Muslim TV mogul Muzzammil Hassan's alleged beheading of wife maybe honour killing

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Muslim TV mogul Muzzammil Hassan's alleged beheading of wife, Aasiya Hassan, may be 'honor killing'

The gruesome death of Orchard Park resident Aasiya Zubair Hassan — who was found decapitated — and the arrest of her estranged husband are drawing widespread attention, as speculation roils about the role that the couple’s religion may have played.

Muzzammil Hassan, 44, was arrested Thursday and charged with second- degree murder after telling police his wife was dead at the office of their television station in the Village of Orchard Park.

While Muslim leaders have urged against applying cultural stereotypes to the crime, advocates for women linked the killing to attitudes in Muslim societies.

“This was apparently a terroristic version of honor killing, a murder rooted in cultural notions about women’s subordination to men,” said Marcia Pappas, New York State president of the National Organization for Women.

She decried the scant national media attention paid to the story, which broke the same day as the commuter plane crash that killed 50 people in Clarence.

While domestic violence affects all cultures, Muslim women find it harder to break the silence about it because of a stigma, she said.

“Too many Muslim men are using their religious beliefs to justify violence against women,” she said.

After episodes of domestic violence, Aasiya Hassan, 37, filed for divorce Feb. 6 and obtained an order of protection barring her husband from their Orchard Park home, her lawyer, Corey Hogan, said.

She and her husband both worked at Bridges TV, a satellite- distributed news and opinion channel. They launched the station in 2004 in an effort to counter images of Muslim violence and extremism.

Nadia Shahram, a matrimonial lawyer in Williamsville, said that some Muslim men consider divorce a dishonor on their family.

A teacher of family law and Islam at the University at Buffalo Law School, Shahram said that “fanatical” Muslims believe “honor killing” is justified for bringing dishonor on a family.

While it has not been determined whether Aasiya Hassan’s death had anything to do with fanatical beliefs, the community should address the attitudes that make divorce particularly difficult for many Muslim families, Shahram said.

“I have not had one [case] where the husband wanted to settle outside of the court system,” she said.

In some interpretations, the Quran allows husbands to punish “disobedient” women, Shahram said, adding that this is a minority view.

An open community forum on the issue is scheduled from 3 to 6 p. m. Sunday at the UB Law School’s Moot Court on the North Campus in Amherst, she said. Imam Fajri Ansari, the leader of a Buffalo mosque, and other experts on Islam are scheduled to attend, she said.

Orchard Park police Monday continued to investigate last week’s death and remained quiet about its details.

Police believe that Aasiya Hassan died where she was found, in a hallway at the TV station’s offices on Thorn Avenue in the village, Police Chief Andrew Benz said.

The office was released as a crime scene Saturday, he said, but the effort to determine the murder weapon continued.

“We’re looking to make sure we find the weapon,” Benz said, adding that police don’t have a confession.

Muzzammil Hassan is scheduled to appear at a felony hearing in Orchard Park on Wednesday to determine bail.

A Family Court hearing today is expected to address the future of the couple’s two children, a girl age 4 and a boy age 6. Their grandparents, having traveled from Texas and Pakistan, are expected to attend, said John Tregilio, a lawyer for the children.

Muzzammil Hassan also has two older children, ages 17 and 18, who lived with the family on Big Tree Road in Orchard Park. The couple had been married eight years.

Naeem Randhawa, a documentary filmmaker in Dallas who worked with the Hassans, said it was apparent that their television venture was in trouble, but not their marriage.

He characterized Muzzammil Hassan as aggressive in a business sense, with fundraising efforts in the Muslim community that were necessary to keep the station going.

On a personal level, “he was not extremely talkative — he would sit back and listen,” Randhawa said. “He came across not as a passionate guy, [but] more reserved.”

Friends said they remember Aasiya Hassan as a vivacious and intelligent woman. For a time the couple owned a convenience store in Orchard Park where she would work, sometimes with her son.

Muzzammil Hassan graduated magna cum laude with an MBA from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester in 1996, according to biographical information on the TV station’s Web site.

In a 2005 interview with The Buffalo News, he said that the idea for the TV station was sparked two years earlier when the couple heard derogatory remarks about American Muslims on a radio talk show.

Muslim TV mogul Muzzammil Hassan's alleged beheading of wife, Aasiya Hassan, may be 'honor killing'

 

[muse]

Muslim leaders have urged against applying cultural stereotypes to the crime

This is just too good -- no condemnation of the crime, just please don't apply cultural sterotypes -- And these are "leaders"?? Indeed religion is what it's adherents practice.

Wait a minute, the defendant, the great champion of Islam, is from Pakistan? Wow, how different is that?

 

[muse]

In a 2005 interview with The Buffalo News, he said that the idea for the TV station was sparked two years earlier when the couple heard derogatory remarks about American Muslims on a radio talk show

Derogatory remarks? - About Muslims? What is the world coming to?

Why ?? After all, is murder wrong?? How about murder of wayward? is murdering a woman also a problem with non-muslims?? Is it any wonder that heaven will have no room for them.

The non-Muslims are hypocrits, munafiqueen, according to our Islamists - real Islamists will show the way to all the 2nd rate muslims

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Imams Asked to Preach Against Domestic Violence

News of the beheading of an American Muslim woman in a Buffalo suburb last week was immediately overshadowed by news of the plane that crashed near Buffalo the same day killing 50 people. But the murder of 37-year-old Aasiya Zubair Hassan was and continues to be a big story in the American Muslim community, especially amid speculation that it was a domestic "honor killing."

Because of the slaying, a number of Muslim organizations, including the Islamic Society of North America, are calling on imams and other Islamic leaders to speak out against domestic violence in Friday's sermons. It's another example of the continuing willingness of American Muslim leaders to speak out against violence in all forms.

"This is a wake up call to all of us, that violence against women is real and cannot be ignored. It must be addressed collectively by every member of our community," Imam Mohamed Hagmajid Ali, vice president of Islamic Society of North America, wrote this week. "Women who seek divorce from their spouses because of physical abuse should get full support from the community and should not be viewed as someone who has brought shame to herself or her family. The shame is on the person who committed the act of violence or abuse."

The decapitated body of Aasiya Zubair Hassan was found last week at Bridges TV, a Muslim-American television network started by Hassan and her husband Muzzammil, who has been charged in the murder. Police in Orchard Park, N.Y., said officers had responded to domestic incidents involving the couple in the past, and Aasiya Hassan had her husband served with divorce papers a week before her death.

Hassan's attorney dismissed suggestions that religion or culture played a role in the crime, but Marcia Pappas, New York State president of the National Organization for Women, told the Buffalo News that "this was apparently a terroristic version of honor killing, a murder rooted in cultural notions about women's subordination to men."

In an article posted this week on Middle Eastern Forum, professor Phyllis Chesler, who recently conducted a study of 50 "instances of North American honor killings," thinks authorities need to look more closely at the Buffalo case. "When a husband murders a wife or daughter in the United States and Canada, too often law enforcement chalks the matter up to domestic violence. Murder is murder; religion is irrelevant," Chesler wrote.

"Honor killings are, however, distinct from wife battering and child abuse . . . Families that kill for honor will threaten girls and women if they refuse to cover their hair, their faces, or their bodies or act as their family's domestic servant; wear makeup or Western clothing; choose friends from another religion; date; seek to obtain an advanced education; refuse an arranged marriage; seek a divorce from a violent husband; marry against their parents' wishes; or behave in ways that are considered too independent, which might mean anything from driving a car to spending time or living away from home or family."

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women are killed each year for dishonoring their families.

But American Muslim organizations are condemning the killing and stating that Islam forbids such domestic violence as well as honor killings. "The Muslim community unreservedly condemns domestic violence of all types," the Muslim Public Affairs Council said in a statement issued this week. "Such crimes are despicable and unequivocally prohibited in Islam . . . Regretfully, Aasiya has become another statistic in an ever-growing problem of spousal abuse in New York. Islam celebrates and protects human life. Muslims of all shades and opinions know that."

Shahed Amanullah, editor-in-chief of the online newsmagazine altmuslim.com, is among those who are encouraging imams to speak out against domestic violence. "It is essential that we address the problem and take steps to ensure that no one else faces the same tragic fate as Ms. Zubair," Amanullah said.

Contrary to popular belief, American Muslim leaders and organizations continue to speak out against violence and terrorism, both foreign and domestic. The murder of Aasiya Hassan is just the latest example.

Under God: Imams Asked to Preach Against Domestic Violence - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

 

[muse]

Imams are part of the problem - they are the ones who have cooperated in the tribalizing of Muslim societies.