2023-05-27 14:50:00
The victim, Ragia Al-Akoum, joined the list of victims of marital violence, following she was stabbed and run over by her ex-husband, leaving behind her three children who witnessed a heinous crime in its bitter and cruel details.
In a quick return to the previous crimes, it seems clear that there are common denominators that unite them, the most important of which is revenge on the woman following divorce, and the second is the justification of this crime by the suffering of the perpetrator from mental disorders and diseases.
The horrific crime of which Ragia was killed brings to mind the crime of Mona al-Homsi at the hands of her ex-husband, when he killed her in cold blood with 4 bullets, in the middle of the street. Barely hours had passed since the crime had been committed, before boxed arguments began to appear, the most important of which was that he suffers from mental disorders, while her family confirmed that he was “with full mental faculties, and was monitoring the movement of his ex-wife to know when she would leave her house, following she fled to them as a result of the continuous violence once morest her.”
Today, the scene is repeated and the vulgar scenario is repeated. After Rajia’s ex-husband stabbed and killed her and ran over her with a car, news began to spread that he was suffering from mental illness.
Ratina al-Akoum, the sister of the victim, Rajia, rejects this argument, and assures “An-Nahar” that he is “with full mental faculties, and that whoever suffers from psychological disorders does not run away and search for a way out for what he did. He fled to our abandoned house in the town, and hid there, but the youth of the village They found him and handed him over to the gendarmerie. He is 20 years old, and my sister endured torture, violence, and the threat of death or the killing of her children from him. She stayed with him over the past years, fearing for her children, but she might not bear it any longer, so she decided to divorce. We used to tell her to leave him, but she was afraid of him harming her. Or harming us and her children prevented her from resolving the matter.”
Routineh cries in agony for her murdered sister, and tears betray her all the time, while the wound is still soft and hard, and she repeats with pain, “May God deprive her of her right. She died unjustly. God does not forgive what he did to us and our children.” And it calls for “the imposition of the most severe punishments and his execution at the scene of the crime so that he can be an example to others, who did a lot of heinous deeds.”
Nothing lessens the horror of the tragedy. Rajya died in a gruesome and hurtful way. Her features were distorted, and her children did not know her, so they said, “This is not our mother that we know.” They saw their mother in the worst way. They are in complete shock.
Rajia remained biting her wound for years before she rose up for her life. It was not easy for her, as her sister recounts, to be separated so easily. “He always threatened to kill her children and us. He beat her and her children. He was afraid that something would happen to us because of her, but she mightn’t take it anymore. She got divorced 3 months ago in court, and 3 days ago her divorce was confirmed. He left her with nothing. He sold a house and lands Without knowing where he went with the money, he was stealing it, but she got tired so much, she decided to get divorced to get relief from this nightmare.”
Ragia is one of dozens of women victims who paid the price for this violence with their lives. The crimes monitored by Kafa in 2022 amounted to regarding 18 murders (marital violence), while the number of victims continues to rise since 2023 with new crimes once morest women, especially divorced ones.
Alia Awada, the feminist activist and executive director of the “Feminist Lab – Point”, told “An-Nahar” that “the issue of impunity in the killing of women takes the direction of justification since the abolition of the honor crime in Lebanon. We are witnessing the attempt to resort to methods Others to justify these crimes, and the most important thing is to reduce the punishment for the murderer, who is most often a member of her family (her husband – her ex-husband – her brother – her father).
Awada notes that “in recent years, they have resorted to two main reasons to mitigate the sentence, the first of which is an attack of anger, because one of the articles of the Penal Code provides for the justification of the murder if it was committed during a fit of anger, and thus the sentence is commuted. As for the second reason, it is represented by psychological disorders that have been resorted to frequently in recent times. We remember very well the crime of “Ansar”, in which the mother was killed with her three daughters, as the murderer’s attorneys submitted a request for a psychological examination, and the psychiatrist’s report stated that there was no indication of mental disorders, before the trial was completed.
Attorney Fatima Al-Haj of the “Enough” organization shares the same fears and outlook with the feminist activist Awada. In her opinion, “We know that the aggressor whose behavior is violent, society seeks to justify it under various pretexts, including a “hour of anger” or a “psychological patient”. The reason is that we are in a patriarchal society. Men justify their disciplinary actions.In order to preserve the man’s authority and his disciplinary actions, some resort to considering him a “mentally ill” to justify his violent behavior.When a man resorts to abusing his wife, we legitimize him by saying “his right”, but when he crosses the red lines, and the violence causes her to die or physically harm her in a way Scandalous, then we call it social projections, and we justify according to the principle that the normal man does not behave in this way, and therefore he is mentally ill.
She concludes that “as long as the man has not been held accountable since his first violent behavior, despite the issuance of the Law for the Protection of Women and Family Members, we remain in the position of justifying him under the pretext that he is mentally ill.”
And stresses that as long as “There is a lax law and justice that does not impose the most severe penalties once morest criminals, as the perpetrator will not be subject to a speedy trial, nor will he be held accountable for his act,” she called for “justice to begin from the time the crime occurred through speeding up the trial and not resorting to procrastination to escape punishment.”
In recalling the recent killings, we find that the dead women are divorced, and the killers are their ex-husbands. Alia Awada explains that “Murders following divorce reveal the mentality of some males who try to control women’s lives and everything related to them. Therefore, when a woman makes the decision to divorce and get out of the cycle of violence or the uncomfortable circle in which she lived, and tries to search for her independence and rebuild her life, The man does not accept the issue, and tries to regain his authority, even if it costs him the life of his ex-wife.
Returning to previous judicial rulings once morest battered women victims, we recall well the case of Manal Asi, who reveals, according to Al-Hajj, that “at the time of the prosecution, and as a result of pressure exerted on the family under flimsy pretexts that she was intimidating her husband without any evidence, her family forfeited the personal right.” Trial The criminal court issued a lenient sentence, and tried Manal for her behavior instead of holding the perpetrator accountable. Thanks to the movements and pressure of women’s associations, and since it is a public case, and following a lengthy follow-up, the sentence was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Unfortunately, the killing of women has turned into a general phenomenon, and the numbers are staggering. From December to April, 8 crimes once morest women were recorded. Will these crimes remain permissible, and the blood of women will continue to be shed under a dominant masculine mentality and canned arguments to evade the necessary punishment? And how many victims will fall before the perpetrator is tried for his act with a severe punishment that will be an example to others?
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