In this mailing:
by Uzay Bulut
• April 3, 2016 at 5:00 am
- Professional
criminals convince parents that their daughters are going to a
better life in Turkey. The parents are given 2000-5000 Turkish liras
($700-$1700) as a "bride price" -- an enormous sum for a
poor Syrian family.
- "Girls
between the ages of twelve and sixteen are referred to as
pistachios, those between seventeen and twenty are called cherries,
twenty to twenty-two are apples, and anyone older is a watermelon."
— From a report on Turkey, by End Child Prostitution, Child
Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT).
- Many Muslims
have difficulty with, or even an aversion to, assimilating into the
Western culture. Many seem to have the aim of importing to Europe
the culture of intimidation, rape and abuse from which they fled.
- Although the
desperate victims are their Muslim sisters and brothers, wealthy
Arab states do not take in refugees. The people in this area know
too well that asylum seekers would bring with them problems, both
social and economic. For many Muslim men such as wealthy, aging
Saudis, it is easier to buy Syrian children from Turkey, Syria or
Jordan as cheap sex slaves.
The Human Rights Association of Turkey has received
many complaints of rape, sexual assault and physical violence from Syrian
refugees in camps in Turkey. (Image source: UNHCR)
On International Women's Day, March 8, Turkish news outlets covered
the tragic life and early death of a Syrian child bride.
Last August, in Aleppo, Mafe Zafur, 15, married her cousin Ibrahim
Zafur in an Islamic marriage. The couple moved to Turkey, but the
marriage ended after six months, when her husband abruptly threw out of
their home. With nowhere to sleep, Mafe found shelter with her brother,
19, and another cousin, 14, in an abandoned truck.
On 8 March, Mafe killed herself, reportedly with a shotgun. Her only
possession, found in her pocket, was her handwritten marriage
certificate.
Mafe Zafur is only one of many young Syrians who have been victims
of child marriage. Human rights groups report even greater abuse that
gangs are perpetrating against the approximately three million Syrians
who have fled to Turkey.
by Lawrence A. Franklin
• April 3, 2016 at 4:30 am
- People who
reflexively blame the wrong party for criminal acts are either
misinformed or disingenuous.
- The sad truth
is that in the Palestinian territories, Christians are forced to
live like dhimmis -- second-class citizens who survive
largely by the protection-money they are required to pay to buy
their daily safety. These barely-tolerated citizens exist only at
the whim and pleasure of the ruling Muslim majority. Muslim Arab
discrimination against non-Muslims includes economic and socially
prejudicial behavior that makes it difficult or impossible for
Christian Arabs to run a profitable business or for their families
to be fully integrated into society.
- It is also
appropriate for Catholics to raise with Vatican authorities the
issue of Father Twal's continued representation of the Faith in the
Holy Land: Who is he serving first, God or man?
Father Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
(right), was attacked by rock-throwing Muslim Palestinians on the way to
Bethlehem in December 2015. Israeli soldiers rescued him. Pictured at
left: Muslim Palestinians in the Bethlehem area, among them men dressed
in Santa Claus costumes, hurl stones at Israeli soldiers while yelling
"Allahu Akbar," on Dec. 18, 2015.
No one of good will, especially Catholics, wants to accuse a
prominent member of his faith of being knowingly untruthful. The truth
rarely is found in the Palestinian public narrative. But in case of the
latest repetition of Father Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,
falsely blaming Israel for the ongoing spate of Palestinian violence
against Israeli civilians, it appears certain from his consistent record
of non-nuanced criticism of Israel, that he is motivated by a political
bias.
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