honor killings - The Independent

[laptopwieldingharpy]

article here

How awful. It seems that whilst most cultures and religions have become more tolerant over time, a lot of the Middle eastern culture has gone the opposite way. I wonder what can be done about it? Perhaps the leaders of these countries need to do more to stamp it out.

With regard to the killings that take place in Britain, if the views of the family are at odds with the British culture and they do not wish their children to become westernised I wonder why do they choose to live here?

I wonder too. Andvi wonder why the Police and judges sweep it under the carpet.

I think in the countries where this is prevalent it is ignored by police/judges as they share the same views. They obviously dont want to admit the problem, probably for politic reasons, so deny the problem even exists in some cases.

In this country I would think it's difficult to uncover. People are cautious of offending religious communities and often these same communities are wary of police.

It's not always swept under the carpet in the UK, though. Last year a man of Turkish origin was on trial for murdering his daughter in a so-called honour killing. How skewed is that label? What is honourable about killing someone?

I've been thinking about this all evening, especially those poor women who were raped and then murdered because they had been raped. What a twisted notion of honour.

I just cannot understand it. How can you do that to your child or sister and call it honour?

i'm more opimistic about this problem.
i think the latter part of the 20th century and the begining of the 21st will go down in history as the time of the 'reassertion' of faith, and it isnt just with islam, around the time of the islamic revolution in iran the evangelical movement was growing fast in the states.
i belive that as time moves on and technology and access to information become more widespread making peoples lives easier these medievil cultural practises will simply become a thing of the past, this doesnt mean of course that we should put pressure on tribal jurgers and so one that sentence or turns blinds eyes and so on.
there is nothing nice about this next story look away now if your skwimish,
in iran a victim of an acid attack, blind from it, has won the right, under sharia law to pour acid in the eyes of her attacker, the sentence was due to be carried out but amesty international stepped in, the sentence may still be carried out, and soon. this is only one example but the law in many countries we deem backward do take these things seriously, only very remote tribal jurgers in eastern afghanistan and the tribal agencies of pakistan are the places where the truely mind-buggeringly ridiculous sentences get passed.

There is a very good campaigning group here:
www.stophonourkillings.com/

I used to live in a country where these crimes were carried out regularly. In some cases young male children were encouraged to commit the crime on behalf of the family, as the sentencing would be more lenient. There were cases where eleven year old boys killed their own mothers or sisters. Legislation has been changed so that anyone convicted now receives a mandatory life sentence. Unfortunately, this has led to something else: incitement to suicide, where young women are hounded into committing suicide, often for no greater crime than 'looking' at a man.

It's unimaginable.

There is a C4 ptogramme about honour killing in Turkey here:
www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/episode-guide/series-2009/episode-3

What really bugs me about the situation there is that Turkey is a secular country with a huge population of educated men and women who seem to choose to turn a blind eye to the many iniquities in their country. I have heard people there dismiss honour crime as 'something tribal' or 'village stuff', ie. it's nothing to do with them so they can just ignore it.

Again in Turkey there is an initiative called The National Action Plan which promises to fight violence against women, yet most municipalities are failing to fulfil their duty of providing shelters for women and children escaping violent relationships, choosing instead to set up 'advice centres'. And what do you suppose happens to women seen going to one of these centres?
rojwomen.com/2011/04/18/turkey-is-not-offering-shelters-to-women/

It is an appalling situation. Turkey is a popular tourist destination, but it's an incredibly complex country and what you see in the resort towns has little relationship to what happens elsewhere in the country, particularly in the south eastern provinces.

Sorry to focus so specifically on a single country in my post. I know the problem is far more widespread. It just happens to be the place I know most about in this respect.