Execution of a woman in the presence of her seven sons

When a woman murders her husband and is sentenced to death penalty it is an ordinary story that occurs everywhere and every now and then. But when her family and family-in-law become opponents and decide to avenge, tragedy begins. It reaches the peak when her sons refuse to pardon or spare her life. Instead, one of them, the elder one, in his twentieth, attended the execution, while the bullets penetrated his mother's skinny fragile body, without batting an eyelid, whereas the rest preferred to stay at the prison's premises not far from the execution yard.

This unfortunate woman faced death twice; the worst was when her sons punished her for murdering their father whom she accused of being an abusive to his family.

This story kept me awake for several nights and till now I couldn't get rid of it. How could a son whose mother looked after him during childhood and adolescence, turn into a stone who handed her over to justice and couldn't care about her last motherly request of hugging them.

It seems when man enslaved by his environment, whatsoever its norms and traditions, he loses ability to think or evaluate, or judge properly, pushing himself to the edge where his humanity falls apart. This is a story of multiple interwoven and complicated issues

Read this shocking incident which took place in Yemen and try to find out why this miserable incident come to a dead point؟

A large number of Arab newspapers and websites covered this story last month. Here is a summary:

A Yemeni court executed last week a 40-year- old woman for murdering her husband after a family dispute.
According to witnesses, Aisha-Hazmi, whose seven sons who were brought to the courtyard of the central prison, where execution was carried out, rejected her call for them to pardon her and help in her release. It was sufficient that one of them opposed the judgment or pardoned her to save her life.

Sources stated Hamza wanted to embrace them, but they pushed her away, turned their backs on her and insisted on the death sentence. Despite mediation attempts made by prosecutors, tribal leaders and human rights organizations tried to persuade them to pardon their mother, but they rejected their request on the grounds that their mother abused their reputation when she told media organs and human rights activists that she murdered their father because she believed he was abusive and cruel to them.

Aisha's execution was attended by two of her elder sons while the gun shots penetrated her body; the rest , including an 8 year –old daughter, preferred to stay in a car out of the courtyard, putting their fingers in their ears so as not to hear the shots putting.

Aisha-Hazmi had killed her husband, Yahya Sharif, in 2003 following a family dispute, and she was submitted to the prison on behalf of Armani, a province South-east of the capital Sanaa, where her two families intended to avenge the killing of Aisha's husband. Before doing so they consulted a judge who denounced the decision and handed her over to prosecution.