14 Year Old Girl Lashed To Death After Being Raped By Cousin

[wautd]

Islamic Law at it again

The High Court yesterday ordered district officials in Shariatpur to explain why they failed to protect 14-year-old rape victim Hena from being whipped to death as per a fatwa on Monday.

The deputy commissioner, the superintendent of police of Shariatpur and the thana nirbahi officer of Naria upazila -- where the incident took place--will have to report to the HC in 15 days how it happened although the court (HC) had eight months ago declared fatwa illegal and a punishable offence.

In a suo moto rule, the HC directed them also to report what steps they have taken in this regard.

An HC bench comprised of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain issued the rule following press reports on the killing of Hena.

The reports said Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes.

Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.

Supreme Court lawyer Seema Zahur yesterday placed before the HC bench a press report on the incident on behalf of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association.

Meanwhile, another HC bench yesterday directed the law enforcement agencies to submit a report to it within three weeks on what steps have been taken following this incident in the light of its judgement on extra-judicial punishment.

The bench comprised of Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder also ordered the information ministry to run a media campaign to create awareness among people against extra-judicial punishment.

The bench headed by Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain on July 8 last year delivered the verdict declaring illegal all kinds of extra-judicial punishment including those in the name of fatwa at local arbitrations.

Following three writ petitions, the court directed the authorities concerned to take punitive action against people involved in enforcing fatwa against women.

It also observed that infliction of brutal punishment including caning, whipping and beating at local salish [arbitration] by persons devoid of judicial authority constitutes violation of the constitutional rights.

Barristers Rabia Bhuiyan, Sara Hossain and Mahbub Shafique, and advocate KM Hafizul Alam, lawyers for the writ petitioners, yesterday placed the judgement to the bench following the incident involving Hena.

Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), a human rights watchdog, expressed deep concern and shock yesterday at the killing of teenage rape victim Hena.

It demanded punitive action against those who enforced fatwa concerning her.

The ASK called upon the government to take effective steps to stop recurrence of such incidents

Needless to say, the rapist got away with it (based on another article, he was convicted to 200 lashes but he only got a few before he escaped).

[Thanas]

Despicable.

[Akhlut]

While it is horrific that crimes of such enormity took place (both the rape and the lashing to death of the victim), I am heartened to hear that Bangladesh is trying to rid itself of this style of "justice" and that it is attempting to curtail Shariah. I hope they make significant inroads and prevent something like this from happening again.

[dragon]

At least it sounds like some of the supreme court judges are trying to stop this, but the lunnies in the out lying area just keep mutipling. Almost like rednecks and hill bills All jokes aside being lashed to death not a good way to go.

[Themightytom]

At least it sounds like some of the supreme court judges are trying to stop this, but the lunnies in the out lying area just keep mutipling. Almost like rednecks and hill bills All jokes aside being lashed to death not a good way to go.

After being raped by your uncle? I'm not even willing to imagine WORSE ways to go. Poor girl, at least she's not suffering.

[Sela]

For any interested, the origin of this Fatwah probably takes its root in the Qur'an; surah 24, verse 2:

024.002 The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication,- flog each of them with a hundred stripes: Let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment.

However, this Fatwah demonstrates a stunning lack of both modern adaptation (which is what Shariah is all about) as well as knowledge of the classic Shariah law. Per classic Shariah law, rape is classified under the umbrella of "Hiraba", which has more to do with public disruption/terrorism (Murder, Destruction/Theft of property, Destruction of Agriculture, etc.) rather than the sexual crimes umbrella of "Fahishah" which includes the adultery and fornication route. As such, the penalty of lashings listed in the Qur'an is non-applicable in this case and is improper to apply as rape differs from consensual adultery/fornication. Further, the actual manner and method of dealing with rape is actually discussed in authentic Islamic sources:

Book 38 (The book of "Hudud"[Rulings/Legal Limits]), Number 4366:
Narrated Wa'il ibn Hujr:

When a woman went out in the time of the Prophet (PBUH) for prayer, a man attacked her and overpowered (raped) her.
She shouted and he went off, and when a man came by, she said: That (man) did such and such to me. And when a company of the Emigrants came by, she said: That man did such and such to me. They went and seized the man whom they thought had had intercourse with her and brought him to her.
She said: Yes, this is he. Then they brought him to the Apostle of Allah (PBUH).
When he (the Prophet) was about to pass sentence, the man who (actually) had assaulted her stood up and said: Apostle of Allah, I am the man who did it to her.
He (the Prophet) said to her: Go away, for Allah has forgiven you. But he told the man some good words (AbuDawud said: meaning the man who was seized), and of the man who had had intercourse with her, he said: Stone him to death.
He also said: He has repented to such an extent that if the people of Medina had repented similarly, it would have been accepted from them.

While Hadith by Muslims are considered a sort of "lower canon" than Qur'an, there is zero contradiction here. The hadith shows a few very key points:
1.) That the Prophet did NOT demand 4 witnesses or any corroborating evidence to the woman's story beyond the mere fact that the rape had occurred and her ID of the rapist. The fact that she had it wrong actually lends even mroe weight to the idea that her testimony was NOT to be disputed.
2.) No repentance was accepted from the rapist to forestall the stoning. . . an oddity when you see just how frequently the prophet withheld stoning in cases of adultery and how loathe he was to actually administer it.
3.) The community as a whole hastened to subdue and punish the rapist rather than giving up and letting him go. . . much less with mere lashing.
4.) The victim is not penalized at all. Period. The rapist is. There remains a question why the Prophet said "you are forgiven". The way I read this, it means that she's forgiven for having ID'd the wrong man; but it is just as possible that she's considered guilty of some degree of the sexual crime. . . and forgiven. Or perhaps it's a religious convention I'm not familiar with and shouldn't be judging. The bottom line is the same no matter how you read it though: No penalty or punishment for rape victims.


I bring this all up mostly to inform. Nobody here (obviously) needs Islamic religious edicts to tell them this was wrong. But I feel like it's important to know that even from WITHIN Islam; and even within 700-year-old classic Islamic Shariah, this is actually wrong.

[evilsoup]

Sela, would you recommend any particular translation of the Quran?

[Korto]

I'm afraid it seems likely to be just another example of the girl being blamed for being raped because "she seduced him into it" and that she was a slut and he was an innocent victim. She probably "made it up".
This is not unique to any religion, culture or law system (although I wont argue that some cultures seems more prone to it than others).
I remember an older example of a Swedish girl being basically hounded out of her own community for the crime of being raped.
The fact it's Sharia they're using to justify their acts is unimportant. Once hollowed out and selectively read, any set of laws will do.

[Sela]

It depends what you're using it for, to be 100% honest. The thing is - most Muslims consider only the actual arabic text to be at all authoritative, any translation is viewed as being just someone's opinion on what the words say. And then there's all the different ways people interpret the given words which is why you find suicide bombers, gay muslims, orthodox muslims, and "modern liberal" muslims all quoting the same book despite it containing no "p & !p" style contradictions.

If you're reading to get an idea what it probably means, the standard Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation or the Shakir (sp?) translation are both fairly solid. In particular, Yusuf Ali adds a (totally non-authoritative) set of 'footnotes' that often do a great job elucidating his understanding of the text at each point.

If, on the other hand, you're reading the translation for debate/evidence sake, then the ideal place will be the USC-MSA compendium website thingy (google it). It puts 3 mainstream translation for each verse side by side. So that way you get the gist of the message regardless which one is actually closest in-context. Just realize that it's totally possible to miss the meaning of a specific word, the contextual meaning, the literal meaning, etc. if you only focus on the post-translated arabic word. The 3-translation method, while not foolproof, makes it less likely that this will become a problem.


The only translation that I'd actively caution you not to read is the one that's being mass-produced by the Saudi government, as they really put a very pernicious political twist on it whenever possible. I'm not 100% sure what this is called or whom they credit as the translator though. It's honestly quite entertaining at times to see just how desperately they edit it. Like in the first Surah where Muslims are told to ask God not to make them like people "who have earned God's anger or gone astray", the words "(jews)" and "(christians)" are added. !

[Sarevok]

Some info

1) Bangladesh never had anything resembling shariah law since dissolution of Moghul empire. The region had been using a British type legal systems since the Colonial days up to the present.

2) This incident has nothing to do with the Islamic political parties in Bangladesh. They have got bigger fish to fry - like surviving ! Believe it or not there is considerable domestic movement to ban religion based political parties.

Bangladesh is not Turkey, but we are probably the most secular muslim country in the world without requiring military force to keep us that way.

3) Women have problems here, serious problems. But they relate to things like domestic violence or workplace inequality. This is a sad fact of life in a poor country.

4) People enforcing shariah happen like this

- consider a very remote rural village
- something bad happens
- no police around
- you go to local authority figure
- who may be a mullah
- he decides to use shariah law to arbitrate.

This is what happened here. This is a case of vigilantism as oppoesed to country is becoming Afghanistan.

[Shroom Man 777]

It is horrible (or am I horrible for thinking) that what you just said is actually relieving, Sarevokerritch?

[someone_else]

I'm afraid it seems likely to be just another example of the girl being blamed for being raped because "she seduced him into it" and that she was a slut and he was an innocent victim. She probably "made it up".

Ah, this reminds me of some people I know that firmly believe very short skirts (and by extension the women using them) are the only responsible of most rape crimes.