Sudan, No Longer Terroristic But Still Genocidal

BLUF

Sudan has been a sponsor of state terror for many years. It is also guilty of conducting genocide against its own people in the Darfur region. After years of rapes, slaughters, conflagrations against the tribes in Darfur the janjaweed are reported to continue their reign of terror with the support of the Syrian government, al-Bashir. Basjir is indicted for war crimes and wanted for trial at the International Criminal Courts, but he has yet to be arrested. Coming off of the terror list is going to allow Sudan to buy U.S. weapons. Guess who else is in Sudan. If you said Iran, you are right.

Entitled “Preliminary report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Southern Kordofan from 5 to 30 June 2011”, the new report underscored the gravity of the acts committed by Sudan’s army and its allied paramilitary forces in the region.

Obama wants to remove an indicted criminal’s country from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terror, thus opening a possible (troublesome and expensive) route for oil to come out of South Sudan. In turn, allowing the violent government of Indicted Criminal al-Bashir the opportunity to buy US weapons and restricted technology while sitting at the table with Iran.

BACKGROUND

Presence on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list bars a country from receiving U.S. arms exports, controls sales of items with military and civilian applications, limits U.S. aid and requires Washington to vote against loans to the country from international financial institutions. This is certainly a good list of reasons as to why Bashir would awant to come off the list.

Clinton has started the paperwork to remove Sudan from The List. The president will have to approve the recommendation. He has already stated, not in so many words, that he is going to approve it, after having opposed it in 2008 when Bush tried to remove Sudan from the list. Obama called it “reckless and cynical” then. The whole sale slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the Darfur region and having Iran in the Sudanese room does not now amount to reckless?

The janjaweed, a tribe of marauding horsemen, are of Arab origin. The word itself is Arabic for devils on horseback. One survivor of their atrocities has described his escape

“Burnt and soaking wet, I ran into the woods and climbed a tree. I stayed there all day. From my perch, I could see the Janjaweed and the Sudanese military killing people. Young boys, they beheaded immediately. Girls they killed and dumped in the river. Pregnant women had their bellies cut open with machetes and their breasts slashed.”

Reports of rape in order to breed Arab children in the black African Darfur region have also been reported.

A new UN report has reiterated claims that human rights abuses allegedly committed during the conflict in Sudan’s state of South Kordofan may amount to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” and must therefore be fully investigated.

Entitled “Preliminary report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Southern Kordofan from 5 to 30 June 2011”, the new report underscored the gravity of the acts committed by Sudan’s army and its allied paramilitary forces in the region.

“If substantiated [the actions] could amount to crimes against humanity, or war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be sought,” the report said.

This account was reported by El-Fadel Arbab. Mr. Arbab, you blame al-Bashir for those acts that happened and still continue today. When they happen tomorrow, will the world blame Obama? They will blame the U.S. when the attrocities are committed with Western weapons

UNMIS, whose mandate was terminated by Khartoum on 9 July, recommended the establishment of a commission of inquiry or other appropriate investigative authority, including the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the violence in Southern Kordofan and violations of human rights and humanitarian laws and to identify the perpetrators or those who bear the greatest responsibility, with the view to bringing them to justice. The UN Mission there was just visciously attacked not more than two weeks ago!

The ICC is already seeking to prosecute Sudanese individuals thought to bear the greater responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide it alleges were committed in the course of Sudan’s brutal counterinsurgency in the western region of Darfur, especially between 2003 and 2004.

The Hague-based court has issued arrests warrants for three Sudanese individuals, including the country’s President Omer Al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir denies any wrongdoing and denigrates the ICC as a tool of a Western conspiracy to dismantle his regime.The current governor of South Kordofan Ahmed Haroun is also wanted by the Hague tribunal.

The Security Council expresses grave concern about the ongoing violence and rapidly deteriorating situation in Abyei since the Council addressed the issue in its May

The Security Council strongly condemns the Government of Sudan’s taking and continued maintenance of military control over the Abyei Area and the resulting displacement of tens of thousands of residents of Abyei. The Council calls on the Sudanese Armed Forces to ensure an immediate halt to all looting, burning, and illegal resettlement.

The Security Council condemns the fact that two of the three main supply routes from the North to the South have been blocked,

Albashir Utilizes Forces from Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Nuba Mountains
July 27, 2011

Albashir regime in Khartoum has sought military support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to fight against civilians in South Kordofan.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100811/sudan-darfur-genocide-bashir

http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-slams-repetitive-UN-reports,39849

http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2011/165152.htm

http://www.sudantribune.com/US-decision-to-drop-Sudan-from,39869

Obama Administration Links Sudan’s Removal From Terror-Sponsor List to Non-Terror-Related Issue

Tuesday, February 08, 2011 By Patrick Goodenough

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration has started the process of removing Sudan from the shrinking list of countries designated as state-sponsors of terrorism, linking the move directly to Khartoum’s full implementation of a peace agreement that ended the long civil war between the north and south.

Following the finalization of a referendum on independence for southern Sudan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday the process of delisting Khartoum would now begin with the initiation of a review.

In line with statutory requirements, the president will have to certify to Congress that Sudan has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period. A 45-day notice period is required.

Sudan also will have to provide assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future.

But apart from those legal criteria for any country to be taken off the terror-sponsor list, President Obama last November also tied the move to an issue unrelated to support for international terrorism – Sudan’s compliance with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the long and brutal civil war between the Islamist-ruled, mostly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south.

Both the president and Clinton on Monday reiterated that linkage.

“For those who meet all of their [CPA] obligations, there is a path to greater prosperity and normal relations with the United States, including examining Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said in a statement.

For her part, Clinton said that in order to be taken off the list, Sudan must both meet the legal requirements relating to international terrorism and fully implement the CPA, including reaching a political solution with the south on the future of the disputed oil-rich Abyei region.

The Jan. 9 referendum on possible secession of the south was a key element of the CPA. According to official results released Monday more than 98 percent of ballots cast were in favor of independence.

Linking removal from the terror-sponsor list with issues not related to international terrorism has been controversial in the past.

When in 2008 the Bush administration was reported to be considering offering to remove Khartoum from the list in exchange for regime concessions on the Darfur conflict raging at the time, then presidential candidate Sen. Obama called the move “reckless and cynical.”

“[N]o country should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism for any reason other than the existence of verifiable proof that the government in question does not support terrorist organizations,” Obama made that statement in April 2008.

Asked at a briefing Monday what the referendum had to do with not sponsoring terrorism, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley replied, “In our dialogue with the government of Sudan, where Sudan has made clear it wants more normal relations with the United States, this is one of the issues that is an issue between our two countries.”

“And we’ve indicated that going forward we are willing to work to resolve this – with the caveat again that there are particular legal requirements that have to be satisfied before this action could be taken,” he added.

When the Bush administration removed Libya and North Korea from the list, in 2006 and 2008 respectively, in both cases the decision was tied in part to the regimes’ undertakings on their weapons of mass destruction programs.

Given concerns about proliferation to terrorist groups, however, the WMD issue was seen as directly related to international terrorism.

(North Korea’s subsequent reneging on its denuclearization undertakings, nuclear and missile tests and aggression towards South Korea, brought calls in Congress and elsewhere 2010 for it to be returned to the list.)

Terror haven

Countries designated as terror-sponsors are subject to economic sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales, restrictions on exports of “dual-use” items, and prohibitions on economic assistance. The U.S. also opposes loans by international financial institutions to listed countries.

Eight countries have a various times been on the list since it was established in 1979, with Sudan the most recent addition, in August 1993.

Today’s list comprises Sudan, Syria (added in 1979), Cuba (1982) and Iran (1984). Countries previously on the list were South Yemen (1979-1990), Libya (1979-2006) and North Korea (1986-2008.) Iraq was listed from 1979-1982, redesignated in 1990 after the invasion of Kuwait, and again removed after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Sudan was added to the list four years after President Omar Al-Bashir came to power in a military coup, and a year after Sudan began hosting al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden, who had been expelled by his native Saudi Arabia, used Sudan as his base of operations until 1996, and then returned to Afghanistan. A U.S. federal court in 2007 found that Sudan’s active support for al-Qaeda during the 1990s had been critical in enabling the terror network to develop the expertise and resources to bomb the USS Cole in Yemen’s Aden port in 2000, an attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

The same year as the terror-sponsor designation, 1993, the U.S. downgraded its embassy in Khartoum. It was closed entirely in 1996 “due to concerns regarding the Sudanese government’s ability to adequately ensure the safety of U.S. officials.”

After al-Qaeda bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the U.S. bombed a factory in Khartoum, claiming it was being used to manufacture chemical weapons and was linked to bin Laden. Sudan denied the claims.

Relations began to improve slowly after 9/11. In 2002 the U.S. Embassy was reopened, although no ambassador has been posted and the mission is headed by a charge d’affaires.

U.S. economic, trade, and financial sanctions which were imposed in 1997 remain in place. Additional sanctions were introduced by President Bush in 2007 in response to the Darfur conflict, targeting Sudanese who were implicated in Darfur violence as well as companies owned or controlled by the regime.

Arms to Hamas

Since 9/11, the U.S. government has reported Sudanese cooperation in the campaign against terrorism.

In its most recent annual terrorism report, released last August, the State Department said “the bilateral counterterrorism relationship remains solid.”

But it also noted that members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and “al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist elements” remained in the country during the period under review.

In one of the classified U.S. government cables released by Wikileaks late last year, the State Department in January 2009 raised concern about deliveries of Iranian-supplied arms to Sudan, destined for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It instructed the embassy in Khartoum to ask the Sudanese government to stop the flights, pointing out that Iranian arms exports are prohibited under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Six months later another State Department cable referred to a “a significant volume of arms shipments to Hamas” crossing the Red Sea from Yemen into Sudan, from where they were believed to be transported north by vehicle.

Iranian Islamists Come Help Sudan Slaughter

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Faith

What are we going to do about this?
Are we going to allow the Nuba people to be exterminated?

Press release
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement( SPLM)
Southern Kordofan/ Nuba Mountains

Albashir Utilizes Forces from Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Nuba Mountains
July 27, 2011

After militarily defeats on the ground and big numbers of Sudan Army Force (SAF) joining Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the Albashir regime in Khartoum has sought military support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to fight against civilians in South Kordofan.

SPLM’s sources yesterday monitored the arrival of 200 officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, accompanied with 10 advanced tanks to Kassala airport in Eastern Sudan. High security measures were on place by the time the Iranian Guards arrived to the airport. Kassala airport has previously witnessed the arrival of some Somali’s Islamic militia who was seen heading to South Kordofan two weeks ago.

In the light of this development the SPLM South Kordofan is now certain that the NCP regime is utilizing and deploying militias from outside the country in their ethnic cleansing war. In addition to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that are heading to the area, the regime has already brought the militia of Peter Gadet from South Sudan, Somali’s fundamentalist groups and Janjweed militias from Niger and Chad.

The SPLM in South Kordofan condemns and denounces such irresponsible practices which will put the conflict in the area in a dangerous phase by deploying terrorist groups against the people of South Kordofan. The SPLM, once again, call upon the United Nation Security Council to form an international committee of inquiry to investigate crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and in particular to investigate the military deployment of these exported militias of terrorist groups.

The Struggle Continues.
Gamer Delman
Media adviser to SPLM South Kordofan
July 27, 2011

http://freesouthsudanmediacenter.com/2011/07/28/iranian-islamists-come-help-sudan-slaughter/#comment-1050

UNPotence

I am reposting this older one due to the UNGA this week and the UN's 70th birthday. I posted a quick comment with Politico at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64026.html 

Now 70 years old the United Nations is showing the signs of aging. Hearing, sight, and memory are all fading for this organization. Its leadership becoming weaker as time goes on and formation of cancerous voting blocs within now hold sway.

Human Rights Watch wrote "far from condemning repression, Ban sometimes went out of his way to portray oppressive governments in a positive light". China, Burma, Sri Lanka have benefited from Mr Ban's lax hand.

The UN is midwife to the world's newest country, South Sudan. Why should anyone worry about the fledgling state of South Sudan? Since 2003 the UN has been trying to broker peace in Sudan and South Sudan. They have been impotent against the marauding janjaweed, an Arabic term that means devils on horseback. The border between Eritrea and Ethiopia is still not settled after the UN stood on it for nearly a decade.

Leadership of the UN seems to match the age of the organization, unable to do anything but condemn what it sees from its front window and remaining silent, or blindly unaware, of the crimes going on in its alley ways and back yard. The UN Police have proven to be an easily corruptible force in the Balkans. One by one, I saw and heard about, these police selected by the UN go into hotels and dance halls. One by one, these police would get pictures of themselves having sex with underage prostitutes and other victims of human trafficking. One by one, they turned mute and blind to the crimes around them.

UN Peacekeepers have been involved in rape, torture, and extortion themselves. How can such criminality exist in one organization unless the leadership is willfully looking away?

With the most powerful voting bloc in the UN being Islamic, what else is going on that the power base in the UN would want us to not see? Creeping Sharia has listed some eye opening incidents, in summary;

Categorized by theme, the rest of July’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians includes (but is not limited to) the following:
Attacks on Churches

• Egypt: Muslims angered by the installation of a church bell—under Sharia, churches must not offend Muslims by ringing bells—went on a violent spree, attacking among others a 5-month pregnant Christian woman and others who were “beaten with iron rods and pipes.”
• Indonesia: Christians were forced out of a church building and hounded even as they tried to worship at the side of the road.
• Nigeria: Two churches were bombed simultaneously; at least three Christians died, several were injured.
• Pakistan: Under accusations of “blasphemy,” and with the help of a local politician, Muslims attempted to annex a Christian hospital established in 1922 by missionaries.
• Tanzania: Muslims burned down two churches to cries of “away with the church—we do not want infidels to spoil our community,” and vows not to befriend “infidels.”

Sexual Abuse of Christian Women and Misogyny:

• Egypt: Muslims “severely sexually harassed” a Christian woman in front of her husband at a bus terminal; when her husband tried to defend her honor, he was violently beaten.  Soon afterwards, thousands of Muslims in the region began looting and torching Christian property, screaming “Allahu Akbar!” and “cursing the cross.”  Also, a Muslim ring using sexual coercion to convert Christian girls was exposed.
• Pakistan: Newlyweds run for their lives, because the man is Christian, the woman Muslim.  Under Sharia, the leader of the household, the man, must be Muslim.  Says a Pakistani Muslim scholar: “I condemn this marriage, I call it illegal, these two could be killed for what they did.”

Apostasy and Proselytizing

• Iran: A Christian pastor faces the death penalty for “convert(ing) to Christianity” and “encourag(ing) other Muslims to convert to Christianity.” Even if he is found innocent of apostasy, the charge of evangelizing Muslims will still carry a severe penalty.
• Saudi Arabia: A captured Christian pastor is set to be deported to Muslim Eritrea, where he faces the death penalty.

General Killing of Christians

• Ivory Coast: Muslims crucify two Christian brothers on “the example of Christ” and in accordance to Koran 5:33: “The pair were badly beaten and tortured before being crudely nailed to cross-shaped planks by their hands and feet with steel spikes.”

Another young Christian woman in Pakistan has been abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry her kidnapper. Despite a formal complaint, police did not intervene because the author of the crime is a “respectable businessman”. Local Muslim religious authorities also claim that the woman’s conversion was lega

The local Muslim religious leaders, Maulana Hafeez Aziz for example, praised perpetrators of these crimes against humanity as a 'pious Muslims' and 'true followers of Muhammed' having 'fulfilled Sharia', who had done an act that 'only a true Muslim could do'. Such conversions to Islam' are 'celebrated'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/14/united-nations-leadership-ban-ki-moon

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/12/this-month-in-muslim-persecution-of-christians-july/

www.jihadwatch.org

Hamas and Hezbollah Use Disabled and Amputees as Warriors

From the Vicious Babushka! Why not the crippled? They spent years telling children to go a spray flowers on foreigners.

Hamas and Hezbollah Use Disabled and Amputees as Warriors

Islamic Jihad military wing hold all-in-one PR campaign, military maneuvers – using crippled and injured militants in bid to prove they won't let anything stop them
What PR value is there in a military display that includes crippled and injured operatives? According to the Islamic Jihad's website, the military wing recently held maneuvers in which veteran members of the Jihad who had been injured over the years in battles with Israeli forces had a starring role.
The maneuvers included sights not usually seen on the battlefield, one-legged men carrying Kalashnikov rifles or RPG launchers while leaning on crutches or sitting in wheelchairs.
According to armed factions in Gaza the display is a PR demonstration that strengthens their activities within the Palestinian internal political system.
The Islamic Jihad has puffed up its position against Hamas as the group spearheading the struggle against Israel. The organization has gone all out on a PR campaign to glorify its fighters in the Gaza Strip – the height of the campaign is their latest exhibition maneuver.
"Bombing us and leaving us amputees will not stop the Jihad," the military wing's website quoted one militant, Abu Abdallah who lost both his legs in clashes near Khan Yunis. "We will continue to fight even when our bodies are torn to pieces."
The website quotes another militant, Abed al-Rahman whose leg was cut off in "an IDF strike". "We trust in the Jihad way and we will not change it. There is no alternative to Jihad and resistance, until all Palestinian land is freed from the criminal Zionists," he stressed. According to al-Rahman, even when he was being rushed to hospital after he was injured, he promised himself that he would return to the Jihad path upon his release.

 

Honor Killings

Honour killing: Father kills daughter

HYDERABAD: In yet another suspected case of honour killing, a father forced his daughter to consume pesticide for allegedly falling in love with a person of another caste in the neighbouring Mahabubnagar district.

Though it was alleged that the girl was killed for falling in love, the girl's relatives complained that she was killed as her father and stepmother does not want to bear the burden of performing her marriage.

The incident took place in Vatvarlapally village on the Hyderabad-Srisailam road late Monday night. The 16-year-old girl, Padma, recently completed her SSC.

Her father D Mallaiah was an agriculturalist. Mallaiah was married thrice and the victim is the daughter of his first wife.

According to police, Mallaiah suspected that the girl fell in love with a boy of the same village. “We are yet to ascertain whether the girl was in love with the boy or not,” Amrabad DSP P Karunakar said. Locals, however, alleged that Mallaiah was angry that his daughter fell in love with a boy who does not belong to their caste.

On Monday night, Mallaiah and his wife Tirupatamma forced the girl to consume pesticide in the house.

She died within minutes after consuming the pesticide.

Villagers informed the matter to the girl's relatives who in turn called the police on Tuesday morning.

“The girl's relatives complained that she was killed by her parents as they felt it was a burden to perform her marriage,'' Karunakar said.

Police registered a case and investigations are on

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/honour-killing-father-kills-daughter/174452-60-121.html

Ariz. Honor Killing: Police Worried Family Members Might Have Tried to Attack Daughter Again

In 2009, 20-year-old Noor Al-Maleki was killed after her father, Faleh Al-Maleki, ran her over with his car in Peoria, Ariz. She suffered multiple injuries and went into a coma. She was taken off life support and died less than two weeks later.

Prosecutors said it was an honor killing, because the Iraqi-born young woman who immigrated to the United States had become “too Westernized” and brought shame to the family for eschewing traditional Iraqi values — shunning an arranged marriage and instead living with a boyfriend and his parents.

In February, Faleh was found not guilty of murder in the first degree, but was convicted of murder in the second degree. He is currently serving a 34 1/2 year sentence.

Now, audio records obtained by Fox News show that police believed Noor would be attacked again by family members, even as she lay unconscious in a hospital bed.

In one tape, Peoria police detective Bill Laing refuses to tell Noor’s mother, Seham Al-Maleki, where her daughter was until her father — who at first fled to the United Kingdom before being extradited back — was found. Laing tells Seham that her husband ran over Noor and her friend Amal Khalaf:

“I want to see my daughter!” Seham Al-Maleki screams on the tape.

“Until he [Noor’s father] is located, we are not mentioning where she is at,” responds Laing, who told the mother that witnesses in the parking lot identified her husband as the driver.

“This woman, she is lying, because she is dirty,” Seham says, referring to Noor’s friend Khalaf, who survived being hit by Al-Maleki’s jeep.

“You are a sick person,” Laing snaps.

Mohamed El-Sharkawy of the Arizona Muslim Police Advisory Board told Fox News that authorities worried another family member might try to attack Noor again to be sure she was dead.

“They were afraid that, because he did not succeed, that somebody else, his son or a relative, will go and finish her off,” El-Sharkawy said.

Faleh Al-Maleki was convicted of second-degree murder for his daughter's killing. (Fox News)

Although Faleh was convicted of second-degree murder, because he was acquitted of first-degree murder, prosecutor Laura Reckart told Fox in an interview that she felt she had ultimately “failed” Noor.

“I’m not going to say I respect their verdict,” Reckart said.

During the trial, she played recorded prison phone calls of Faleh talking with his wife, discussing how “an Iraqi without honor is nothing” and even though he was in jail, Noor “is comfortable now” in her grave.

Still, Judge Roland Steinle told Fox he believed it was wrong to classify Noor’s murder as an honor killing:

“I think it sensationalizes what is nothing more than a parent killing a child,” he said.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ariz-honor-killing-police-worried-family-members-might-have-tried-to-attack-daughter-again/

Rape and Mutilation

"Honor Killings" are only part of the issue. Another part of the issue is that these violent acts appear to be more common now in the United States. Whether that is true or just my perception really does not matter. What matters is the silence from Womens Rights groups here. Why have these groups not demanded that our government stop paying the governments where these acts are practiced with impunity?

Rape, mutilation: Pakistan`s tribal justice for women

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous' home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.
Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan's south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.
Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan's remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality.
At the hospital in nearby Multan town, Asma's shocked parents sat quietly by her bedside and struggled to explain what the future holds for their now disfigured daughter.
"I don't know what will happen to her when she leaves here," Asma's father, Ghulam Mustafa, said, in a dilapidated ward heavy with the smell of antiseptic and blood, where other women, doused with acid or kerosene by relatives or fellow villagers, awaiting an equally uncertain future.
Asked if Asma will return to her husband, her father remains silent.
Pakistan is the world's third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (http://link.reuters.com/jet92s)
In its 2010 report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says almost 800 women were victims of "honour killings" -- murders aimed at preserving the honour of male relatives -- and 2,900 women reported raped -- almost eight a day.
The bulk, or almost 2,600, were raped in Punjab alone, Pakistan's most populous province.
And the numbers are rising: media reports say crimes against women have risen 18 percent in the year to May and the human rights commission believes its figures represent only a fraction of the attacks which take place across the country.
Dr. Farzana Bari, director of Gender Studies at Quaid-e-Azam University, says Pakistan's patriarchal society often condones discrimination against women, which is more prevalent among poor and uneducated rural families.
That mindset can often influence the police and judiciary, which sometimes turn a blind eye to honour killings or rapes carried out to "punish" women.
"I think honour killings are a symptom of vigilante justice," she said. "And vigilante justice occurs in an environment where the state is unable to enforce its writ."

TRIBAL JUSTICE
In rural areas, women are often shut out of the justice system, which is compromised by powerful landowners and feudal lords who dominate a hierarchy that makes it difficult -- and deadly -- for those with little education or social standing to speak out.
Families or tribes then often take justice in their own hands, presiding over "jirgas" or "panchayats" -- gatherings of elders that hand down punishments that include rape, killing or barter of women for crimes that include falling in love with a man deemed inappropriate or besmirching family honour.
Some women are maimed just to settle scores.
Members of the panchayat systems say the tradition is hard to shake because it is entrenched in the local culture and also because it is much more efficient than the regular courts.
"In the settled areas there are courts but people can't always get justice or compensation," said lawyer and tribal elder Karim Masoud, who presides over both panchayat settlements and the mainstream court system.
"With the jirgas, they can get compensation, and it takes less time to settle a dispute. It's fairer and people don't have to use bribes to get justice."
Zarmuhamad Afridi, who also attends jirga rulings in Pakistan's northern tribal belt and works within the mainstream court system, said the jirga system survives because in many parts of Pakistan, a man's honour is intrinsically linked to how his wife or daughter behave.
"If a couple is not married and they are having a relationship, a jirga may rule that the woman should be shot," Afridi said. "That is okay for many, because they have to protect family honour."
The slightest transgression by a woman -- being seen talking to a man on the street, perhaps, or having an unknown phone number in a mobile -- can bring harsh punishment and social ostracism of the family, he says, making the quick, harsh judgment of the panchayats popular.
"Women are cherished here," he said. "Men protect them. If a woman is out of her house then what is she doing? That is what people think here."
Many women are unable to speak out because they lack the support and education to understand their rights, activists say.
But even those who dare often get nowhere.
The most high profile instance of a violent ruling by a tribal court against a woman is that of the gang rape of Mukhtaran Mai, which took place near Multan in 2002.
Mai was allegedly attacked to settle a matter of village honor, as decided by a panchayat. She was then paraded naked through her village.
Unlike most rape victims, who face stark recriminations for speaking out, and who are sometimes even expected to commit suicide, she filed a criminal case against 14 men.
Six men were convicted and sentenced to death that year, but in 2005 the Lahore High Court commuted one sentence to life in prison and acquitted the rest.
Pakistan's Supreme Court upheld that decision in April this year, in what rights activists said was a crushing blow to women's and minority rights in Pakistan.
The men were released days later. Mai said she is afraid they will return and kill her.
Ali Dayan Hasan, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch's South Asia division, said the lack of justice for women in cases like such as Mai's is "a structural failing of the criminal justice system".
"The verdict also lays bare the misogyny of Pakistan's judicial system because it is a judiciary that is instinctively unsympathetic to women."
(Editing by Chris Allbritton and Miral Fahmy)