Our Friends the Jordanians

Sandmonkey alerted me to some of the human rights abuses of our allies the Jordanians. Should we ignore such abuses because King Abdullah II is cooperating with Bush in the war on terror? We do so in Putin’s Russia, in Prince Abdullah’s Saudi Arabia, in Karimov’s Uzbekistan, and in Mubarak’s Egypt. Let us focus on Jordan.

Mohammed Abed, a 22-year-old Jordanian, shot and killed his 19-year-old sister Hanan in what he told the court last January was a "fit of fury". Her crime? "Going out to eat with another man, and receiving gifts and money from him." Abed was jailed for six months.

Yasmine Abdullah, 20, was shot four times in the chest by her brother, Sirhan, last March after she reported having been raped by a family member. Although the victim of the rape, she too had tarnished the family "honor". Sirhan spent six months in prison.

Between 25 and 30 Jordanian woman a year are reported murdered by relatives claiming they were protecting their family "honor" after suspicions of improper behavior.

Well King Abdullah II is on top of this. In 2001 he passed a temporary bill imposing harsher penalties for honor killings. But parliament voted to dissolve the bill. Jordanian MPs argue that more lenient punishments will violate religious traditions and damage the fabric of Jordan's conservative society, where men have the final say.

A friend of mine recently asked me that rather than condemning radical Islamist wouldn’t it be more productive to find out why they feel the need to attack us? I told him that they are against Democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and equal rights for women. They object to our culture which in the Wahabist version of Islam is Kufr .