A hijab-wearing editor of a Muslim website has controversially compared honour killings in Islamic countries with domestic violence in Australia.
Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, the American editor-in-chief of Muslim Girl, told the ABC’s Q&A program people in Western nations often downplayed domestic violence only to criticise the treatment of women in Muslim countries.
‘When you look at countries like Australia and like the United States, the top killer of women is domestic violence but we choose to speak about it like it’s a social issue and of course, often really disregard it,’ she said.
Muslim website editor Amani Al-Khatahtbeh compared honour killings with domestic violence
The American guest on the ABC rolled her eyes when another panellist challenged her ideas
‘But then when it happens in other countries, it’s an honour killing: it’s disgusting, it’s backward, it’s inhumane.’
Responding to a question from a young woman, Emer Sparkes, about the poor treatment of women in Muslim countries, Ms Al-Khatahtbeh said people in the West often looked at them through an ‘inferior lens’.
‘We speak about them like we know what’s best for them,’ she said.
‘That’s how we, in our countries, disempower Muslim women around the world even further.’
Dr Michael Fullilove, the executive director of the Lowy Institute foreign policy think tank, evoked an eye roll from Ms Al-Khatahtbeh when he argued human rights are universal.
‘I do disagree with one point and that is because we have frailties as a society, therefore we shouldn’t be calling out human rights abuses abroad,’ he said.
Lowy Institute boss Michael Fullilove rebuffed the idea Australians shouldn’t call out human rights abuses in Muslim countries
‘The idea that because there’s domestic violence in Australia, we shouldn’t be calling out honour killings abroad.
‘The idea that our society is so hopeless and frail that therefore it’s cultural imperialism to tell other people how to live their lives.’
In Muslim nations, like Pakistan, women are killed by their parents or their brothers for dating a man her family disapproves of.
Muslim migrants have been convicted of this heinous crime in Canada.
Emer Sparkes had asked the Q&A panel about the poor treatment of women in Muslim nations
In 2012, Afghan migrants to Canada Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba and their son Hamed were convicted of murdering three sisters and a woman in 2009.
The murdered teenagers Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, Geeti, 13, were Shafia’s daughters from his second marriage while the murdered woman Rona Amir, 52, was his first wife in a polygamous relationship.
A trial found Shafia disapproved of his daughters having boyfriends and failing to dress modestly, with Rona blamed for leading them astray.
The Nissan Sentra they were travelling in had been run off the road into a canal in eastern Ontario.