Murder in the Name of Honor by Rana Husseini Read Free Book Online Page A

many signatures to Parliament, then the issue would have to be debated. This would be the first petition of its kind in the history of the Kingdom – it was not a popular thing to do. People who had tried collecting signatures for petitions before had found themselves harassed by the security forces.
    But we knew if we could show MPs that the people of Jordan wanted change, then maybe, just maybe, they would help to make it happen. We hoped to start a new movement that would bring the government more under control of the people. At least by doing this we would get people involved and interested in how thecountry was being governed – and it would show people that it was possible to make their voices heard.
    We prepared pamphlets that included information and statistics illustrating the problem, and held lectures in public and private institutions to raise people’s awareness about the issue and encouraged them to sign our petition. We created an archive that included everything that was written in the press about honour crimes. Several committee members appeared on TV and radio talk shows.
    Of course, we had to be very clear about which laws we wanted to change. In March, we met and had an animated discussion with Asma Khader in the chair. Asma suggested that we focus our campaign on the cancellation of Article 340, which dealt specifically with adultery, rather than Article 98, which was generally applied to several types of crime, not just so-called honour crimes, and would be much harder to change.
    Article 340 included two clauses of particular interest. One stipulated that ‘he who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery (with a man) and kills, wounds, or injures one or both of them, is exempted from any penalty.’
    The other clause stated: ‘He who discovers his wife, or one of his female relatives with another in an adulterous situation, and kills, wounds or injures one or both of them, benefits from a reduction in penalty.’
    Article 98 said: ‘Any person who commits a crime in a fit of fury caused by an unlawful and dangerous act on the part of the victim benefits from a reduction in penalty.’
    I was in favour of targeting Article 98 because I knew, from having witnessed dozens of court cases, that it was the one more commonly used in relation to so-called honour crimes. It was Article 98 that allowed the amending of charges of premeditated murder to misdemeanour.
    Khader argued that Article 340, which was a specific article, wasthe better target because it was so specific. Article 98 was general and it would be difficult to make amendments to it since it was applied in many other criminal matters.
    Her opinion was that amending Article 340 would be the first strategic move that would eventually lead to the elimination of all of the laws that discriminated against women in Jordan, including Article 98. When we voted, everyone, with the exception of myself, voted in favour of targeting Article 340. Of course, even though I would have preferred to tackle Article 98 first, I remained a hundred per cent dedicated to our objective.
    We called all of our contacts, including several government officials, to try and obtain the necessary approvals for our activities and put together a press conference. One of our first heavyweight supporters was the late Iyad Qatan, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Information. On 21 August 1999, he wrote to the police, stating that we would be gathering signatures in public places, hotels and government institutes and that we had his support. Qatan was a courageous man; he even helped free some of our petition-signature collectors who were held by the police for questioning, despite behaving properly and legally throughout the campaign.
    Qatan also sent similar notices to the newspapers and the governor to inform them that the Ministry supported our campaign and gave us approval to hold our first press