Three years for attempted murder. Now that’s multicultural!
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. In this case, of course, the victim was the murderer’s wife, a victim to the culture of violence and intimidation that such laws help create.
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.”
Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer.
“Quebec woman who attacked daughter with cleaver handed three-year sentence,” The Canadian Press, February 23, 2016:
MONTREAL — A Quebec woman who attacked her daughter with a meat cleaver after the teen had been out partying has been sentenced to three years in jail.
Johra Kaleki was found guilty in March 2015 of attempted murder in the 2010 attack of her then 19-year-old daughter.
Quebec court Judge Yves Paradis sentenced Kaleki on Tuesday and described her act as a serious crime that could have been fatal had her husband not intervened.
The 44-year-old Afghan-born mother of four was incensed at her daughter and said she’d disrespected the family by staying out.
The young woman did not want to pursue a criminal complaint against her mother.
Prosecutor Anne Gauvin says she doesn’t know if the daughter’s wish was a determining factor in the sentence but adds it certainly played a part.
The Crown was seeking a 10-year prison sentence while the defence was asking for a conditional sentence.
The trial heard that Kaleki struck her daughter twice with the cleaver and tried to choke her….