How did you respond to the honor killing?

Question

How do you respond when you see honor killings on TV? (IE- the honor killing in April of that 17 year old iraqi girl)

If you feel that it's murder and shouldn't be tolerated, then how do we realistically stop it? Or do we (in the U.S.) just say "oh that's bad" and do nothing?

Answer 1

All over the world people have believed through out history in honor killings. But what are these honor crimes. These crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members who are perceived to have brought dishonor upon the family. A family may feel the need to commit such a crime by refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce even from an abusive husband or committing adultery. Even the thought of a woman bringing dishonor to a family may cause an attack. In the case of rape if the victim were to marry her attacker the family honor is restored and he can not be prosecuted by law, though the rapist may still face criminal charges if he divorces his wife within five years without a legitimate reason. If marriage is not possible because of family relationship, such as a bother, the family will try to marry off the daughter to restore honor.

Honor killings, as described by Wikipedia online encyclopedia, is generally considered a premeditated crime yet crimes of passion. Crimes of passion often have special status under the law. The West is not immune to this type of violence against women. Until 1975, the French Penal Code commuted the sentence of a husband who killed his wife after finding her in the act of committing adultery; this law passed into the legal frameworks of the many nations who based their modern legal codes on the Napoleonic Code. Yet these crimes of passion are small in number and are different from premeditated crimes against an adulterous spouse.

As of 2004, honor killings have occurred not only in the East but also many European countries, including: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom. The United Nations Population Fund believes that annually there are worldwide 5,000 women killed through honor killings. These killings are often made to look like suicide, fire or an accident.
In a traditional view of Islamic law says there should be a severe punishments for zina' or extramarital sex, by both men and women. Premarital can be punished by 100 lashes and adultery by lethal stoning. To implement such a punishment the act must be seen by at least four male witnesses of good character. The punishment is to be reserved to the legal authorities, and false accusations are themselves punished severely. In conservative areas many men consider it a slur on the family's honor if women in the family are found to have relationships with other men outside of marriage, or when they marry without their families' consent. This is not always the case as with the honor killing of the Saudi Arabian princess Misha'al. The execution of the princess did not follow any Islamic religious court proceeding but was ordered directly by her grandfather.

An honor killing in the Islamic definition refers to specifically to extra-legal punishment by the family against the woman, and as such is forbidden by the sharia. The “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has condemned the practice as ‘un-Islamic’, though punishment under Iranian law remains lenient. In Pakistan, when a bill proposing to strengthen the law against ‘Honor Killing’ was defeated in Parliament, March 2, 2005, the government allied with the Islamist opposition to decide explicitly that the bill was ‘un-Islamic’. In Jordan there is a movement to stop honor killings. Although King Abdullah II has tried to bring new light onto this subject. He has gone to the parliament for change but not received warmly. But after hearing this the people went to the streets in protest. Trying to bring his country into a modernist point of view.

Yet there are still areas of modern thought, showing this a cultural practice not Islamic. In Indonesia and parts of West Africa honor killings are unknown, as also in with majority-Muslim populations. These areas are not culturally Arab yet Indonesia is the largest Islamic country. These areas give hope for other Islamic nations to also not allow these actions against women.

Yet with all the laws in Europe and the United States there are still honor killings. To many times each year there are crimes of passion when in truth they are honor killings. Jan. 8, 1999 Methal Dayem's body was found, in Cleveland, she had been shot four times. Musa Saleh and Yezen Dayem, her brother, were acquitted of the crime due to lack of evidence. Before her death she had broken off an engagement to Musa Saleh, her cousin. The according to her sister and the prosecuting attorney she was murdered.

With all that have been done in the world to protect the women in the world there is still more to be done. Honor crimes are not based in Islam but in culture. By bringing this fact into the public spectrum it is more likely to stop such a practice. Around the world women are still victims of crimes by family members seeing the family honor in her true and perceived actions. A woman’s blood does not need to flow just to bring honor back to a man.

Source(s):

Attwood, Karen. "12 Honour Killings a Year in UK' Police Believe." The Press Association Limited 4 Nov. 2005. LexisNexis. 30 Nov. 2005.

Feldner, Yotam. ""Honor" Murders – Why the Perps Get off Easy." The Middle East Quarterly VII (2000). 1 Dec. 2005.
Plata, David. “Dayem murder trial ends with acquittal” Sun News. July 27, 2000. http://www.sunnews.com/news/2000/0727/wd... November 27, 2005
Tanveer, Khalid. "Two women, one man killed for honor in eastern Pakistan: police." Associated Press 24 Sept. 2005. LexisNexis. 1 Dec. 2005.
Wadud, Amina. Qur'an and Woman. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.

Webb, Gisela, ed. Windows of Faith. New York: Syracuse UP, 2000.

Answer 2

Like every other civilized human who heard about it or viewed it - outrage and horror. This is why I'm fundamentally against any people or nation to be governed by religion. Law should be the supreme authority, not religion, and the men who were arrested and the ones they're looking for should be thrown in jail for a long, long time. The police that stood by and watched should be immediately fired and investigated as to whether ot not they should be prosecuted. Another reason why the West will never accept countries who tolerate this - it always seems to comwe from the 3rd world or Muslim countries, doesn't it? I'd like someone from those nations to try and explain this to us.

Answer 3

terrible as it seems i respond with is this true it makes no sense also iraq is not a place known for honour killings and also to kill someone for something that was done to them makes no sense what makes sense to me is take revenge on the perpetrators this what americans are portrayed as doing . so let me ask you what if someone claimed u.s. citizens did these things even if it was not true and also claimed male americans thought women were not as good as men and could be killed even when it is not true the sad fact is it is not everything you see on television or read is true lies can be told even if it is true how can you know with all the propaganda in the world today what the truth is people want to beleive the worst of both those being fought against and those doing the fighting neither are entirely trusted or the civilian leadership in the u.s.a. as an actor in taps an american movie said ''civilians think of a mlitary man as being slightly insane'' well if they think that what do they think of their leaders

Answer 4

I couldn't watch it - it was too graphic for me.

Everyone in that frame helped murder her even the cameraman (by doing nothing) .

I really can't describe the feeling when you hear of such inhumanity - how can anyone stand around and stone a young girl to death? Repeatedly injure her, watch her bleeding and pleading for her life and still kill her in cold blood!

It makes me sick..have we lost all humanity?

Answer 5

This is not only very very common in Moslem countries, but also in Western countries where Moslem have gone as "refugees" or have asked for citizenship. Moslems commit murder of their own daughters every day.

Answer 6

It was blunders and slip-ups with human errors created back in the past centuries of failures and horrors of the past .
The blunders and slip-ups with human errors with ghosty stories from the graveyards of different ancestor's custom with misinterprtation, miscommunication, communication failures and communication break-down in making a mess and monkey out of the misery of living human kind out there.
When the ghostly stories of failures and horrors of the past was to remind "The young ones" not to make the same blunders and slip-ups with human errors on "Thou shalt not kill" in breaking our creator's universal constituition.
Ever wonder who were making a mess in breaking and breaking our creator's universal constituition?

Answer 7

lt sickened me, couldn't watch it. lt needs to start with changing the beliefs of the people and that could take generations. Start with the young.

Answer 8

there is no such thing as honor killing. it is wrong and horrible. the greatest evil is to take another's life.

Answer 9

We don't stop it. We are too scared, too wishy-washy, too weak to stay long enough to intervene.

Answer 10

MURDER