An "Honour" Killing That Might Have Been Prevented?

Well, perhaps.

In Australia, the Emergency Response number is 000 (the equivalent of 999 in Great Britain, or 911 in North America).

Well, a judge in a murder trial in Australia has ruled, in effect, that 000 turned out to be a real triple goose egg in the tragic and brutal murder of Marzieh Rahimi at the hands of her cousin/husband.

From the Herald Sun

A JUDGE has slammed a 000 operator's reaction to an Afghan woman who called complaining of domestic violence days before her death.

Soltan Ahmad Azizi, 46, strangled his wife Marzieh Rahimi with her veil after complaining she had become "too Australian''.

Sentencing Azizi to a minimum of 17-and-a-half years behind bars, Justice Betty King said police should have been there for Ms Rahimi after she called 000 for help just days before her death.

Ms Rahimi, a mother of five, was killed in front of the couple's three-month old baby and toddler, 22 months, in their Hampton Park home in November 2007.

"It is most unfortunate that no assistance was forthcoming as a result of a very disappointing reaction by the telephone operator to your wife's inability to speak English in anything other than a broken English manner,'' Justice King said.

Upon a closer rendering of the details of this story, it would appear that the 000 operator was not personally at fault. However, during the time it took to get a translator on the line, the distressed caller from the victim's address had hung up.

Tragically, this story has an all-too-familiar pattern to it:

- a (presumably) loveless arranged marriage between cousins;
- a domineering, controlling and abusive husband;
- a wife cut off from casual and ordinary social contact or interaction;
- a resistance to acculturate and integrate into the broader host society;
- a complaint to family that the wife was becoming "too Australian" (read too westernized);
- the revelation that the wife desired to seek a divorce;
- the symbolic use of the hijab as a weapon for strangulation;
- the call to the police (by the husband) after the killing, saying he was "ready for the handcuffs";
- the predictable "not guilty" plea in court.

The jury, for their part, bought none of the husband's rationalizations in his defense, and returned a guilty verdict.

Prior to sentencing, the judge remarked: "Your treatment of your wife over a period of time was not what would be normally acceptable in this country, but you are not here to be punished for that, you are to be punished for your ultimate treatment of your wife which was that you killed her." Soltan Ahmad Azizi was sentenced to 22 years, with no chance of parole for 17 years.

An Australian Town Re-Instates "Merry Christmas" as Approved Greeting

"Political correctness" most affected.

Parramatta Council, in Sydney's west, has taken down its "season's greetings" banners in favour of posters wishing "Merry Christmas". The move came after the council produced Christmas cards and 50 banners for five years without mentioning Christmas once.

Councillors believe the politically correct banners reflected "a secular view of Christmas" instead of the "traditional Australian view of Christmas".

"Our community is fed up with this erosion of the true meaning and essence of Christmas through this ridiculous pre-emptive surrender of the real Christmas on the basis it may offend someone," councillor Michael McDermott said.

"All we do is offend the great majority of our residents by this politically correct nonsense and watering down of the historically accurate view of Christmas.

Do shed a tear for the misguided useful idiots of Frankfurt School cultural Marxism, and their beloved secular "Seasons Greetings". I'm sure they feel the pain of this backlash against political correctness, a major setback indeed.

A Salami Laikum

Muslim school kids in Sydney, Australia, bullied because of cultural disrespect and Islamophobia. No, wait. Never mind.

Man Arrested for Arson in Connection with the Victoria Bush Fires

The catastrophic bush fires that have cut a swath through the southern Australian state of Victoria have now tragically claimed 181 lives. Authorities warn that the death toll could conceivably reach 300.

Victoria Police have been treating the fires, which quickly spread from bush to towns, as "suspicious" and are working on the assumption that there may be one or more serial arsonists, operating either independently or (worst case scenario) collaboratively. Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, according to The Telegraph (U.K.), "has warned anyone found guilty of deliberately lighting fires in the past week had committed "mass murder" and would attract the strongest punishment."

In what is described as a "breakthrough" in the investigation, officers from task force Phoenix yesterday morning arrested a 39 year-old man (whose identity is being withheld) in Gippsland.

The man was charged with arson causing death, intentionally lighting a bush fire and possession of child pornography. If convicted, he will face a maximum of 25 years in prison for arson. However, arson experts have warned that securing a conviction can be very difficult because any evidence was likely to be incinerated by the fire.

So far, the fires have claimed more than 1800 homes and over 400,000 hectares of land.

The Herald Sun website has a multi-media presentation on the Victoria bush fires at this link. It includes stunning photographs, a site map of the fire zones, a remembrance of the dead, and a tribute to the heroism of the firefighters and other emergency responders.