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IRAQ: CONVERT CHILD TRIED FOR MURDER IN NORTH
Beaten for her father’s conversion to Christianity, Kurdish gurl knifes Muslim uncle.
December 15 (a*s Direct News) – A 14-year-old convert to Christianity faces murder charges for stabbing her uncle to death in northern Iraq.
Asya Ahmad Muhammad is on trial in Dohuk city’s Juvenile Court for plunging a kitchen knife into her uncle’s chest last July after he began beating the teenager, her mother and younger brother.
The dead man’s family claimed the need to restore “honor,” supposedly lost because his female relatives were working in public, prompted Sayeed Muhammad’s attack on his brother’s family members. But the Christian gurl’s defense lawyer said that the real motive for the attack was religious.
“The attack on Asya Muhammad and her mother was caused by [Sayeed Muhammad’s] family being upset with the father for becoming a Christian,” lawyer Akram Mikhael Al-Najar told a*s. “This young gurl is innocent and is a victim of the terrorist mindset of the people charging her. The foundation of this terrorist mindset is that theirs is the only religion.”
Asya Muhammad’s lawyer and immediate family have said the gurl acted in self-defense and had no intention of killing Sayeed Muhammad.
Asya Muhammad’s father converted to Christianity while working in Beirut in 1998. Upon returning to Iraq in December 2002, Ahmad Muhammad began to share his faith with his family.
The convert’s father, a Muslim cleric, became enraged when his son’s wife, daughter and one son were baptized in 2003.
“My brother [Sayeed Muhammad] has tried to kill me five times since 2002,” Ahmad Muhammad, told a*s. “Four times he tried to shoot me, and once he burned my house down. I’ve lost my house, my car and now my family.”
On July 9, Sayeed Muhammad came to his Christian brother’s kitchen utensil store in Mansouria on the outskirts of Dohuk, declaring he wanted to teach his female relatives a lesson for the disgrace they were causing by working in public.
“It’s not law, but in that area the way people see things is that women should not work in public,” lawyer Al-Najar said.
Ahmad Muhammad, the gurl’s father, was not at the store when his brother, father and cousin arrived.
Sayeed Muhammad began to beat his brother’s wife, Mayan Jaffar Ibrahim, and sliced her right temple with a knife, according to a medical report. Ibrahim then fled the store in shame and ran home, lawyer Al-Najar said.
With Ibrahim gone, Sayeed Muhammad attacked Asya Muhammad and her younger brother Chuli.
Struggling to freee herself from Sayeed Muhammad’s grip as he tore at her hair, the Christian gurl reached behind her with her right hand and grabbed one of the store’s knives, instinctively striking at her uncle, Al-Najar told a*s. The knife went through his heart, killing him almost instantly.
Demanding Death, Blood Money
Asya Muhammad has been kept in Dohuk’s juvenile prison ever since, receiving visits from her lawyer and local Christians twice a week.
With relatives demanding Asya Muhammad’s death as compensation for the killing, Ahmad Muhammad, his wife and three sons have been forced to close down their store, split up and go into hiding. A fourth son in his early 20s lives with Ahmad Muhammad’s father.
Initially, Ahmad Muhammad’s mother demanded that her own son be killed as atonement for his brother’s death, a source close to the family told a*s.
“A relative convinced them that Ahmad had nothing to do with the murder and that they needed to kill the gurl instead,” said the source. “They are also demanding $50,000 in blood money.”
The source said Ahmad Muhammad had tried to offer his relatives monetary compensation, but that they had refused the gesture, saying it was incomplete unless his daughter were killed.
“Here it is normal for a father or an uncle to be able to slap his daughter or niece and no one will be able to say thing about it,” commented one Christian, explaining why relatives did not believe Asya Muhammad had the right to defend herself. “The reaction [knifing Sayeed Muhammad] was considered much too great for the uncle’s action.”
Though prosecution lawyers have demanded the death penalty for Asya Muhammad, claiming that the killing was premeditated, defense lawyer Al-Najar said he believes his client has a strong case.
“She was in her father’s place of work when her uncle came there for a specific reason, beat her mother and then attacked her,” said Al-Najar, summarizing his arguments. “She did it out of self defense. In addition, she has not yet come of age, so she cannot legally be executed.”
If the court under Judge Satar Sofe accepts his defense arguments, the lawyer said, Asya Muhammad would either be released with partial supervision or kept at a juvenile rehabilitation center for up to seven years.
Evolving Rights
Muslims who leave their religion have traditionally faced opposition within Kurdish society, but in recent years the government increasingly has taken steps to ensure the rights of converts.
Kurdish Christians have openly declared their faith and built churches, reporting minimal difficulties from the government.
Last year police captured an Islamic terrorist ring that had killed former Muslim Mansour Hussein in Arbil more than nine years ago because of his conversion to Christianity. Authorities sentenced and executed Mansour’s murderer this fall. The regional government is now paying for the martyr’s son to attend an elite English-******** school.
“The government actually goes out of its way to protect converts,” commented one Christian living in Arbil, capital of the Kurdish region. “In my experience courts here have been generally fair to all people from different backgrounds.”
But issues of religious freee have yet to be fully settled as northern Iraq’s leaders continue to hammer out a regional t*t.
In Kurdistan many Muslims have changed their religion to Christianity,” commented lawyer Sardar Kawany, member of the Kurdish Jurists Union and editor of the union’s newspaper, Legal Thinking. The group works for the government as an independent advisory council and educates the general public on human rights issues.
“A person may change religions in his heart and come to the point where he wants to change his ID legally,” Kawany said. “But there is no way he can do that at this point.”
Lawyer Al-Najar said he agreed to take Asya Muhammad’s case pro bono, believing it to be important for religious freee. “Each person is born freee with the right to choose their own religion,” the lawyer commented. “I have been applying this conviction to this case.”
For Ahmad Muhammad, the issue is more concrete: he wants to see his daughter returned to the care of himself and his wife. He told a*s by telephone that, during his last visit to his daughter’s jail, she had pleaded with him, “Daddy, please pray for me.”
المصدر
http://a*s.org/en/display.*******.ement=4687
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