Friday, December 4, 2009

Controversial author Norma Khouri comments on my blog post about her

It was humbling to have author Fadi Faqir visit my old blog and send me her book. It was very exciting to have artist Ena Vie comment on my blog post praising her, and now Norma Khouri replied to my post Investigating Norma Khouri in Forbidden Lie$.

Is it really her? I guess there's no way to be totally sure. If it is, I thank you Norma Khouri for taking the time out of your schedule to address my post and some of the following comments.

Unfortunately I'm in the middle of an intense finals time so I just don't have the time to appropriately reply. I just really wanted to give any of you interested readers out there the opportunity to reply to her comment that I'm copying and pasting below. Maybe we can have have a constructive discussion over it.

norma(jdoit@lycos.com) said...
Hello, I am Norma Khouri. You can believe whatever you like about what my intentions were or are...my intentions from the start were to raise international awareness of the existence of these crimes and the Jordanian Laws which allow for them to continue. Rana Husseini was one of the first reporters to write about Honor Killings....the problem was that she was publishing the stories in the Jordanian Times...a small local circulation english language paper in Jordan...which was not even available on the internet...and still does not archive any of its articles on the net to this day. Now for someone who lives in Europe or the US or any other country other than Jordan...how were they going to become aware of such crimes??? no other media was reporting on it...womens rights issues have never been a media priority unless there were political reasons to report on them as in the case of Afghanistan.


As to KJ...the original US version of the book is actually stamped "fiction"...the book created problems for Jordan...too much attention was being focused on them as a result of the book...that is clearly evidenced in the articles that Jordan published where government officials are quoted as saying that they are receiving too much pressure from the UN and the US "as though this is the only place this happens". Amnesty conducted its own investigation into the number of honor killings that occur there...you should check that report out, so did the UN.

The media and the documentary make a lot of outrageous claims...controversy sells...they also claim I am wanted by the FBI...call the FBI yourself and ask if I am wanted?? I am not. i live and work and pay taxes in the US, I am not in hiding. The money from the book and from the documentary is going to human rights groups...it does not even come through me to go to them...it goes directly to them from publishers and film company...Maybe I should have done it for money...I wouldn't be working 70 hours a week to pay a mortgage and bills... Norma

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

More lies.

Hamza said...

thanks Norma for your comment. That clarified some of the questions we had in our mind. :)

celebral seductress said...

wow! i read 'forbidden love' sometime ago & cried while reading it..it was really great!

norma/jdoit@lycos.com said...

To anonymous;

Why would I bother writing as you claim "more lies" when everything I have said in my reply you can easily check for yourself to be fact. When exactly did you hear about honor killings? Let me guess....you were enjoying your morning coffee while reading through a current copy of "The Jordan Times" which you are an avid reader of...and learned about this horendous practice??? I'm guessing no one in the "west" can say that....why? Simply because it is not published in the west. And there is the problem. Why was Rana busy telling the people of Jordan about honor killings that occurred in Jordan (and telling them in their second not first language). What else do you think is lies??? The FBI??? I'm sure you have a phone...call. I work in Finance...I went through an extensive background check for the position I hold at work...do you really think that if I am wanted I would first of all still be free??? and second of all be working in the position I'm in?? And, Finally...if I truly did all of this for money...where is it and why the hell am I still working???

Get back to me after you have bothered to do some checking...

Norma

PS in the meantime...do you realize that the JNCW (Jordanian national commission for women) which claims to be a non-government organization but which was actually formed by the Jordanian Government has done nothing to petiotion the parliament to abolish the existing laws which allow for this to continue. They (the jordanian government) was forced to put in place temporary changes to the laws when they were facing pressure as a result of the book...then in the same month that Malcolm Knox wrote his ridiculous article about me the jordanian parliament overturned the temporary changes....and guess what...the media was so busy calling me a con no one focused on what was really happening with the campaign and the status of the laws. the media did not even bother to write a paragraph about the changes. To this day honor killings continue and based on the articles 340 and 98 in Jordans penal code are legal there. another funny fact....when I was saying that a minimum of 5000 women a year are being killed in this way...i was called a liar....now Rana Husseini has that posted on her own website...ranahusseini.com check it out for yourself...who is lieing now??? It all comes down to you can call me what you want...but at the end of the day the facts are still the facts.

Norma