Talk:Stoning of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow

Synth

I've removed an WP:OFFTOPIC and largely synthesized section added by a newly registered account. It attempts to tie the events leading up to the civil war in Somalia to this one isolated Duholow incident of 2008. Besides the fact that few of the links even mention the girl/incident, if readers want to read about the late Siad Barre (who was deposed well before she was even born), the opposition groups who overthrew him, and the genesis of the Al-Shabaab insurgent organization in their actual historical context, they can simply click on those parties' respective links. A non-free screenshot(?) purporting to depict a dead Duholow after her stoning was also added, in breach of the non-free policy which limits non-free files of particular individuals to one per page. More importantly, the file's authenticity cannot be verified since it only appears on blogs, forums and social networking websites. Middayexpress (talk) 12:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Repository

With regard to the overdone "responses" section, WP:NOTDIRECTORY:

Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). If you want to enter lists of quotations, put them into our sister project Wikiquote. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are permitted. (See Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Appropriate topics for lists for clarification.)

Per that policy, any further "reaction" statements will be removed, as this isn't a repository for opinions. It could use a trimming as it is. Middayexpress (talk) 20:10, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS/WP:NEVENT

What is the lasting significance of this event ? All the sources are from within 30 days . LGA _talk^edits 21:10, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Age ?

We need a Reliable source for her age, it is clearly disputed. LGA _talk^edits 01:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Her age is not disputed. It was initially placed at 23 based on an uninformed estimate, and a correction was issued shortly afterwards. Since then, every single reliable source has stated her age as 13. --1ST7 (talk) 01:27, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

then provide a source that is not quoting Amnesty International's report on what the farther said. LGA _talk^edits 01:50, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

UNICEF, the European Union, and Amnesty International all say that she was 13 (here's a source for the former two [1]). Why don't you find a source that says that her age is disputed? --1ST7 (talk) 02:04, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am disputing the sources, firstly this makes it clear that WND is NOT a RS, the Fox and Amnesty International are just reporting the fathers claim of her age, that is not proof she WAS 13. LGA _talk^edits 02:04, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

The article makes it clear that there is some dispute when it says "Initial reports of the killing stated that she was a 23-year-old woman found guilty of adultery" and then "However, Duhulow's father asserted that she was only 13". We need to be careful here and not say she was 13 in the opening statement unless that fact is verifiable to someone other than the dad. LGA _talk^edits 02:09, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

There has been no evidence given to cast doubt on the claim that she was 13. The sources clearly state that the report of her being 23 was just a guess that a handful of reporters made based on her appearance. Also, Amnesty International says that "other sources" aside from Duhulow's father confirmed her age as 13. Please provide a reliable reference to indicate that her age is a subject of dispute; otherwise, it's original research. --1ST7 (talk) 02:14, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, what reason is there to believe that Duhulow's father would lie about or not know his daughter's age? --1ST7 (talk) 02:15, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Duholow's age is indeed disputed. The Somali journalists and other eye witnesses who saw her first identified her as a woman of around 23 on account of her overall physical appearance. It's her father that reportedly indicated that she was 13. Despite this uncertainty, an exact birth date and place was also at one point indicated in the wikitext, when none of the sources mentioned any dob/pob. This is not neutral. Middayexpress (talk) 13:47, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

There was a report of her being 23 very early on in the reporting of the incident. That estimate was based on her appearance, which is not a very reliable indicator. A correction was aired shortly afterwards, and since then every newspaper reporting on the stoning has described her as 13. Most report that number as fact, not as a claim from her father. Her age would be "disputed" if sources continued to express doubt about the accuracy of her being 13 or circulated other ages, but they didn't. Besides, Amnesty International states that "other sources" aside from Duhulow's father confirmed that she was 13.[2]

I'm going to point to the article on the Mahmudiyah killings. In that case, it was initially reported that the victim, Abeer Qassim Hamza, was a woman in her 20s (investigators said she was 25, while the military said 20). A correction was later issued confirming her age as 14, and afterwards the newspapers reporting on her death listed her age as such. The article on the killings itself opens with "The Mahmudiyah killings was the gang-rape and killing of 14-year-old Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi..."

There appears to be a consensus among sources that Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was 13 at the time of her death. Not one source has continued to claim that she was 23 following the correction, so it would appear that her age was unclear in the immediate aftermath of her death, was clarified, and is not longer a subject of dispute. --1ST7 (talk) 20:40, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Irrelevant analogy. The Mahmudiyah female is visibly a little girl, and all of the U.S. soldiers who are alleged to have raped her were charged, tried, and either plead guilty to or were convicted of their crimes. By contrast, Duholow's purported rape was never investigated let alone confirmed, nor was anyone ever arrested for that alleged crime. It's a stoning that she is known for, and barely at that. The individuals who indicated that Duhulow looked to have been around 23 years of age were also actual eyewitnesses to the incident (i.e. first-hand accounts), and they were unanimous in this. That makes her age disputed, even if one assumes that the "other sources" besides her father that Amnesty mentions are first-hand as opposed to second-hand accounts. Middayexpress (talk) 13:43, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The image that was used for Abeer Qassim Hamza was very outdated (it's purportedly from when she was seven years old, not fourteen). Aside from that, there's nothing that says that eyewitnesses unanimously said that Duhulow looked 23. All that is known is that some journalists who witnessed the stoning gave that estimate, and even then we don't know how many said that (it could have been two or twenty). In general, appearance is subjective and does not provide a solid basis for fact. The account of someone who knew and raised the subject is far more reliable. --1ST7 (talk) 03:13, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I found another account regarding her age. According to this academic source, one of Duhulow's teachers from the refugee camp was interviewed following the stoning. According to said teacher, Duhulow was "just a child". --1ST7 (talk) 06:30, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Found another source. It looks like Duhulow's aunt also said she was thirteen. --1ST7 (talk) 01:34, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It's established that several eyewitnesses, including some local journalists, asserted that she was 23 years old, while her father, aunt and teacher later asserted that she was 13 or close to it. What's not established is that any of those parties recanted their testimony [3]. That makes her age disputed. None of said eyewitnesses also gave a precise birth date for her, let alone "January 2, 1995" as the infobox used to claim. That too is not neutral. Middayexpress (talk) 14:13, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Glancing at the Google Books results, it does look like describing her age as "disputed" would be the best approach. Some authors report that she was 13, others 23, others hedge their bets. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for giving your opinion on the matter. Can you please tell me which book describes her as 23? I checked them earlier and didn't find any that listed that as her age. --1ST7 (talk) 02:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

This one, at least, though it also mentions Amnesty's statement. I thought I saw another earlier but don't see it on a re-search. Still, enough of the authors seem to be hedging their bets, citing the claim explicitly to Amnesty, that I think we may as well mention both here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm thinking of rephrasing the opening paragraph to "The stoning of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow refers to a public execution that took place on October 27, 2008 in the southern port town of Kismayo, Somalia." That way the issue of whether to describe her as a "girl" or a "female" can possibly be avoided. --1ST7 (talk) 03:14, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV

This article appears one sided, and not of a NPOV, can we have some more editors look at this. LGA _talk^edits 01:22, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Please specify how the article is POV. --1ST7 (talk) 01:28, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

as I said it has the appearance of being one sided, other editors need to look at it. LGA _talk^edits 01:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

You need to be specific when you tag an article as POV. What about it is one-sided? --1ST7 (talk) 01:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

The article is definitely not npov. It appears to have been written as though this sort of incident is widespread and still occurring, nevermind the fact that this was an isolated case which happened a half decade ago at the height of the insurgency in southern Somalia. For one thing, the city in which it occurred has been under government control for some time now. Case in point, a phrase was added stating that "researchers continued to use the situation as an example of severe human rights abuses in subsequent years", when in fact all that the cited link states is that Duholow was "stoned to death by fifty men before a stadium audience of 1,000" [4]. The most obviously non-neutral aspect of the page is the piling on of carefully selected "reactions" to/condemnations of the incident, which are almost three times longer than the incident itself. I added a note above that any further such undue breaches of WP:NOTDIRECTORY would be removed, but an attempt around this was made by moving additional "condemnations" further up the page under a new "Aftermath" header. Attempts have also been made to link this one incident to unrelated cases in the Middle East and North Africa, ostensibly (but likely not exclusively) to suggest a wider pattern of violence in predominantly Muslim countries. Middayexpress (talk) 13:47, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

The new "aftermath" section was not added as an "attempt around" the notice but to address a complaint that the article did not contain enough information about long-term impact. I don't mind its removal, though, if you think it helps the article be NPOV and that it won't cause problems with the other issue. Also, the article points out that the stoning was the first to take place in two years, and all links between this case and others throughout the Middle East and North Africa (ex. Soraya Manutchehri) came directly from the sources. --1ST7 (talk) 18:11, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

There are no ties between this stoning and that of Soraya Manutchehri other than the fact that they both involved stoning. It's in this capacity that that four year old article mentions both incidents. It and all of the other links also date from within a few months of the Duholow incident (which took place in late 2008) because that's pretty much the extent of the latter incident's societal impact. Ironically, Manutchehri's stoning was the subject of a novel and even a film adaptation, yet the page discussing that incident is a small fraction the size of this one despite its much greater endurability. Middayexpress (talk) 13:43, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Removal of citation

I'd like to fully explain why I removed the citation to Conflict: Christianity's Love Vs. Islam's Submission, by Murl Edward Gwynn.

First, removing the citation doesn't affect the article. This book was one of two sources cited by the same sentence, for the same information.

Second, Gwynn's self-published [5] book is explicitly biased against Muslims and Islam. According to the publisher's description, the book exhorts Christians to oppose Islam, which is supposedly characterized by "violent fervor" and "forced submission." [6]

Finally, Conflict is an unreliable source because Gwynn is not an expert in any field related to the article. On his personal website, the only academic accomplishment Gwynn asserts is a "Doctor of Theology degree from Newburgh Theological Seminary." [7] However, Newburgh is just a diploma mill. It claims to be accredited by Transworld Accrediting Commission International (and by God, as well). [8] Transworld, however, is not a legitimate accreditation organization: it's unrecognized by both the U.S. Department of Education [9] and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, [10] the two bodies that oversee academic accreditation in the US. [11] As for Newburgh's Doctor of Theology program, students are merely required to write a dissertation on a "theme" (not a thesis), of which no defense is required; as well as some short summaries of textbooks and seminars. [12] -- Bluemonkee (talk) 07:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)