Latest Muslim Beheading: Buffalo, New York

In late 2004, VOA News did a piece about American Muslims who were trying to counter the negative perceptions that many Americans have of Islam. One of those highlighted was Muzzammil Hassan.

NARATOR: Muzzammil Hassan came to America from Pakistan 25 years ago. He became a successful banker in Buffalo, New York, near the famed Niagara Falls.

While he and his wife were happy to be in the United States, they were upset by the negative perceptions of Muslims, and particularly how this perception might affect their children.

That is how they came up with the idea of Bridges TV. Mr. Hassan's wife challenged him to start it.

MUZZAMMIL HASSAN, FOUNDER, BRIDGES TV: "I had no background in television. I didn't know anything about TV. Her comment was, 'you have an M.B.A. (masters degree in business) why don't you write a business plan?'"

NARATOR: And so he did. He quit his job at the bank and for the next two to three years worked almost non-stop in developing an English language television network that offers news and entertainment for Muslims.

Mr. Hassan hopes Bridges TV lives up to its name by uniting American Muslims and by helping non-Muslims overcome the negative images they may have of both Muslims and Islam.

MUZZAMMIL HASSAN, FOUNDER, BRIDGES TV: "There should be a Muslim media so that Muslim children growing up in America grow up with the self confidence and high self esteem about their identity both as Americans and as Muslims."

Just over four years later, Hassan came up with a new way to instill self confidence and high self esteem in Muslim children in America; he beheaded his wife at the Bridges TV studios.

Friends expressed shock on Friday that the founder of a Muslim TV channel — which he launched in order to counter violent images of Muslims — has been arrested in his wife’s brutal slaying.

Detectives have charged Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder after his wife was found beheaded Thursday at the offices of the cable channel, Bridges TV, in the Village of Orchard Park.

The victim was identified as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37.

Well, I definitely have no idea how we could possibly see Muslims, even the normal seeming moderate Muslims that we interact with daily, as capable of such monstrous actions as terrorists. I mean, you'd never see some upstanding member of the Muslim community here in America resorting to any sort of honor killing; certainly never going so far as a beheading.

Oops! You aren't seeing any major coverage of this in the MSM, though. Funny how that part works. Here is an honor killing in which a prominent Muslim beheads his wife, and the article has been relegated to a section of the news websites that is available only to those who type the appropriate words into a search engine. Bias by omission on the part of the MSM.

Islam is not peaceful, and I don't believe that it is anywhere near compatible with Western culture. Unfortunately for us, many in the West have decided to commit cultural suicide.

UPDATE 16 FEB 2009 Of course, the day after I post something that says must really dig find this, I am checking the headlines during lunch and find that FOX News does have a piece up about this prominently on their main page now. ABC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC still do not have it anywhere on their main pages, however. Screen capture from FOX News below.

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An Attempted Honor Killing In Western New York

Waheed Allah Mohammad, a 22 year-old Afghan refugee, has pled guilty to assault and attempted murder in the stabbing of his sister in a suburb of Rochester, NY. He'll be getting 5 to 15 years with his plea agreement.

During his plea before Monroe County Court Judge John J. Connell, Mohammad said he intended to kill his sister, Fauzia A. Mohammad, 19, when he stabbed her multiple times outside his family's apartment on Linhome Drive in Henrietta. The attack occurred when a female friend of Fauzia Mohammad picked her up at the apartment to take her to New York City, where she intended to start a new life.

During a heated dispute involving several family members, Mohammad got a knife from his car, chased his sister and stabbed her.

Mohammad told sheriff's investigators that his sister was a "bad Muslim girl" because she wore immodest clothes and went to clubs, according to court documents.

There was a reason that Mohammed left Afghanistan behind to come to America as a refugee. When an immigrant leaves his homeland behind because it is a bad place to live, then that immigrant had best not bring that crap culture into our country when he comes running for a better life. Since good ol' Waheed has tracked the Islamic stain on our nation's carpet, I say that he should be sent back to Afghanistan immediately following his prison sentence.

I am absolutely fed-up with people coming here to get away from the misery of their homeland, and then bringing that misery to our country instead of assimilating to our American culture and way of life. If you want to come to America, accept our culture and way of doing things, speak our language, and make a positive contribution to our country, then welcome aboard! If you want to come here to save your own sorry tail because you're not the biggest, baddest dog in your little part of the world, but you otherwise expect that upon your arrival here that we Americans should accommodate you by allowing you to keep speaking the language and living the culture of the trash-heap that you just fled, then get the hell out right now!

Simple little equation: Mohammed and his ilk must assimilate to our culture, or they must leave. End of story.

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January Murders Now Called "Honor Killings" By The FBI

The January murders of Amina and Sarah Said in Irving, Texas are finally being called "honor killings" by the FBI. Do you want to guess who isn't pleased with that?

Almost a year after two teenage girls were found dead — allegedly executed by their father — in the back seat of a taxicab in Texas, the FBI is saying for the first time that the case may have been an "honor killing" — and the bureau is angering Muslim groups by calling it that.

Sarah Said, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were killed on New Year's Day, but for nine months authorities deflected questions about whether their father — the prime suspect and the subject of a nationwide manhunt — may have targeted them because of a perceived slight upon his honor. [...]

"As far as we're concerned, until the motive is proven in a court of law, this is [just] a homicide," Mustafaa Carroll, the executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Dallas, told FOXNews.com.

He said he worries that terms like "honor killing" may stigmatize the Islamic community. "We (Muslims) don’t have the market on jealous husbands ... or domestic violence," Carroll said.

Look, Mustafaa, what ends up stigmatizing the Islamic community is when organizations like CAIR have mouthpieces like you coming out to try to play word games and claim Islamophobia, instead of actually speaking out vociferously against honor killings that occur within your community. Nobody said that Muslims have cornered the market on jealous husbands or domestic violence. The fact that Mustafaa conveniently skips over, however, is that places in which honor killings continue to occur with some frequently (and often with a pass granted to the murderers) are places in which the vast majority of the population are members of the Islamic community.

The United Nations reports that family members kill more than 5,000 women and girls around the world each year in so-called honor killings. It is the punishment often meted out to women suspected of unsanctioned sexual behavior and believed to have brought shame on the family. Honor killings are most prevalent in strictly traditional societies in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. But they also occur in the West.

Source

And what of the communities in which honor killings occur in the West? Well, let's look at the Baitul Salaam shelter in Atlanta, Georgia for more on that.

Within our community we are still struggling with the issue of domestic abuse," says Hadayai Majeed, who runs the Baitul Salaam shelter in Atlanta, which caters to Muslim women.

She says women and girls who come to the shelter sometimes have been physically punished for what their fathers, husbands and brothers believe is behavior that dishonors the family.

Dating a non-Muslim or not wearing a traditional head scarf can trigger a beating.

"This can be interpreted as being extremely rebellious or be an excuse for abuse," Majeed says.

Not only is this behavior culturally accepted in many Islamic countries, but it is encouraged. Last year a prominent Saudi cleric went on television to tell Muslim men how to properly beat their wives.

Whether or not Mustafaa likes it, this is a problem for the Islamic community. And the longer that organizations like CAIR try to play the victim while attempting hush-up these dirty, little secrets, the more people will look at the Islamic community with a skeptical, and even accusatory, eye.

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An "Honor Killing" In Georgia

Mohammedan father, unwilling to accept the new culture that he chose to live in, has his daughter sent back to Pakistan to be married, and then kills her when she wants out the arranged marriage. From FOX News:

The 25-year-old victim, Sandeela Kanwal, was wed in Pakistan in an arranged marriage. Police said Kanwal hadn't seen her husband, who lives in Chicago, for months.

According to police, there was "friction between father and victim" in the weeks leading up to the killing. Rashid had not spoken to his daughter in more than two months.

Police said Rashid was so angered that his daughter planned to divorce her husband that he killed her after a heated argument at the family's home, FOX News affiliate MyFoxAtlanta reported.

Too bad that Sandeela didn't go to the Baitul Salaam shelter.

"Within our community we are still struggling with the issue of domestic abuse," says Hadayai Majeed, who runs the Baitul Salaam shelter in Atlanta, which caters to Muslim women.

She says women and girls who come to the shelter sometimes have been physically punished for what their fathers, husbands and brothers believe is behavior that dishonors the family.

Dating a non-Muslim or not wearing a traditional head scarf can trigger a beating.

"This can be interpreted as being extremely rebellious or be an excuse for abuse," Majeed says.

Not only is this behavior culturally accepted in many Islamic countries, but it is encouraged. Last year a prominent Saudi cleric went on television to tell Muslim men how to properly beat their wives.

Sandeela Kanwal was murdered by her father for an alleged affront to family honor, much like Amina and Sarah Said were in January. The saddest part is, she will not likely be the last.

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Possible Honor Killing In Atlanta?

All of the details are not available on the shooting in Atlanta this morning that has left the shooter and three others dead, and two people seriously injured.

Police have identified the suspected shooter as Abdulaziz Ibrahim, male. Victims deceased at the scene were identified as Hana Yusef, 27; "Luna", a female in her early twenties; and Mohmmed Ibrahim, 29.

A three-year-old boy, Amir Abdulhakim, is reportedly critical but in stable condition. Yusef Ibrahim, 27, was also reported in stable condition.

Police are currently saying that they do not know what the shooter's motive was, but they do believe that all of the victims were related. I usually don't jump on these things this early, but I'm wondering if this might be an honor killing.

I'll update this, or create another post, as more information comes in.

UPDATE 23 JULY 2007 15:25
According to the article linked to above, which has been updated since this post was published, Luna is a 24 year-old woman named Luna Tesfaye. Also, there appears to have been another person who was in the house but not harmed.

Police said they were interviewing both a teenage girl who was in the house during the shooting but was unharmed, and Abdulaziz Ibrahim's wife, who had left home shortly before the 7 a.m. shootings.

I haven't seen anything more than that, though. If more information comes in, I'll update or post again.

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