonbladet's online edition.
"My main job right now is to let the voices of these girls be heard," she said.
Kurdish woman activist victim mourned in Sweden
A number of Kurdish refugees living in Finland have expressed fears of a racist backlash to news from Sweden of the death of a 26-year-old Kurdish woman, Fadime Sahindal, who was killed by her father in Uppsala on Monday evening.
Sahindal fell out of favour with her family because she had fallen in love with a Swedish man and rejected her family’s plans for an arranged marriage with another Kurd.
Four years ago Sahindal made headlines in Sweden when she filed criminal charges against her father and brother for making threats and assault.
On Wednesday, many Kurds living in Finland called family shelters in the Helsinki region fearing a racist reaction to the events in Sweden.
Merja Hakala, head of the Helsinki youth shelter maintained by the Red Cross, said that such honour killings are unknown in Finland. She says that young Kurds are sometimes are sometimes disciplined with threats that they may be sent out of the country to be raised by relatives.
"I am sure that this is an isolated incident. This kind of thing does not happen any more frequently in immigrant families than among Finns", Hakala says.
The premeditated murder of family members is indeed quite rare in Finland. However, spontaneous family violence involving years of bottled-up frustrations and heavy alcohol consumption, and culminating in the stabbing or shooting deaths of one or more family members - and the suicide of the perpetrator - is all the more common among native-born Finns.
"There are different kinds of families in the Kurds’ culture. Those for whom religion plays a major role are perhaps more afraid that something will happen to the young people that violates their religion", Hakala says.
A while ago Hakala had to deal with a situation in which the parents of two Kurdish girls had been beaten by their father, who was concerned about the boys they were seeing. All types of corporal punishment are illegal in Finland, but an agreement was reached under which the girls would go back home and live according to the wishes of their father until they are 18 years old.
The number of immigrants seeking help at various shelters increased dramatically throughout the 1990s. In an extreme case, a young person might say that his or her life is threatened at home. Some have been given foster homes. In some communities the men keep the girls under such tight supervision that they are only allowed to go to school and come back home, always wearing a scarf.
In most respects domestic violence among immigrants is not much different from that which involves native Finns.
"Parents are not necessarily proud if they have physically attacked their child. However, from their point of view, that is also a way of caring", says one employee at a shelter.
Karwan Ahmad, a Kurd who has lived in Finland for 15 years, believes that one reason for the tragedy in Sweden was that the father had been humiliated by the fact that his daughter had spoken about her case in public. As a result, the father felt obliged to defend his honour in the eyes of his relatives.
Ahmad says that while getting used to Finnish customs is hard, the winter and the darkness are the most difficult issues. He does not understand how Finnish children can physically attack their teachers at school, or drink alcohol.
Ahmad also says that many Kurds who have moved to Europe try to maintain their traditional way of life by sending their young people to Turkey at the age of 17 or 18 to find someone to marry. "The young person him- or herself can influence the decision", he says. He also says that marriages arranged by older relatives sometimes work, and sometimes they do not.
Ahmad has two daughters, aged 13 and 14. He says that he wants to support them as long as they are underage.
Breathtaking idiocy.
They should have already had laws against murder and those who advocate murder. Of course since it is Sweden they will probably classify this as a misdemeanor.
Israelis make damn good falafel.
I'd say this is Sweden's fault for being insensitive to Kurdish culture and the need for a Kurdish homeland. The remedy in this case is therefore to sentence Sweden to sensitivity training and celebrate the father/murderer as a martyr for the Kurdish cause.
The Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Daily Mail should begin an investigation immediately.
So I guess you will be walking instead of filling up the car at Arco
You realize they are probably mutilated (female circumcision)
True, but Sweden, like other Sandinavian countries, has been looking down its nose at us for decades. Oh, we're such racists and ethnophobes! Striving to set a constructive example for us (and to leaven their dull populations with something a bit more exotic), they have embraced "diversity." The problem is that diversity has now embraced them.
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