Murder in the Name of Honor (10 page)

But Majali refused to be cowed, and replied, ‘We have our own customs and traditions and we deputies insist that if an individual surprises his female relative and kills her, he should benefit from a reduction [in penalty].' He also blamed the government for acting hastily on this issue without examining it thoroughly. But he added, ‘We are against any individual who takes the life of a female relative in cold blood on the basis of rumours, suspicion or other hidden motives.'

‘Look outside and you will see the people who oppose this law,' Prince Ali said. ‘We urge you to reconsider. We ask you to take responsibility and make the decision that [will] push our country forward.'

But Majali's response was the same. ‘This is a controversial issue and we have our own customs and traditions.'

‘We are not here to attack anyone,' Prince Ali replied. ‘We have democracy in Jordan, and you are the people's representatives, and you are in an official's position and you should bear this responsibility. We have much faith in you.'

With that, we left and, driving in a convoy of around sixty buses, we headed to the Prime Ministry. By the time we arrived, Prime Minister Abdur-Ra'uf S. Rawabdeh had left the building, so it was down to Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Hmoud to greet us instead.

Ignoring this rather obvious snub, Prince Ghazi told Hmoud that we were there to express our dismay at and condemnation of the rejection of the amendments to Article 340. Prince Ali added that hopefully this would be ‘the beginning of changes to all legislations which have no Arab or Islamic basis and which are hindering the path of progress. We hope that you will face up to these issues.'

Although his reason seemed clear to me, there was a great deal of speculation about why the Prime Minister fled minutes before we arrived. A politician close to the Prime Minister told me that Rawabdeh was never convinced of our cause. He was pressured to pretend to agree with the amendments but that ‘Culturally, he belongs with the MPs.' Others said that he had to be objective about the issue and therefore that was why he refused to meet with us.

The following day, Prince Ali posted a piece in several internet chat rooms to explain what had happened:

Contrary to some opinions, the demonstrations were organized and carried out without governmental or institutional help.

In fact, the prime minister [Abdur-Ra'uf S. Rawabdeh] stood against it. He contacted Jordanian TV and the papers and asked them not to publicize the demonstration. When we moved to the government, the prime minister was supposed to meet us. However, he sneaked out before we arrived.

As for the Muslim Brotherhood, who stood with Article 340, they contacted us and said they wanted to do a counter-demonstration, and we said it was all right for them to come. However, they had no idea of our great number and showed up with only a hundred demonstrators, some of whom filtered into our demonstration and approached the media in order to spread misinformation.

In reality, forces both within the government and Parliament had never intended the bill to pass in the first place … the reason
behind it is not about the article itself but fear that the article will lead to reforms … reforms that would hold them accountable, loosen their grip on power, by allowing people to move creatively and freely to move our country forwards.

It is an old game where Parliament and government oppose each other outwardly to give the image of democracy at the expense of the people and our progress. Meanwhile innocents are murdered and our country remains economically stagnant.

What really irked those forces of negativity is the fact that members of the Hashemite family and the people marched together… since they have been trying to use their institutions to create a barrier between the king and his people, so that they may gain more power, by trying to manipulate the king's decisions the way that suits them.

However, in times past, what kept this kingdom together was the fact that the king and the people rallied together to prevent forces of negativity from taking over the country.
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Some time later, Prince Ali assured me when I interviewed him in August 2006 that he had received the full backing and blessing of King Abdullah to organize the march. ‘Every single member of our family considers this a very important issue because it is against our traditions and religion and is wrong. We are all emotional about this particular issue. King Abdullah is extremely open minded and I told him: “Look, this is an issue and I know this is your government, but is it OK if we make a stand?” He told me to go ahead.'

I asked him what he thought of the deputies' decision. ‘Unfortunately, sometimes people take the easier route. They do not want to step on anyone's toes nor stir things up. This is because they cannot deal with this democracy on the one hand and because of their own fears on the other.'

Prince Ali criticized the government's handling of the matter. ‘It
was not a priority for the government and it brushed it over. This, to me, was very bad especially that the government represents the King and we know very well that the King and the royal family were completely against it. I really thought we could change things in a day; obviously you cannot. The whole culture needs to be changed.'

Prince Ali said that one reason why Prime Minister Rawabdeh refused to face us was that ‘none of the officials actually believed that we would go through with it. When we did, they were surprised and confused. They did not know how to react. I was also surprised that the Prime Minister wasn't there. He was a respected politician.'

One of the main criticisms levelled at us that day had been voiced by Islamist Deputy Abdullah Akayleh, who was quoted in an article written by my colleague Dima Hamdan for
The Jordan Times
in February 2000: ‘I find it strange that people should be grouped for such demonstrations. Tribal leaders did not join the march on their own accord, they were driven to it.'

Prince Ali said that he saw many tribal leaders who were fully aware of and fully supported what we were trying to achieve. One of the reasons for holding the march, he said, was ‘to show that this custom was not a tribal tradition. This is an excuse that has been used by a lot of people before the demonstrations: that this was Jordanian culture.'

I was still buzzing after the march and was still furious that the MPs had refused to listen to the people, to its voters and to the royal family. Something in my gut told me to head over to the Criminal Court, that something would be happening there that day.

I wasn't wrong.

The month before our march, on 4 October, thirty-four-year-old Samir Ayed saw his sister Hanan walking in the street in the company of two men at around 8 a.m. in the town of Zarqa. Apparently, he ‘became enraged', drew a gun and shot her three times in the head. He then calmly sat and smoked a cigarette, gazing at his sister's body while he waited for the police to come and arrest him.

The defence argued that the thirty-two-year-old victim had been divorced twice for her ‘poor conduct' and ‘immoral behaviour'. I arrived at the courthouse just in time to catch the verdict. The court decided to amend the premeditated murder charge to that of a misdemeanour because he committed his crime in a fit of fury to cleanse his honour. He was sentenced to six months in prison. The court ruled that he benefited from Article 98, and not Article 340. This verdict, given on the day of our march, was a clear message from the judges of the Criminal Court to campaigners like me.

Also on the same day, the IAF held a press conference at which they claimed the government had banned them from holding a counter-march to voice their objection to our campaign. They announced that their scholars committee had issued a fatwa [religious decree] calling for the maintenance of Article 340 because ‘it was the last fortress that would protect the morals of our society, and cancelling it was against the Islamic Sharia.'
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The fatwa said: ‘Muslims in this country were surprised by a witty and misleading campaign which was aimed at scrapping Article 340, to destroy our Islamic, social and family values, by stripping men of their humanity when they surprise their wives or female relatives committing adultery, a right that was valued by the Islamic Sharia.'

‘This article does not encourage killings as much as it encourages preserving one's virtue and the honour of the family,' it continued, and also called on Muslims to stop the ‘suspicious campaign' targeting deputies.

The fatwa also questioned what would happen if Article 340 were scrapped. ‘What do they expect from a man who is surprised and saw a man committing adultery with his wife or one of his female relatives? This man should not be angry and instead should control his temper and head to the nearest police station and complain, during which time the crime would have ended and no longer can be proven.'

The fatwa said this was against what God stipulated; that cancelling this article would encourage the spread of fornication and constitute a call to kill religious beliefs and Islamic fervour. ‘Since foreign legislators also valued the fit of fury status for men and male relatives and offered them leniency in such crimes, and they are the ones living in a lewd atmosphere that allows relationships between men and women, then why should we not give the same excuse in our Islamic, Arab and Jordanian society?'

The Jordanian Ifta Department at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, the highest religious authority in the Kingdom – the only body endowed with the authority to issue a fatwa in Jordan – remained silent when the IAF issued its fatwa.

The next day a local newspaper reported on a fatwa issued by the Al-Azhar Ifta Council, which was represented by Sheikh Mohammad Said Tantawi, one of the most respected Ifta institutions in the Sunni Muslim world. They said that no individual has
the right to take the life of a female relative caught committing adultery or found in an adulterous situation: ‘Instead, applying the punishment should be up to the ruler, because if individuals are allowed to take the law into their own hands, then it will create chaos.' The fatwa also said that if an individual stated the reason for his killing, then he would be slandering his victim and would be in violation of the Islamic Sharia which ordered people to keep these issues hidden in order to protect the dignity and honour of families.
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The Jordanian government took three months to respond to the IAF's fatwa. The Legislative Bureau at the Prime Ministry ruled that the issuance of fatwas in Jordan was the sole jurisdiction of the Ifta Council.

During our interview, Prince Ali described the Front as a very well-respected political party with a generally decent agenda in Jordan, but said, ‘They are politicians and nobody has a monopoly on religion, especially if they are politicians. You can agree and disagree with them and they can agree and disagree with you but because they put the word “Islam” at the front of their name this does not mean they represent in any way anything more than any other Muslim, Christian or other religious person in this country.'

Jordanian political analyst Adnan Abu Odeh said the IAF believed that opposing change was a sure-fire vote-winning policy, while former Prime Minster Fayez Tarawneh said, ‘The IAF use certain holy Quranic verses to scare voters into supporting them … The IAF issued a fatwa. They were not supposed to. Fatwas are for the rulers to issue.'

It was clear by now that those who opposed change were a small but powerful minority. A great many events took place and a great many groups spoke out in the wake of the march, including soldiers, politicians and sportspeople. A war veterans association wrote a public letter to King Abdullah, saying, ‘There is no shame in talking about our mistakes and backwardness, but what is a shame
is to cover it up as if nothing is happening. Crimes of honour are only inflicted on women, and with our respect to the opposing opinions, we believe it is time to cancel Article 340.' I couldn't have agreed more with their sentiment and it was such a boost to see this coming from a highly respected body of army officers.

Centrist Al-Ajial from the Generations Political Party also issued a statement condemning Article 340, which they said was used as ‘a pretext for killers to commit all sorts of crimes against innocent women. Justifying a murder that occurred in a fit of fury could not be tolerated by an Arab and Muslim man who was brought up on virtue and preserving his honour, home and religion.'

In an editorial,
Al Rai
sports editor Samir Janakat called on all sports federations to take a ‘positive and active role towards a phenomenon, which, according to statistics, mostly victimizes young females'.

Despite this tide of popular opinion, many deputies remained defiant. The fact that two princes had led the march had irked many of them, and they argued that the royal family should not interfere in Parliament's job. Many MPs cited this as the main reason why they had voted against the bill a second time.

On 23 February 2000, some fifty-five MPs signed a petition calling for Islamic Sharia to govern life in Jordan ‘to rid the nation of the burden of a bloated bureaucracy, favouritism and dereliction the country is presently suffering'. They also made it clear that they believed the royal family should not meddle in politics.

There was a huge and unexpected public outcry against this petition, which caused thirty of the fifty-five signatories to withdraw their names. Suddenly they started to argue among themselves over how the petition had been worded. Clearly they had not expected it to cause such controversy.

Some deputies stated they had changed their minds on reflection or because they had not paid sufficient attention to the text of
the motion. Others said they decided to retract their statement on the motion because it had been ‘misinterpreted' by the media. Still others said they had not read the petition before signing it, and some admitted as Muslims they had been ‘embarrassed', and had felt obliged to sign when MP Mohammad Bani Hani asked for their support.
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