Ref: 49/2009

 

Date: 13 April 2009

 

Time: 11: 30 GMT

 

4 Persons, Including a Child, Killed in Two New Crimes Related to "Family Honor”

 

This morning, Rihab al-Hazin, from the al-Nussairat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, was murdered by her brother on the pretext of ‘maintaining family honor.’ Last Thursday, three persons, including a child, were murdered for the same reason.

 

At approximately 03:00 on Monday, 13 April 2009, the body of Rihab Ali al-Hazin (28) was brought to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. The body was subsequently referred to the forensic medicine department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Police sources informed the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) that al-Hazin was strangled to death by her 21-year-old brother, who later turned himself in to the police and confessed that he had killed his sister to ‘maintain family honor’.

 

On Thursday, 9 April 2009, three members of the ‘Olaiwa family – including a child – were murdered in Gaza City. The police found three bodies belonging to Sufian ‘Arafat 'Olaiwa, 45, his wife, Miriam al-Majdoub (‘Olaiwa), 30, and his son, Jawhar Sufian ‘Olaiwa, 5, in their houses in al-Shoja’eya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. The victims were shot by several bullets to different parts of their bodies. On the same day, the police arrested three members of the ‘Olaiwa family for questioning. Yousef Abdul Wahab, Chief of the Police Criminal Investigation Bureau in Gaza, told PCHR that the crimes were related to ‘family honor’.

 

PCHR strongly condemns these crimes, which claimed the lives of four civilians and:

 

1)      Expresses concern at the recent resurgence in the number ‘honor killings’ perpetrated in the occupied Palestinian territory. Such crimes are implicitly encouraged by the impunity granted to perpetrators consequent to the imposition of extremely lenient sentences. Most sentences do not exceed 24 months imprisonment.

2)      Demands that so called ‘honor crimes’ be recognized as the crime of murder. They must be dealt with as such. Criminals often use the claim of ‘family honor’ to benefit from reduced sentences.