October 22, 2008

Bloody Murder

Is it me, or are murder stories in Jordan becoming more and more common? Everytime I open the newspaper there seems to be a new murder in the headlines, each one more violent and shocking than the next. 

So I took a look at the archives, and over the last 10 days the following took place: 

  • A 61-year old shot his 17-year-old daughter to death in an "honor crime" in Al Balqa. Upon questioning, the father said his daughter allegedly confessed to having consensual sexual relations. A source said he saw the victim's family members congratulating each other after the murder.
  • A 44-year-old man murdered his married 42-year-old sister by strangling her with a "dishdasheh" (the traditional robe), in yet another so-called "honor crime". The victim, who has been living alone for the past 5 years because her husband is in prison, was murdered because "she would often leave the house without her family's approval". The victim became the 15th person killed for an honor crime since the beginning of the year. You think we'll be able to reach our yearly average of 20? 2 more months to go!

  • A body of a man in his thirties was found stabbed in the King Abdullah Gardens. The suspect, who confessed, reportedly killed his friend over 200 JDs. 

  • The body of a newborn baby was found attached to a tree in Wadi Il Seer. I don't know what to say about this one. This is just beyond despicable and sick.
  • A chopped up body turned up in Marka in Amman. The police apprehended the suspect, an Egyptian worker for the victim in his factory, who killed his boss for refusing to give him a raise, and them disassembled the body into four parts to facilitate moving it.
  • A man was sentenced for 10 years in prison for poisoning his neighbor unintentionally. The man wanted to kill his father by poisoning his tea, but a number of neighbors happened to drop by and drink the tee. Ah the irony.

Not to mention the multitudes of car accidents and hit-and-run accidents which seem to have become everyday news by now. Are we becoming a more violent society?



5 comments:

Unknown said...

we live in a paradox. We encourage violence, and then get appalled when someone is killed.

When someone is encouraged to do the small crimes, they will not be hesitant to do much more eventually.

depressing!

Anonymous said...

It's sad really, but consider this
If you lived in Los Angeles for one month you would think, Jordan is heaven!

But in all truth, it's quite sad, the only positive thing I see from all of this is that the voices and the stories are coming out instead of swiped under the carpet

Anonymous said...

http://rumonline.net/viewPost.php?id=10800

Ahmad Hamdan said...

have u ever heard of sin and punishment? if we at least used hald of crime punishment in islam these murders will drop by that and it's not aginst human rights or any thing stupid people says>
when a man steal cut his hands> when a man kill if he is forgiven by the victim family then nothing happens to hime otherwise he is killed

Anonymous said...

ahmad, how would the fact that a family of a victim forgiving the murderer stop him/her from committing the crime again?