unpublished letter to the Jordan Times
I wrote the following letter to the Jordan Times but to date it has not been published. T
I was shocked to read an article by Rana Husseini about a husband acquitted of murdering his wife. I find it hard to believe that the three judges in their verdict said 'The victim had an argument with her husband and he beat her up, which is something normal between married people and part of known marital problems.' If the wife tried to escape from her husband after he beat her up and she jumped out of the window surely he should be charged with manslaughter? Or at the least face a charge of physical abuse? Are these judges living in the dark ages? After all the work that has been done over the past few years to bring family protection to the fore, we now have three judges saying that a husband beating his wife is 'normal' behaviour. Shame on you three. I cannot dispute the verdict as the judges may have been correct in their judgement but I certainly condemn their reasoning and thoughts about marital behaviour.
I was shocked to read an article by Rana Husseini about a husband acquitted of murdering his wife. I find it hard to believe that the three judges in their verdict said 'The victim had an argument with her husband and he beat her up, which is something normal between married people and part of known marital problems.' If the wife tried to escape from her husband after he beat her up and she jumped out of the window surely he should be charged with manslaughter? Or at the least face a charge of physical abuse? Are these judges living in the dark ages? After all the work that has been done over the past few years to bring family protection to the fore, we now have three judges saying that a husband beating his wife is 'normal' behaviour. Shame on you three. I cannot dispute the verdict as the judges may have been correct in their judgement but I certainly condemn their reasoning and thoughts about marital behaviour.
posted by joladies at Thursday, May 24, 2007
3 Comments:
Well said, T. It was an outrageous statement to make, God help us if these kind represent the Jordanian legal system.
Hope that letter gets printed.
What a shame on those judges! a husbad beating his wife is a normal behaviour!?!?! Where are they living? Maybe someone should beat them up and say it is normal just to see how they would react!
Sorry Jo Ladies, Kinzi and Fadi, but you all seem to have a rosy picture of our judicial system...The system, is still controlled by a gang of judges and lawyers, who all come from the same background; big clan behind them, an education that hasn't exceeded the borders of Jordan, and full support from their clans and the police system. So making such blatant verdicts, sounds all too tempting for them. The public isn't even allowed to learn about the verdict, or attend any of the trials, and when I say the public, I also mean the press. So they are only willing to publicize these verdicts when they are ready to.
You can't protest the verdict, or write about it, because you won't be granted the information unless after the case is closed and the verdict has been reached. The system is maintained through a gang of lawyers that all know each other, and that come from this traditional Jordanian background, that still believes that women are a possession, and not human beings.
So there you have it. They say that you can judge a country by its press, and its judges. Well, there is no progress in Jordan, if the legal system is still controlled by clans.
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