Is this forbidden in Islam?

http://www.warisboring.com/?p=467

“They Burn Themselves”

    Amine … is 16 years old. She was forced to marry at the age of 14 but has many problems with her husband and his family. She doused herself with oil and set herself on fire to protest her unwanted marriage but her father says that she must return to her husband because there is no such thing as divorce in their family. She has burns over 33% of her body. She has vowed to kill herself if forced to go back.

So reports WIB-pal Anne Holmes, aka Vigilante Journalist, from Herat, Afghanistan:

    Many young Afghan girls are forced to marry men who are much older than them. Often they suffer physical, sexual and psychological abuses at the hands of their husbands and/or his family. These young women are also often forced into prostitution by their husbands but rarely admit this publicly because it is too shameful in Afghan society. Setting themselves on fire is a common form of protest or suicide, but there are virtually no social services in place to help these young women out of their situations and accord them their proper rights. Most of them are forced to go back to their unwanted husbands and it is unclear what their fate is thereafter.

It’s not just an Afghan problem. Self-immolation is all too common in many Islamic cultures. I reported on the tragic phenomenon from Iraqi Kurdistan last year for The Village Voice:

    “Here in Kurdistan, there is a lot of violence against Kurdish women,” [radio host Sirwa] Ali says in delicate English. She’s an Iranian Kurd by birth, a swimmer by training, and superbly educated by Iraqi standards, lending a quiet confidence to her words. Asked who is perpetrating this violence, she doesn’t hesitate: “Men, of course. Husbands, brothers, fathers, managers. All men.”

    Abuse drives many Kurdish women to suicide, says Ali. “Here in Kurdistan, most women, when they want to kill themselves, they burn themselves. I don’t know why.”

    Regional assemblywoman Vian Dizyee does. She says that in a society where women have few resources at their disposal, sophisticated methods of suicide are impossible. So women self-immolate using household items like cooking fuel and matches.

Is there any specific punishment for it?

Quote:


Annie just ignore fd's question. When he writes "Is there any specific punishment for it" it usually means he's about to take the incident and add it to his pathetic little anti-Islamic wiki twisting it to something along the lines of "And when the brutal Islamic ideology finds a poor little oppressed girl who attempted suicide to escape a violent and torturous forced marriage to a man 4 times her age, they then further torture her with <insert your answer here> punishment".

Self harm and suicides occur in all societies, Islam is not unique with these sorts of tragedies.
The abuse of women and children and the subsequent cycle of self harm and suicides happens on a massive scale every day in every country across the world and it does not help any of the victims to demonise  one culture, country or religion while ignoring the facts.
These victims are Muslim, Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, Agnostics, Hindus and every other religion, race and culture we have on the Earth.
The sooner the focus is put back on to all of the most vulnerable in our society and these issues are taken off the table as just an excuse to "bash" a Muslim the better off all the victims of abuse from all the corners of the globe will be.

freediver wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 2:46pm:


Why don't you start by tackling the dishes and stand up for an opressed lady next time you're on the bus.

freediver wrote on Jun 27^th, 2010 at 2:58pm:


Well, I'm unsure how criticisim Islam is going to "protect" anyone.

Fd,

You've yet to provide any example in this thread of Islam oppressing women. Therefore using this unfortunate event as a springboard to attack Islam is just not logical at all.

I'm not surprised you'd try it, I am surprised you're still going on about it though.