Fathima Rifqa Bary
On July 19, Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17 hopped aboard a bus in Ohio and ran away to Florida. She did so because of the alleged abuse she has suffered at the hands of her father, as well as her fear that he will soon kill her.
Fathima was placed in foster care by the Florida Department of Children and Families, rather than send her back to Ohio with her parents, Judge Daniel Dawson has scheduled a hearing for September 3, at which time a dependency petition will be argued.
In a Youtube video, Fathima explains why she had to run away.
"I'm a Christian, and my parents are Muslim. They are extremely devout. They threatened to kill me. … You guys wouldn't understand. Islam is very different than you guys think. They have to kill me. My blood is now halal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I'm from a Muslim background, it's an honor. If they love God more than me, they have to do this. I'm fighting for my life. ..."
She also described the note she left for her parents: "I said, 'I refuse to deny Jesus. He is my Lord and Savior. I pray you find his forgiveness and mercy, and I love you both dearly.' I wrote that, but they never showed it to the police officers."
As to what finally made her leave the abusive home, Fathima said: "I was threatened by my dad. When my dad found out – I had a Facebook, that's how he found out – and phone calls from the Muslim community started coming in with e-mails that confronted me. And I had a laptop and he took that laptop and waved it in the air, and he was about to beat me with it, and he said, 'If you have this Jesus in your heart, you're dead to me. You're not my daughter.' And I refused to speak but he said, 'I will kill you. Tell me the truth.' In these words, bad words, cuss words. So I knew that I had to get away."
Dr. Phyllis Chesler, an expert on the subject of so-called ‘honor killings,‘ told Fox News: "Anyone who converts from Islam is considered an apostate, and apostasy is a capital crime. If she is returned to her family, if she is lucky, they will isolate her, beat her, threaten her, and if she is not 'presuaded' to return to Islam, they will kill her. They have no choice."
In a chilling statement, Fathima said that she is the first person in 150 generations of her family to accept Jesus…"I am the first one. Imagine the honor in killing me."
Of course, Fathima would not be the first young woman murdered by her Islamic family, the practice known as ‘honor killing’ is accepted by the Muslim world. In fact, it would not even be the first such case to occur in the United States.
In February 2009, in Orchard Park, NY, Muslim television executive Muzzamil Hassan, was arrested and charged with murder, after allegedly beheading his wife Aasiya.
After several incidents of domestic abuse, Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce, and secured an order of protection against her husband. A few days after divorce papers were filed, she was beheaded. Her remains were left in the offices of the television station she and her husband owned, near Buffalo.
Muzzamil Hassan has been held without bail since his arrest, and is currently awaiting trial.
Despite the horrific nature of this crime, Aasiya Hassan’s murder has received very little media attention.
On New Years Day 2008, in Irving, TX, two Muslim girls, Amina Said, 18, and her sister Sarah, 17, were allegedly shot to death by their father Yaser, in an apparent “honor killing.” Amina had been accepted to Texas A&M University, and was planning to become a doctor.
Their father was enraged because the two girls had boyfriends.
Shortly after the murders, the girls’ aunt, Gail Gartrell, told reporters, “This was an honor killing.” She said that Yaser Said had been physically abusing the girls, and upon discovering the pair had boyfriends, he had threatened to kill them. Their mother took the girls and ran. “She ran with them,” said Gartrell, “because she knew he would carry out the threat.”
Yaser Said is still at large.
In 2005, a Kuwaiti man confessed to the murder of his own teen aged daughter, he believed that the girl was having sex. The father, Adnan Enezi, had just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, the day he killed his daughter.
He tied and blindfolded 14-year-old Haifa, then slit her throat. He did this in front of her two brothers and one sister. As it turned out, the girl was in fact still a virgin, as was determined in an autopsy.
In 2003, a Jordanian man was sentenced to one year in prison, for the murder of his own sister. The young woman became pregnant as a result of being raped by a neighbor. Her family then decided that she must marry the rapist. Before the forced marriage could take place, word of the pregnancy spread throughout the community. The woman's brother returned from a trip to slurs and jeers, his male friends were calling him the "brother of a slut."
According to the Jordan Times, the man was so angry with his sister over the fact that she had been raped and impregnated, he slipped into her room at night and strangled her with a telephone cord.
The Jordanian paper published excerpts of the court's rulings. They are as follows: "The victim's actions were an unlawful and dangerous act that brought disgrace and shame to her family. He (the brother) could no longer control himself and became very angry. It does not matter that the defendant killed his sister hours after returning from Aqaba. He was still under the influence of extreme anger, which caused him to lose his ability because of the unlawful act committed by his sister."
The United Nations reports that there are at least 5,000 so-called ‘honor killings’ by Muslim families throughout the world.
Young Christian convert fears her Muslim family will murder her
Young Christian convert fears her Muslim family will murder her
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