A statement of denunciation and condemnation

I seek refuge in God from the accursed Satan. "And when the girl buried alive is asked, for what sin she was killed."

The Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution denounces and condemns the heinous crime that took place recently in the town of Surif against the girl Aya Baradiya on the grounds of what is called family honour. Whoever committed this monstrous act has cast aside every divine law and every international treaty and convention that has called for women's rights, and killed her merely because she is a woman. This act comes as a translation of some mistaken concepts and customs that people have grown used to following, and which we have tried to reduce, along with their destructive effects, over the past years, only to be shocked by this heinous crime that has shaken Palestinian society as a whole. Let us stand today as governmental and non-governmental organisations and women's activists in a moment of responsibility, and call on everyone, and in particular His Excellency President Abu Mazen, to put an end to these flagrant violations against the human being, as though we were living in the age of the jungle. Proceeding from our concern as a civil society organisation concerned with human rights and with women's rights in particular and with limiting the violence directed at them, we also demand that the harshest penalties be imposed on the perpetrator so that he may be a lesson to whoever takes heed, since the basis of enacting law is general deterrence, so let the deterrence match the crime and let it be a lesson to anyone whose soul tempts him to assault a person and deprive them of their right to live, the right God has given them, and a lesson to anyone who tries to take the law into his own hands away from the state's established institutions. In support of what is right and in demanding the deterrence of these perpetrators, there will be a series of events and activities denouncing and condemning this crime, beginning tomorrow, Wednesday 11/5/2011, with a sit-in in front of the office of the governor of Hebron governorate at exactly ten o'clock in the morning, in cooperation and coordination with the women's frameworks and organisations, the national forces and the rights, union and political activists. The rest of the activities and events will be announced later.

Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution
Palestine, 10/5/2011