Remember the "modern" Muslim woman in NY who was murdered by her very progressive husband because she filed for a divorce?
Muslim TV mogul Muzzammil Hassan's alleged beheading of wife, Aasiya Hassan, may be 'honor killing'
BY FRED O. WILLIAMS
THE BUFFALO NEWS
Tuesday, February 17th 2009, 10:13 AM
Handout Muzzammil Hassan, CEO of Bridges TV, is accused of murdering and beheading his wife, Aasiya.
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The gruesome death of Orchard Parkresident 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 Statepresident 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.
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/02/17/2009-02-17_muslim_tv_mogul_muzzammil_hassans_allege.html#ixzz0riSZS65H
Handout Muzzammil Hassan, CEO of Bridges TV, is accused of murdering and beheading his wife, Aasiya.