Women and honour crimes: a critical view of the Palestinian media

Samar Shaheen
Likening a woman's honour in Palestine to a match that lights only once was and still is a prevailing way of thinking inherited by son from father across the generations. And since delving into the details of such cases is forbidden to the media, their details remain marked by obscurity, without in-depth journalistic treatment that reveals the truth and helps limit the phenomenon of taking the law into one's own hands and killing a woman on mere suspicion and conjecture. The first of the causes is families' lack of cooperation with these outlets for fear of "scandal", so that the media confine themselves to covering the case as a news item on their inside pages, as a result of a lack of the details that would pave the way for investigating the subject more broadly.
And the family, despite the harshness of what they commit against a woman, consider getting rid of her, even on a mere suspicion in their minds, a washing away of a disgrace that might otherwise have attached to all their women for ever.
The Palestinian media consider, mistakenly, that taking up the cases of women killed on the grounds of honour is a kind of defamation and sensationalism that creates confusion in the street, and they do not try to help find some remedy for a question that was and still is gnawing at the minds of the members of the Palestinian people and causing them to lose many women without right or evidence.
The reality of cases of women killed on the grounds of honour in the media speaks of the journalist's analysis and of his projecting his view of the woman as the criminal, the devil, always the one who incites the crime. As she appears in most coverage, the woman is the cause and the driver of the crime, and therefore deserves the punishment that befalls her. And this is a kind of violence against women adopted by the very media that has long called for her freedom.
It should be noted that the phenomenon of killing women has increased in the last four years and has grown in Palestine with the rise of the phenomenon of lawlessness in the Palestinian territories, after the factions took the law into their own hands in killing those suspected of collaborating with the Israeli occupation, amid the Authority's failure to arrest collaborators.
One can sum up a set of factors that have contributed to the Palestinian media's failure in handling the question of killing women on the grounds of honour, namely:
The family's withholding of many important details in the case, which would place the journalist responsible for preparing the material in the picture of the event and help him to judge, and therefore to draft his material relying on confirmed facts and details.
The lack of cooperation between the security bodies and the media, and the prevailing spirit of defeat among most journalists, who have become used to a particular pattern of coverage, especially that which relies on telephone calls without troubling to search and verify.
The party spirit prevailing in most media outlets is responsible for covering up the mistakes of some of those affiliated to them regarding this matter and for marketing justifications for what they do.
Following the news style in covering such cases, which reports the event as it happened without any role for the journalist or the outlet in directing the matter towards a remedy; in other words, the subject is brought into view merely as information, and the details do not help in taking a position on the case.
Whoever follows the news reports presenting cases of women killed on the grounds of honour sees that the media outlet always lays the blame on the woman; indeed it treats her wrongdoing as a foregone conclusion despite having no evidence.
The absence of community awareness and the distortion of religious awareness in the prevailing culture of society, which criminalises a woman on mere suspicion and does not even observe the restrictions of sharia, has contributed to supporting the media in going down the wrong road in covering the case, sheltering behind the law and behind a society that condemns raising such matters.
It should be noted here that the real problem lies in the judiciary and the courts, and not in the media alone, for if a man learns of his wife's wrongdoing and kills her, he is sentenced to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months, whereas if the woman were the one in that position and killed her husband, she would be sentenced to life imprisonment and perhaps to death. And had the media not agreed with this, it would not have remained silent all this time, and would have called for change and for justice.
The Palestinian media in particular, and the Islamic media in general, take no interest in women's issues as a whole, and if they happen to address a case of a woman killed on the grounds of honour, their whole concern is focused on learning the accusation and on promoting the event only.
After diagnosing the reality of the Palestinian media's "deficient" position towards the killing of women on the grounds of honour without evidence or verification, one may say that the media must abide by the rule: "If we cannot make a victory, we must not make a defeat." This workshop may therefore be considered a step that will not overturn the balance but will play a part in doing so. The required position may be summed up as follows:
What causes great concern is the growing severity of the phenomenon of killing women on the grounds of honour, or killing them on other grounds and attributing it to honour in order to lighten the weight of the legal sentence on the perpetrator. Therefore the law must take a firm position towards this matter, with verification before issuing rulings, to ensure the justice of the punishment that befalls the killer.
The media in their broadcast, visual and written forms are required to support women's causes in general and to help enlighten public opinion about the need to apply the law to everyone, and by the competent bodies, including applying the law in honour cases in particular, and about the need for citizens not to accept the killing of a woman at the hands of her relatives on the basis of suspicion and doubt.
There is a need to hold workshops for young journalists to make them aware of this matter, and a commitment to regular seminars that would push the Palestinian media to find suitable solutions to limit the spread of this phenomenon, and a need for religious awareness among its members in a way that also contributes to this.