Love that can be lethal: Muslim couples in fear of 'honour' killing

(Photo for illustrative purposes only)

By Jerome Taylor
Published: The Independent, 29 June 2007

Rebin and Khaleda never thought falling in love would force them into a life of hiding. At first glance, their London flat looks like the home of any other newlyweds. By the front door, five pairs of his-and-her shoes are lined up in a row and the kitchen fridge is plastered in little heart shaped magnets and private notes.
But for the 25-year-olds, this small and cramped one-bedroom apartment is the only place where they feel safe. Two years ago, they were forced to go on the run after gun-wielding members of Khaleda's family threatened to kill them.
For dozens of couples in the UK, such threats have become all too real. Police are now investigating more than 120 deaths they suspect of being "honour killings". It has been estimated that 12 women a year die in the UK as a result of such terrifying acts.
The supposed "honour" comes from the claim among killers that they are protecting their family's reputation. Yet for those whose only crime was to fall in love there seems little honourable about the threats being made against them.
The full horror of these killings was highlighted earlier this month when the father and uncle of Banaz Mahmod, a Kurdish woman from south London, were convicted of murdering her.
Like Banaz Mahmod, Khaleda fell for someone that members of her family did not approve of. Khaleda was born in the West Midlands to conservative south Asian parents who wanted her to marry a distant cousin from her ancestral village. Instead, she fell for the boy next door.
Their forbidden love first sprang from fleeting glimpses through the kitchen window. "The first time I saw her she instantly grabbed my attention," Rebin, 22, said. "I thought she was the most beautiful person in the world, so calm and innocent."
As a teenager, Rebin had fled Saddam Hussein's persecution of the Kurds and had moved into the West Midlands street Khaleda had grown up on. Eventually, he plucked up the courage to talk to the shy but alluring girl next door.
Desperately in love, the couple were shattered when Khaleda's parents flew her cousin to the UK to organise her marriage to him. As the cousin moved into her room and began the negotiations, Khaleda and Rebin simply eloped and married.
Any notion a compromise could be reached was dispelled when more than 20 of Khaleda's family and relatives arrived at Rebin's father's house brandishing knives, machetes and guns.
Those most keen to kill Khaleda and Rebin were not the older first generation family members who had been born and brought up in south Asia, but her brothers and cousins - young men who had lived their whole lives in the UK. According to the UN, at least 5,000 women a year are killed worldwide by their relatives in such killings. There have been more than 5,000 documented cases in Pakistan in the past five years alone.
Khaleda is mortified that anyone might believe Islam justifies honour killings. "It has nothing to do with Islam," she said. "In the Koran it says a Muslim girl can marry anyone as long as they are also a Muslim and it clearly states she has the right to say no. They make you believe it's justified by religion but it's not, it's cultural. Either way, I think forcing a girl to marry someone they don't love it's like raping your own daughter."
Had it not been for the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, a charity that helped them relocate, Rebin and Khaleda could have ended up like Banaz Mahmod. She had fled an abusive two-year marriage and warned police of the danger she was in. But still she died.
Horrified by the number of killings taking place in Britain, Diana Nammi set up the charity in 2002. "Since we started, we have been able to save at least 50 women's lives," said Ms Nammi, in her east London office. "We have even saved two men." As Rebin knows, men's lives are in danger too. A year after fleeing, Rebin and his wife are safe but the pressures of living in hiding are immense.
The threats have become more severe. One day, Rebin received a phone call from one of Khaleda's cousins.
"He said he was holding a gun to my friend's head and if I didn't send Khaleda back he'd shoot him."
Khaleda is still too scared to leave the house and Rebin, who gets by working 60 hours a week as a driver, says he is always looking over his shoulder.
But they are convinced they did the right thing. "We fell in love," said Rebin. "It's a beautiful thing and we shouldn't be ashamed of it. How any parent can believe love is a shameful thing I will never understand."

ANALYSIS: 'Training is needed to recognise dangers'

By Diana Nammi, founder of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation.

When Khaleda and Rebin came to me last year their story was one I had heard numerous times before. As a Kurdish woman from Iran, I had grown up in a country where women were made victims both by their own family and through their government's perceptions of honour.
In Kurdistan a woman could be killed or executed for simple "crimes" such as wearing make-up, rejecting an arranged marriage, dressing inappropriately, seeking divorce or being in love. Little did I know that when I came to Britain, a place where women's basic rights are supposedly respected and guaranteed, some women would still be at risk of death for bringing "shame" on their families.
In 2002 I set up the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO), a charity that helped Kurdish, Farsi and Arabic-speaking women in London to find the protection they desperately needed. At the time, honour killings were usually treated as nothing more than domestic murders and were simply not dealt with properly. Not wanting to appear culturally insensitive or - worse - racist, the police tended not to realise how much danger some of these women were in.
Then, two months after we set up IKWRO, Heshu Yones was murdered by her own father. A bright and beautiful teenager, Heshu's "crime" was to have fallen in love with a Lebanese boy. Her father, Abdulla, stabbed her 17 times and then slit her throat, all in the name of regaining his "honour". The judge sentenced Abdulla to just 14 years in prison, arguing that the lenient sentence should take into account his cultural background.
Heshu's murder should have forced the police and the Government to confront the fact that honour killings were not just incidences of domestic violence but a deeply serious and organised crime that could not be excused regardless of cultural sensitivities. They promised to learn from her death, increase training for police officers dealing with these crimes and thankfully began re-examining more than 100 murders that may have been honour killings.
But I am yet to be convinced that the police have learnt. Last month, the father and uncle of another Kurdish girl, Banaz Mahmod, were found guilty of her murder. Banaz had gone to the police for help four times but was turned away.
Honour killings do happen in Britain and whether we like it or not we must stop them. Care workers, teachers, GPs, hospitals, welfare officers should all be trained to recognised when someone is in danger of becoming a victim of an honour killing and help them. Rebin and Khaleda were lucky. They have been able to start their lives again. But they will always be looking over their shoulders.
Diana Nammi is the coordinator of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation: 020 7490 0303.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2720096.ece

Born in Korean gulag, punished for no crime

(PHOTOS: Jerome Taylor)

By Jerome Taylor

Published: The Independent, 20 June 2007

For the first 22 years of his life Shin Dong Hyok's home address was Political Prison Camp No 14, Gaechon County, South Pyeongan Province, North Korea.

He grew up in unimaginable hardship in one of North Korea's kwanli-so, the gulag system built by Kim Il Sung in 1972 to work prisoners until they died.

His "crime" was to have been born to parents cate-gorised by the regime as from the "hostile classes" - the 27 per cent of the population considered national enemies, impure elements and reactionaries. Under Kim Jong Il's "three generation" policy, the family members of anyone who commits a political crime are punished alongside the perpetrator, even if they have yet to be born.

Two years ago, Mr Shin did the unthinkable. He escaped from the labour camp of his birth, then from the world's most secretive and repressive state. Now he is trying to rebuild a new life in South Korea. He has never told his story in public before but, as the international community courts the regime of Kim Jong Il in an attempt to wrest nuclear weapons from his grasp, Mr Shin has broken his silence about the estimated 200,000 people held in labour camps.

With no education beyond the simple writing and maths taught in Camp 14's school, Mr Shin speaks slowly and unsteadily, but in concise sentences. "I don't know why I was there," he says. "I was simply born there. I knew nothing of the outside world. I had no complaints; I just accepted my lot."

In 1996, at the age of 14, he was forced to watch the executions of his mother and brother. They had been caught trying to escape. His mother was hanged, and his brother was shot.

Lifting his shirt, Mr Shin reveals a wild and angry scar left by the camp's torturers as they applied hot coals to his back during interrogation after the failed escape. Even the weathered, wrinkled skin above the scar looks like it should belong to someone at least twice his 24 years. The end of the middle finger on his right hand is missing, sliced off as punishment for dropping a sewing machine table.

On 2 January 2005, Mr Shin and a friend were collecting firewood. They noticed that a section of the electrified barbed wire fence surrounding the camp was unguarded and decided to make a run for it. His friend was electrocuted and died instantly but Mr Shin managed to crawl through, suffering horrific leg burns.

For 25 days he walked and hitched his way towards the Chinese border. "I broke into three houses and took what food and money I could find," he says. "Eventually, I came across a group of merchants heading into China and joined them." Despite possessing no papers (political prisoners are not classed as citizens) he got past the border guards by bribing them with cigarettes.

Owing to the secretive nature of the North Korean state, Mr Shin's testimony is almost impossible to verify. But Kim Sang Hun, an activist with a decade's experience of defectors, says he is telling the truth. "Whether he will ever be able to overcome the psychological trauma of what he's been through I don't know," says Mr Kim. The two men met the Tory leader, David Cameron, yesterday and they plan to visit the Foreign Office today.

Rights groups are concerned that the international community is ignoring North Korea's appalling human rights record.
A new Christian Solidarity Worldwide report says abuses in North Korea are so systematic and widespread that they constitute crimes against humanity which individual states and the United Nations have a responsibility to prosecute.

Mr Shin cannot forget those he left behind. "Please don't make me out to be a hero," he says. "I was a coward. In the prisons there were real heroes, people who refused to confess as the guards executed them. There are many more people just like me in there." news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2679480.ece

Tavener's homage to Allah angers Catholics

By Jerome Taylor
Published: The Independent, 16 June 2007

The eclectic religiosity of John Tavener and the beautiful sacred music it has inspired have made him one of Britain's foremost and best-loved composers. But for some of the country's more vocal Roman Catholics, his latest work appears to constitute an ecumenical step too far.
"The Beautiful Names", which sets the 99 sacred names Muslims give to Allah, was commissioned by Prince Charles and has been well-received throughout the Islamic world. Next week Tavener flies off to Istanbul to become only the second non-Turk to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Istanbul International Music Festival.
But the decision to premiere the piece inside Westminster Cathedral has incurred the wrath of some Roman Catholics who are outraged that a Christian place of worship could be used to glorify Islam. Having failed in their bid to have the concert cancelled, some have threatened to protest outside the cathedral on the night of the performance.
The idea behind the piece, which the BBC Symphony Orchestra will play in public for the first time on Tuesday evening, is to bring the names of Allah to a wider audience and help increase inter-faith dialogue and understanding. The one-and- a-half hour piece will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and will feature a horn section, a double choir and a host of somewhat less common symphony instruments (a Tibetan temple bells, a powwow drum).
In the introduction to his score, the 63 year-old Tavener writes, "Perhaps, by doing this in the language of music, one may contribute to an inward healing of the strife that permeates the modern world."
The anger of his fellow Christians appears to have upset Tavener, who has been composing pieces for decades and gained prominence after one of his pieces was played at the close of Princess Diana's funeral.
"This is the most important work that I have ever written," he said. "It is a kind of 'summation' of all that I have tried to do over the past 60 years. If the work contributes towards healing a shattered world, then this is of great importance."
A deeply devout Christian, John Tavener has never shied away from using the world's religions both for personal and musical inspiration. Born a Presbyterian, he converted to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977: he felt eastern Christian faiths were closer to their original roots. Since then he has openly expressed interest in Islam, Sufism and Hinduism and regards himself a follower of the mystic philosopher Frithjof Schuon who preached the unity of all religions. A new piece he is writing, "The Flood of Beauty", draws inspiration from a 9th century Sanskrit text and "shows God in the feminine aspect, as beauty".
Such interests in the world's non-Christian religions have made the composer firm friends with Prince Charles, who has also stated he would like to improve inter-faith dialogue.
To Muslims, the 99 names of Allah are some of the most important and sacred words in existence, the very essence of everything that is perfect about their one true god, Allah.
So crucial are they to the faith that all except one of the chapters of the Quran begin with a phrase that incorporates two of the most well known, Bismillah ir Rahman ir Rahim, which means "in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate". Muslims are encouraged to memorise as many as possible, as the attributes act as guidelines for living.
In the Muslim community itself, Sir John's new work was widely welcomed.
"I have yet to hear the piece but the Quran encourages all Muslims to remember these beautiful attributes," said Sheikh Imam Ibrahim Mogra, a Leicester-based Imam. "They are often put to music because they are so wonderfully emotive. When you hear the words sung it creates a sense of ecstasy, a buzz."
He was delighted that non-Muslims could draw inspiration from the various names of Allah. "Muslims don't have a monopoly on God's name," he said. "God is for everyone."

http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/news/article2663202.ece

Imran Khan to take Pakistani political rival to court in UK

(Photo: BBC)

By Jerome Taylor
Published The Independent: 02 June 2007

Imran Khan, the former Pakistani cricketer, is planning to use the British courts to sue a prominent political opponent who, he claims, was responsible for the violence in Karachi last month that left more than 40 people dead and scores wounded.

Mr Khan, who heads his own political party, Tehreek-i-Insaaf, is flying to the UK today and intends to bring either criminal or civil proceedings against Altaf Hussein, the leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), a party which has the backing of the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Hussein holds British citizenship and runs the MQM from an office on Edgware Road, London. Although one of Pakistan's most prominent politicians, he refuses to lead the party from his home country, arguing that he is at risk of assassination by political rivals if he returns home.
Last night Mr Khan called the MQM "a mafia". "Put simply it is a terrorist organisation. How Mr Blair can allow such terrorist organisations to exist in London while supposedly fighting the war on terror I have no idea."

MQM opponents and human rights groups have accused the MQM of deliberately stirring up the rioting in Karachi last month, which constituted some of the worst and most brutal political violence to hit Pakistan in recent years. MQM has vehemently denied those charges.

If Mr Khan is successful in his bid to launch legal proceedings against a political rival it would be a remarkable twist in the already turbulent world of Pakistani politics. Speaking from his home in Islamabad, Mr Khan said: "I have huge numbers of people who are willing to testify against [Mr Hussein] in a British court."

Last night a spokesman for the MQM dismissed Mr Khan's threats as little more than political grandstanding and vowed to fight any legal proceedings.

"Unfortunately this is dirty Pakistani politics," Tariq Mir, who heads up the MQM's legal team in Britain, said.

"Mr Imran Khan is a one-man band creating an issue for political gain. It's just slinging mud. Our leader Mr Hussein has done nothing against either UK or Pakistani law. If he issues a legal threat we would strongly contest it in court. Short of that we won't take any notice of him."

Over the past 12 months political assassinations and disappearances have become an increasingly grim feature of Pakistani politics and most of the country's political parties have accused each other of carrying them out.

Pakistan is in the midst of a judiciary crisis sparked by President Musharraf's sacking of the country's Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhury. The riots in Karachi began when Mr Chaudhury was banned from holding a rally there on 12 May.

Mr Khan said he was spurred into taking legal action against the MQM after a number of his supporters were fired at during the riots. "Ten of my party members received bullet wounds in Karachi," he said. "That's when I thought I have to take the fight to the UK.

"There is no point going to a court in Pakistan as there is no justice there, as can be seen from the current crisis with the judiciary. That's why I'm having to pursue this in the British courts because [Mr Hussein] is a British citizen."

Mr Khan's supporters plan to hold a rally outside Downing Street tomorrow.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2606394.ece

'Battling begums' warn Bangladesh won't wait for polls

(PHOTO: Jerome Taylor)

Published The Independent: 27 April 2007
By Jerome Taylor

Wearing her familiar rimless spectacles and sipping tea from a china cup, Sheikh Hasina Wazed doesn't immediately live up to her billing as one of Bangladesh's two "battling Begums".
But the fiery, populist leader has the ability to call millions of supporters on to the streets of Dhaka, and it is her bitter hatred of her political rival, Begum Khaleda Zia, that has paralysed her country and allowed the military to step in.
Now those rivalries will have to be put aside for, according to Sheikh Hasina, the army is shutting down democracy in their country and risks turning the world's third largest Muslim nation into a dictatorship similar to Pakistan's.
Speaking during a temporary exile in London, she warned that unless the military-backed caretaker government holds fair elections soon, the patience of the Bangladeshi people could run out.
"At the moment, there is no democracy in Bangladesh at all," she said. "They have gagged the press and have yet to hold elections. I don't know what will happen but the people will not wait forever. Once the people come out on to the street, I don't know how long their patience will last."
Her remarks came as the military-backed government was forced this week to make an embarrassing climb-down and abandon its plans to exile Sheikh Hasina and her rival, Ms Zia.
Last weekend, Sheikh Hasina, who ran Bangladesh as prime minister between 1996-2001, found herself marooned in London after the caretaker government issued a note to all airlines forbidding them from allowing her onto any flights to Dhaka.
Ms Zia, who stepped down as prime minister last year, was placed under house arrest and many said she would be forced to go into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The military-backed government, which took power in January and suspended the coming elections, argued the measures were needed to clean up Bangladeshi politics, after months of violent protests between supporters of Sheikh Hasina and Ms Zia's parties left more than 45 dead and brought the country to a standstill.
But suggestions the military were hoping to completely remove the two leaders from Bangladeshi politics met strong domestic and international criticism, and yesterday restrictions against Sheikh Hasina and Ms Zia were lifted.
Many remain concerned the stifling of popular mainstream parties could turning Bangladesh into something resembling Pakistan, which is still waiting for democracy eight years after the military took control.
Sheikh Hasina warned the military against any such move: "I think some quarters [of the army] were encouraged by the Pakistani model, but Bangladesh is totally different, our society and people won't let it happen," she said.
Sheikh Hasina's relationship with the military has been a turbulent one. Her father, the founder of modern Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated with her mother and three brothers in 1975 after army officers took power in a coup. Democratic forces eventually overthrew the military in 1991 but, since then, politics has been dominated by the rivalry between Sheikh Hasina and Ms Zia, a rivalry which rarely brings peaceful elections and has turned Bangladesh into one of the world's most corrupt countries.
And when she returns to Dhaka, Sheikh Hasina faces murder charges over the deaths of five opposition activists during violent protests last year.
"I am ready to face them, even if they arrest me," she said. "I have faith that the law will take its own course. I have been in jail before but I learnt from my father to face any situation."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2488805.ece

India's star marriage: Bollywood's golden wedding

(Photo taken from the film Umrao Jaan)

Today's lavish wedding of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan has generated levels of excitement in India the likes of Liz Hurley can only dream of. By Jerome Taylor

Published 20 April 2007, The Independent.

The couple themselves would make the ultimate Hollywood love story. One is a beautiful, green-eyed starlet who conquered hearts across the world with her stunning silver-screen looks, the other is a muscled, gritty heartthrob and heir to one of the most popular acting dynasties in the world. And today they finally tie the knot after finding love on a movie set.
But this is not the story of Brangelina or the latest Hollywood duet. This the story of "Abhiash", Bollywood's hottest couple, and the wedding that India has been waiting for with a level of excitement that could, perhaps, only be rivalled by a cricket World Cup final pitting India against Pakistan.
When Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan announced their engagement in January after months of speculation, it was clear that their wedding was only going to be one thing: the Wedding of the Century.
Rai, a former Miss World and one of the few Indian film stars to have successfully crossed over into Western cinema (thanks to the British director Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice), is Bollywood's leading lady. Her husband-to-be is the son of Amitabh Bachchan, the godfather of Bollywood who has been known to churn out more than 60 films a year and is quite possibly India's most popular film star of all time.
When Britain's paparazzi descended in their droves last month on the western desert city of Jodhpur for the second wedding ceremony of Elizabeth Hurley and her textile mogul husband, Arun Nayar, India looked on somewhat bemused.
As one Indian journalist put it: "Ultimately very few people in India had ever heard of Liz Hurley let alone cared that she was getting married. Many Western journalists were asking locals in Jodhpur, 'What do you think of Liz Hurley?' and most of them replied 'Who's Liz Hurley?'. As far as Indians are concerned there is only one wedding this year, that of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan."
That would be putting it mildly. Both actors have remained two of the most popular Bollywood stars in recent years; an impressive feat in the highly fickle world of Bollywood where a single bad film or politically careless remark can result in this month's hottest star being replaced by the latest beautiful hopefuls who arrive in Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, in their thousands each year.
Born into a devout Hindu family in the southern port town of Mangalore, Rai first made headlines after winning the Miss World contest in 1994. Her vibrant jade-green eyes were an unusual asset for someone from a southern Indian state and she soon began turning heads in Tamil-language films before being snapped up by Bollywood.
Unusually for a Bollywood actress, many of whom remain unknown outside India, Rai managed to make an impact on Western cinema after winning over international critics in the lavishly produced epic Devdas, which was given a special screening at Cannes in 2005. Her starring role in the British film Bride and Prejudice, Chadha's popular interpretation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, made her a household name and her latest Western film, Provoked, which tells the tale of a battered British Asian housewife forced to kill her abusive husband, has received handsome reviews.
Her groom, who, despite his family heritage, initially found it difficult breaking into Bollywood, is now one of the highest-paid male stars in India, feted by both the press and hordes of screaming female fans. It was perhaps inevitable therefore that Bollywood's two hottest stars would meet on a film set and fall in love.
A marriage between two Bollywood stars is big news in India at the best of time but the number of column inches dedicated to "Abhiash's" wedding preparations has been remarkable even by the standards of film star-obsessed India.
Over the past three months, the country's numerous movie magazines, gossip columns, celebrity websites and chat forums have been talking about little else. Publicists have found it difficult to garner interest in their forthcoming releases, tantrum-prone starlets have been sidelined by the celebrity reporters who are determined above all to get the ultimate scoop on just one thing: "Abhiash" and their marriage. No detail of the wedding preparations - be it the colour of the tablecloths or the truth of a rumour that the groom will wear a golden crown once favoured by Bengali princes - has been too small for the magazines to detail in all its lurid glory. No snippet of information is too irrelevant to be billed as an exclusive scoop. Rumours of upset mother-in-laws, jilted ex-lovers and wedding day jitters fill the celebrity pages, usually with little evidence to back them up.
But such overwhelming press attention has resulted in the Rai and Bachchan families going to extraordinary lengths to keep the details about their wedding as secret as possible and the Bachchan family residence has been turned into a veritable fortress. All around the string of bungalows which are situated on a prime spot of the exclusive Juhu Beach area of Mumbai, constructors have erected a giant wooden wall to keep fans and, more importantly, the long lenses of the paparazzi out.
Guests have reportedly been asked to keep completely silent about the arrangements and more than 500 police officers are on duty to keep fans at bay.
Not that the incredible security around the Bachchan family bungalow will deter the most hardened fans. Throughout the week, stories of die-hard fans desperate to do something that will get them the must-have invite have peppered the Indian newspapers.
Prakash Pandey, a small-time confectioner from Kanpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, whose shop briefly appeared in one of Abhishek Bachchan's films two years ago, recently announced he would travel to Mumbai and personally deliver an enormous tray of wedding sweets.
"When Abhishek came two years ago to Kanpur for a film shoot, he came to my shop and called me uncle," Pandey told reporters before boarding a train. "He is my nephew. I will be allowed into the Bachchan house as I have been there before."
A 17-year-old girl from the state of Bihar, meanwhile, has been working day and night for more than a month to finish a red embroidered sari that she wants to present to her idol, Rai, as a gift. Asked whether she thought she could get round security, Joyti Kumari simply replied: "I will try my best."
The contrast between the lives of these two fans and the idols they adore could hardly be greater - Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are two of the poorest states of India while Rai and Bachchan live the life of Mumbai royalty far removed from the slums and poverty around them - but they sum up how seriously India takes its film stars and how loved they are by their fans.
To the Indian population, the vast majority of whom live in the countryside, the cinema is often the one major source of entertainment and Bollywood stars, particularly those who play heroic roles, are given a virtually god-like status. Such popularity brings great political potential and many of Bollywood's greatest actors, including both Bachchan's parents, have dabbled to varying degrees of success in India's political system.
But unlike many Indian weddings, which often involve noisy and colourful street processions that bring the whole town out onto the streets in celebration, the wedding of Aishwarya and Abhishek is set to be a decidedly private affair. Abhishek's octogenarian grandmother is seriously ill and the family have reportedly toned down the celebrations so that she can attend.
Nonetheless, no expense has been spared for the three-day ceremony which kicked off on Wednesday with a pre-marriage party featuring songs, dances and skits performed by close friends and will climax today in the actual Hindu ceremony that binds the couple together as man and wife.
"There are seven types of Hindu weddings, ranging from very simple ceremonies where the man and woman simply exchange rings to weddings involving extremely complicated religious rituals. This wedding is the latter," said Ramesh Kallidai, head of the Hindu Forum of Britain.
Both the bride and groom come from devout Hindu families. In the months leading to their official engagement, both the couple and their families were seen visiting a number of important Hindu temples and the relatives have reportedly visited numerous Vedic astrologers and soothsayers to find an auspicious date for the wedding ceremony. According to Mr Kallidai, they could hardly have picked a more suitable date.
"Starting from last night, the next few days are considered particularly auspicious days for making a new beginning so, naturally, there will be many weddings this weekend," he said.
"The reason for this is because, on this lunar day, the holy Ganges river descended from the heavenly planets to the earthly realm. Any activity begun today, be it a marriage, job or journey, will grow and prosper."

Fire and light: the Hindu wedding
Hindu weddings vary from the opulent ceremonies favoured by India's elite to village ceremonies for more than one couple, to cut down on costs.
Clothing, style and practices depend on caste and region, but the wedding itself has set rituals dating back 6,000 years.
Blessings are performed in the weeks leading up to the marriage. The day itself starts with the bridegroom and his family marching, accompanied by musicians and priests, to a covered canopy where the bride and her family awaits.
The father gives his daughter to the bridegroom, who is showered with petals by his bride while she circles him four times. The couple exchange garlands and sit down together under a wedding canopy.
Usually the bride's hands and feet are ornately decorated with henna. Aishwarya Rai has had the finest henna flown from the state of Rajasthan.
A Hindu wedding is essentially a fire sacrifice and under Indian law no Hindu marriage is complete without the presence of the sacred fire, Agni.
Sitting before the sacred fire, the bridegroom places red kumkum powder on his bride's forehead, ties a sacred thread to her and accepts her hands in a ritual known as Pani Grahanam. The marriage is completed by a ritual known as Saptapdi, where the newlyweds take seven holy steps around the fire, making sacred vows to each other with each step.
Those vows made in front of Agni are considered unbreakable and emphasise the importance of creating a loving and peaceful environment for the new couple and their children.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2465941.ece

The ultimate North-South divide: Fore! Welcome to the world's most dangerous golf course

(South Korean soldier looks out over North Korea. Photo: Jerome Taylor)

Situated on a strip of land two and a half miles wide, the fairway at Panmunjom is not the only strange thing you'll find in the Korean Demilitarised Zone. Jerome Taylor reports

Published the Independent: 04 April 2007

When he's not on duty, Sgt Corbin likes to relax with a quick round of golf. It has to be quick, though, because the only golf course on his base is a single hole, par 3. And it's no place for a stroll in the rough. The fairway is ringed by landmines.

The course is a well-driven tee shot from the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the most heavily fortified border in the world. This strip of land - two and a half miles wide - divides the two Koreas.

And Camp Bonifas is the closest military base to North Korea. If war were ever to break out on the Korean peninsula, the camp and its 400 or so United Nations soldiers expect to bear the full brunt of a military assault from a million-strong army.

Sgt Corbin's rather exclusive, 192-yard hole was dubbed "The World's Most Dangerous Golf Course" at the height of the Cold War. The name stuck and the troops stationed there, most of whom are from the US and South Korea, are fiercely proud of it.

"Damn right it's dangerous," smiles Sgt Corbin, a giant of a man with cropped hair and the kind of square-cut jaw ideal for shaving commercials and the US Army. "It's completely surrounded by minefields. If you hook your ball into the rough, I can tell you, you're not getting it back."

A few weeks ago, he even managed to lose a golf club. "I headed down to the course and tried out a brand new club," he said. "If I'm honest I might have had a few beers to drink so I wasn't exactly on my finest form. Anyway I took a swing and the club flew straight out of my hand. A $400 golf club lying in the rough and I can't go get it!"

The 155-mile DMZ runs across the Korean peninsula like a gruesome scar, cleaving it in two. It has separated family, friends and sworn enemies for more than 50 years.
Barbed wire fences, tank traps, artillery guns and minefields line both sides, creating a powerful physical obstacle between the two countries. Europe's Iron Curtain would have paled in comparison with its east Asian counterpart. And whereas people power brought down Europe's ideological and physical barriers, the sheer scale of the DMZ makes its removal, at present, a distant thought.

As you leave the heavily fortified UN base (passing under the camp's welcome sign that ominously reads "In Front of Them All") and head deep into the no-man's-land of the DMZ, it's easy to imagine that Camp Bonifas is the start of some bizarre theme park where danger is the feature attraction and where reality verges on the absurd.

Although only 40km from South Korea's capital, Seoul, the DMZ is virtually a world away. Driving out of Seoul's densely packed northern suburbs and on to the so-called Freedom Highway (a four-lane expressway which, incidentally, boasts a number of collapsible concrete tank traps to block an invading army), the arrival at the DMZ's first barbed-wire checkpoint is a grim reminder of last century's political brinkmanship. Here, in an isolated corner of east Asia, the Cold War still rages in a place where only metal and guns can keep two foes apart.

No place better illustrates quite how surreal the DMZ is than the truce village of Panmunjom, the home of the UN's Joint Security Area (JSA), where soldiers from both Koreas stand just metres from each other at the only place where North and South meet without fences and razor wire.

A few minutes drive north of Camp Bonifas, Panmunjom is the place where the Korean War was finally brought to a close on 27 July 1953, after the death of at least three million people. It was the first "hot" war of the Cold War era and, despite three years of bitter fighting, neither the Communist armies of North Korea, Russia and their Chinese "volunteers" on one side, nor South Korea and her US-led UN force had advanced beyond their original starting positions on the 38th parallel. The ceasefire signed on that day was simply an armistice agreement and, to this day, the two Koreas remain technically at war.

When favourable relations permit, Panmunjom is also the only place where the militaries of the two Koreas can meet face to face. In a claustrophobic, egg-shell blue UN hut, placed squarely over the border, the two sides sit across from each other at a single wooden table. The microphones that run down the table constitute the border and the division is relaxed solely for the obligatory handshakes.

The only other visitors to the hut are the 200,000 or so tourists that come to Panmunjom every year to view this ageing but very real relic of the Cold War. Part of the draw of the truce village is the chance to see a bizarre world where the two adversaries can still eyeball each other face to face. Dressed in American aviator sunglasses and standing motionless in their famous tae kwon do stance, South Korean troops silently face down their khaki-clad northern counterparts 24 hours a day.

But the eerie calm that hangs over the village should not be taken for granted. It is a place held hostage by the fickle relations between Seoul and Pyongyang and, when tensions flare up, it has become as much a place of death and violence as it is a testament to reconciliation.
Over the past half century, at least 50 Americans, 1,000 South Koreans and many more North Koreans have died in skirmishes along the DMZ. In 1984, in the space of just a few minutes, three North Korean soldiers and one South Korean soldier were killed in Panmunjom after a gunfight broke out when a Russian diplomat took the opportunity to defect to the south while on a visit. With no actual physical barrier to stop him, the diplomat simply ran past the guards and nearly started the third world war.

Eight years earlier, in what is described in the tourist literatures as simply "The Tree Chopping Incident", two American soldiers were hacked to death by an axe-wielding North Korean soldier as they tried to trim the branches of a poplar tree which was obscuring their view. One of those men was called Capt Arthur Bonifas and the UN camp was renamed in his honour.

And yet the DMZ may well be the one thing that could bring the Korean people together again. Despite its long history of foreign occupation, Korea has been a single nation made up of one ethnicity for more than 2,000 years and Koreans on both sides of the border are painfully aware of their recent divide.

"All Koreans, regardless of where they live, dream one day of unification," says Park Chan-bong, a senior official in South Korea's Ministry of Unification, the ministry charged with engaging their neighbours in the north. "I really don't think any politician, either in the north or the south, will have difficulty finding support for unification."

Thanks to the deal signed in February this year, whereby North Korea agreed to suspend its nuclear programme in exchange for aid, the relationship between Seoul and Pyongyang has improved dramatically. Aid shipments from the South to the poverty stricken North have begun again and, last week, 102-year-old Choe Byeong-ok became the first South Korean to be linked up via video with his son in the North after family reunions were resumed following a suspension last summer over Pyongyang's long-range missile tests.

Some newspapers south of the DMZ have even begun suggesting that a peace treaty between the two Koreas might be on the cards, which would formally end five decades of war.
For veteran negotiators like Mr Park, who have seen many a ground-breaking proposal in Korean peace negotiations rebuffed by Pyongyang's often erratic behaviour, unification would be impossible without North Korea giving up its nuclear ambitions.

"Without de-nuclearisation I can't see any peace treaty," Mr Park said. "But unification within my lifetime? We've taken the first steps so why not?"

Perhaps the only downside to unification would be the demise of the "World's Most Dangerous Golf Course". But then again, Sgt Corbin could get his club back.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2418431.ece