helena frith powell

  • Lifestyle
  • Women
  • Beauty
  • France
  • Contact

Pure evil

21st July 2007 by Helena 5 Comments  

Yesterday Banaz Mahmod’s father and uncle were jailed for life for her “honour” killing. It emerged that not only was the poor girl garrotted and buried in a suitcase, but that she was subjected to a two-hours of rape and torture beforehand.

Her uncle supervised as male members of the family sexually degraded her, beat her and stamped on her neck when the wire used to strangle her proved ineffective. Even after all that it took over half an hour for her soul and life to leave her body according to one of the participants in this orgy of violence and cruelty.

Reading this story my first reaction was one of anger. Fury actually. What kind of culture teaches men to treat women like this? And then call it honour?

Then I started to think about punishment. What can the punishment be for such a heinous act? The uncle and father (pictured) are going to serve twenty-odd years in prison. In my view that’s too good for them. There they will be fed, have a roof over their heads and sent to a doctor should they fall ill. They will live better than many of their Kurdish counterparts do in Iraq and elsewhere in the world.

Is the death penalty the answer? Ideologically I am opposed to it, but in this case….No, even that’s too good for them. So what can one do? In some societies a thief has his hand cut off for stealing an apple. What happens to a father who has organsied the gang rape, torture and brutal murder of his daughter I wonder? Probably not much.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Women, blog -->

5 thoughts on Pure evil

  • Alex says:
    21st July 2007 at 10:33 am

    I’m with you on this one Helena – I am so happy to see that the authorities in the UK are now facing up to their responsibilities and going after these killers. It has taken way too long and given the liberal PC bullshit that has been pervasive in the UK it is great to see that just because they have a different skin colour and different culture, the PC crap no longer disuades them from doing their job.
    I won’t even go in to the whole culture gap, driven by mass immigration of ‘stoneage’ cultures – I am just happy to see that justice has prevailed in this case. The trouble is there are so many more, as other killers hide behind a wall of silence that their communities still avail them – shame on them all.

  • snusmormor says:
    22nd July 2007 at 10:58 am

    I agree this is evil. Remember though that the only valid punishment is the one we give ourselves. If we don’t have a conscience i e a moral sense of right and wrong, we cannot be classified as human beings and it does not matter what other people say or do. Justice is nowadays a very fluid consept. Cash for honours is a good example. We all know they have done wrong but since it cannot be proven it is as if nothing wrong has happened.

  • Jacqueline Bucar says:
    23rd July 2007 at 6:05 pm

    Not only do I agree with you on this but I can think of a suitable punishment a la your hand cut off for roberry example. There is an analagous part of the body to cut off for such a heinous rape! Did the others who participated get sentenced as well? I don’t remember if it was on American TV or French TV5 that I saw a report that a newly created shelter for domestic violence to protect women from honor killings was created in Gaza. It’s behind steel fences/gates and there are armed guards there but women are getting help and learning how to cope and survive as well. England might well take a lesson from them given this horrendous case.

  • Suze says:
    14th August 2007 at 12:31 am

    I agree, that story just broke my heart. I don’t understand how one could do that to another living thing….much less a family member, a young person who had their whole life ahead of them.

    If you hav not read it, I recomend Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer – it deals with this topic (different faith, similar morality or lack thereof)

    These stories are just too horrible – this was a truly evil act. There is no way to punish such people…they regarded killing her…much like one would squash an ant underfoot. They are not human to my mind.

  • replica watches says:
    28th March 2010 at 5:41 pm

    watches for salereplica RadoTag Heuer replicareplica omegaA.Lange & Sohne replicareplica RolexIWC replicareplica Jaquet droz

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

© 2021 Helena Frith Powell
Website by Web Inclusion
/* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:3em; -webkit-transition: all 0.8s; -moz-transition: all 0.8s; -ms-transition: all 0.8s; -o-transition: all 0.8s; transition: all 0.8s; margin-top:-100%; padding-top:100px; padding-bottom:50px; margin:0; } .scrolled .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:1.2em; padding-top:30px; padding-bottom:20px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .HFPA-section{ width:100%; background:#eee; } .HFPA-Image{ background-position:center right; background-repeat:no-repeat; height:276px; width:100%; -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); /* Safari 6.0 - 9.0 */ filter: grayscale(100%); } .HFPA-Text{ padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .footIt{ background:#222; padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */