Speaking about honor killings in the Islamic world is certain to bring you a charge of "Islamophobia." But here we learn that "it is difficult to change laws that people are used to it and considered it as Sharia." Indeed it is. And it is even more difficult when the people who should be working to change those laws are instead in denial about the problem itself. The authorities in this article who are saying that honor killing is not sanctioned by Sharia should be supported by Muslims in the West, who instead prefer to pretend that the whole thing isn't happening.
"Honour crime fear of Syria women," by Lina Sinjab for the BBC News (thanks to B.):
Seventeen-year-old Bushra is too scared to give her real name. She talks in a low, trembling voice, her face full of fear."They want to shed my blood, they want to kill me," she says, as she recounts how she escaped being murdered by members of her own family in a so-called "honour killing".
A Sunni Muslim, she had fallen in love with Fadel, from Syria's Alawite Muslim minority. He went to her family to ask for her hand in marriage, but he was rejected.
The family said Bushra must marry her cousin. But on their wedding day, she ran away with the man she loved and family members began to hunt her down, to "erase the dishonour" she had caused.
Bushra's story is not an exceptional one in Syria, where women's organisations estimate more than 200 women are murdered every year by brothers, cousins or fathers.
[...]
The Syrian authorities are trying to crack down on the practice of "honour killing", and they have widespread support.
About 10,000 people have signed a petition calling for an end to the practice, in a campaign backed by senior Muslim officials.
[...]
It is an issue for all communities - Christian, Muslim and Druze - says Daed Musa, a lawyer and women's rights activist
"The laws are old and go back to the 1940s. No woman can feel safe under the current legislation."
Murders considered to have been in defence of honour are not considered a "crime" under Syrian law, but an "offence". It carries a maximum penalty of a year's imprisonment, but could be reduced to a month by a judge.
Some families entrust the task of erasing dishonour to a juvenile, further reducing the penalty.
Cultural change
After Zahra's death, the NODW renewed the campaign, circulating the petition and mobilising religious clerics to denounce the killing.
Syria's top Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun, rejects any suggestion that "honour crime" is sanctioned by Islam.
He explains that Islamic law requires four witnesses for the crime of adultery - an almost impossibly high burden of proof, which means in effect that no-one can be found guilty of it.
The mufti believes, however, that the starting point should be in education and tolerance especially with religious preachers.
"It is difficult to change laws that people are used to it and considered it as Sharia. In many cases, it is traditions rather than laws," he says.
"What we need is to educate people and spread awareness among the society. The problem is when you have people preaching at mosques and don't have a profound knowledge on Islam."
No women can be protected of an act of killing unless legal changes are introduced. This will take political will to actually happen. Until then, women in Syria will still be at risk.
It's cultural imperialism to think women would rather live than sacrifice themselves to protect the family honor. Your western concept of 'rights' should not be transplanted into indigenous cultures with their perfectly legitimate concept of honor. Oh, but they can import honor here.
Cast:
The Feminist played by Beagle
"It is an issue for all communities - Christian, Muslim and Druze." -- from the article
Is that really true? Are these murders as frequent among Christians and Druzes as among Moslems? Or is this just a politically-correct attempt to blame Syrian tradition rather than
Islam?
Follow this line of reasoning to it's logical conclusion. Some man in the family decides the marital fate of a girl in the family. He doesn't ask her. In perhaps the most important matter of the heart she is FORCED to be with someone she may or may not even know and most likely does not love. If she refuses, she is eligible for death. If she makes a bid for freedom of thought and takes action which goes against the family's wishes, she is eligible for death. If she successfully gets away from the family, the death threat hangs over her head and in order to avoid it she must cut off all ties with her main support group, HER FAMILY. If she is caught and brought back the family encourages one of the younger males to kill her, firmly attaching the crime and sin of murder to a juvenile.
The mother's pleading may be used to lure a daughter back, then when she is killed the mother says it's okay because the family's honor has been cleansed. IT looks like Muslim family values include selfishness, pride, lack of compassion, deceit, murder. Where is the love?
I don't know why Muslims pride themselves on their family values. Talk about a dysfunctional family unit. Why would ANYBODY on this planet want to be a Muslim?
The concept of four witness to prove adultery turns my stomach. They like to watch?
So much for those who tout Syria's "secular" society.
Sunni Muslims are mad because the Alawite-dominated Ba'th party refuses to share power with them.
Also, I hate to agree with the cleric quoted in the post, but it's true that, technically, Islam doesn't sanction honor killings. (honor beatings are another story, of course). To answer ebonystone: You are 100% correct--you don't see it happen much among Druzes, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, or any other group in Syria. As far as I know, anyway. To play devil's advocate for a moment, it doesn't happen nearly as often in Syria as it does in many other Muslim countries. Decades of Ba'th rule have given the majority of people in the country a fairly secular outlook, and even the Muslims are happy to go along with it as long as the country is prevented from falling apart the way Lebanon did. (there was a Muslim Brotherhood revolt from 1975 to 1982, but Hafiz al-Asad pretty much crushed it during the massacre at Hama). As someone who has interacted with both (and lived in Egypt for several years), Syrians are a hell of a lot more intelligent and modern than Egyptians and most other Arabs. So I don't want to condemn all Syrians out of hand. That said, I am not denying Islam's role in honor killings, there or in the West. Far from it.