Death threat allows Muslim woman to evade deportation

A Jordanian woman living in Michigan is seeking court protection from being deported back to her homeland out of fear that she will be killed as soon as she returns in accordance with Islamic Shariah law.

Her crime?

The woman, who came to the United States on a student visa but has overstayed, got pregnant out of wedlock. Her cousin has vowed to kill her to preserve the family's honor.

The Associated Press reported the story Friday without mentioning Islam or Shariah law, attributing the threatened honor killing to "an ancient practice across the globe that calls for defending a family’s reputation by slaying female relatives who violate traditional taboos."

Three 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges in Cincinnati voted this month to block the deportation of Jordanian native Olga Jad Kamar.

Contrary to what the AP reports, the case is not about violating "traditional taboos," says women's rights advocate Pamela Geller.

"Notice that the people involved are from Jordan. The area that is modern Jordan has been almost completely Islamic for many, many centuries," Geller points out. "If any 'traditional taboos' are there, they are Islamic; there is no Jordanian culture at this point apart from Islam."

According to the court's unanimous ruling, the case record “overwhelmingly supports” Kamar's belief she would be persecuted if returned to Jordan, where she would face an honor killing or involuntary incarceration.

The decision by the Cincinnati-based court sent the case of Kamar, who lives in the Detroit area, back to the Board of Immigration Appeals for further review.

Her attorney, George Mann, called the ruling “a very important step forward not just for our client, but for many similarly situated women. It is a recognition by our courts that these practices are against our values and women who are subjected to what amounts to barbarian practices deserve our protection."

Kamar, born in Lebanon in 1964 but a Jordan-raised citizen, was married and had three sons; she divorced and then became pregnant in 2007 before marrying the father.

The Associated Press attributed the cousin's threat to perform an honor killing to "local tribal traditions."

But honor killing is no “tribal custom," said Robert Spencer, who has authored several books about Islam and edits the blog site Jihad Watch.

"It’s deeply Islamic. Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide," Spencer told WND.

The "Reliance of the Traveler," a manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Cairo-based Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right."

However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, Spencer said, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Geller, founder of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, said the silence of the Muslim world speaks to the overriding power of the religious ideology for an entire culture or country to get behind the savage murder of family members to “cleanse” and “purify” one’s honor and their family’s honor.

"The silence of the Associated Press news report (no mention of Islam) is consistent with their Shariah-complaint policy," Geller told WND in an email.

"It's not just the AP but the Society of Professional Journalists, which has joined forces with CAIR to issue Shariah-complaint guidelines when reporting on honor killing, jihad terror, creed apartheid, gender apartheid and Jew-hatred," Geller said. "This is what we have come to expect from the left – in media, academia, culture – the silence of American and European feminists as dictated by pro-Shariah spox Linda Sarsour and her ilk."

Spencer provided the following updates on honor killings in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders.
"Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now," he said.
Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honor ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’”
In 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

These crimes are becoming more common in the U.S. as more Muslims migrate from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Last year in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, 64-year-old Jordanian immigrant Jamal Mansour killed his daughter in an honor killing. She was 27, single and dating a non-Muslim, thus "dishonoring" her devout Muslim father.
An Arizona jury in 2011 convicted an Iraqi immigrant of second-degree murder for driving over and killing his 20-year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki. Prosecutors said he wanted her to act like a traditional Iraqi woman, but she refused an arranged marriage, went to college and had a boyfriend -- again too Westernized.
An Oakland County, Michigan, medical examiner made the startling announcement earlier this month that Nada Huranieh was killed by her 16-year-old son before she fell from a second-story balcony in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the Detroit News reports.

Dick Manaserri, a spokesman for Sharia Crimestoppers in Michigan, noted that the Jordanian woman may not be safe even in Michigan, judging by the fate of the Muslim woman in Oakland County.

"This is not a domestic violence case," Manasseri said. "It is a more complex case involving multiply family members who allegedly conspired to obey the Shariah honor killing prescription for a woman who has become too Westernized by filing for a divorce from an abusive husband.

"The bigger question is whether or not the American Justice System is ready to deal with Shariah crime here in America," he added. "Are police trained to investigate and indict, prosecutors trained to defeat the defense offered by the Muslim Brotherhood/CAIR, and citizen jurists educated enough to honestly convict?"

Manasseri said Michigan has many budding "Shariahvilles" like Dearborn and Hamtramck where police are not prepared to deal with informal justice meted out by Shariah-compliant Muslim fathers and husbands.

Even female rape victims have been “punished” in honor crimes, because Shariah law maintains that a woman who is raped is the guilty party unless she can produce multiple male witnesses to vouch for her.

"The increased Muslim presence in the U.S. has already led and will continue to lead to more honor killing," Geller said. "The media denial and obfuscation on this is nothing short of criminal, and is condemning many more Muslim girls to death in this way."