Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.
The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”
In light of all this, until authorities get the courage to tell the truth about honor killing, there will be many more such murders.
“Cousin ‘still proud’ of disposing of honour killing-victim’s body, judge says,” from the Telegraph, December 6 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
The cousin of honour killing victim Banaz Mahmod who helped to dispose of her body is “still proud of what he did”, a judge said on Friday as he sentenced him to eight years in prison.
Dana Amin, 29, helped Banaz’s father and two other men now convicted of murdering the 20-year-old bury her corpse in a Birmingham garden.
The Muslim’s body was shoved into a suitcase before being driven to the Midlands and dumped in a make-shift grave in January 2006, where it lay undiscovered for three months.
Judge Martin Beddoe told Amin: “[Banaz’s] death had been planned for about a month or so before it actually took place. There had even been an attempt on her life already.
“I am sure you were aware of all these matters and you knew not only of what had gone on but what was intended to happen.
“The reason is that, like other members of this family, you subscribe to this perverted code in that a grown woman cannot choose how to live her life.
“I fear for any female child you may father.”
Banaz had been strangled with a shoe lace at her family home in Morden, south London, just hours before she was burried [sic], Southwark Crown Court heard.
Her only crime was to divorce her first husband from an arranged marriage and fall in love with another man.
The new romance incurred the wrath of her relatives who believed she had brought shame on their family.
Terrified Banaz had repeatedly told police of her fears her life was in danger….
Yes, but for them to have done anything would have been “Islamophobic.”