“Supporters of refugee programs say the language demonizes Muslims and that there is insufficient evidence of such killings by refugees in the United States.”
Demonizes Muslims? Muslims aren’t mentioned. This is just more Leftist hysteria. And insufficient evidence of such killings by refugees? There have been 27 honor killings in the U.S., according to a Justice Department report, and Sessions is quite right when he notes that the immigrants are largely “from the same cultural background.” How many is too many? Is 27 not enough to arouse Leftist concern?
What’s more, there is perfectly good reason for concern about honor killing among immigrants from the six countries named in the new ban. Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar, 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.”
Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer. The Palestinian Authority, Iraq and Jordan are not named in the ban, but the countries that are share this “cultural background.”
Note also that Jeva Lange of The Week quotes Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, who makes the honor killing provision all about race. Khera is also the Muslim leader who wrote to John Brennan in 2011 demanding that all mention of Islam and jihad be removed from counterterror training materials. Brennan immediately complied.
“Trump’s new executive order requires a log of ‘honor killings,'” by Jeva Lange, The Week, March 6, 2017:
President Trump’s new executive order on immigration, issued Monday…notably calls for a public database of honor killings — an addition that bears the fingerprints of Attorney General Jeff Sessions…
The order defines “honor killings” as “gender-based violence against women … in the United States by foreign nationals.” Alleged “honor killings” are a major concern of opponents of the U.S. refugee programs, although supporters of refugee programs say the language demonizes Muslims and that there is insufficient evidence of such killings by refugees in the United States.
Nevertheless, Sessions has expressed concern about honor killings in the past, such as in a 2016 discussion with a State Department official:
Sessions: … With regard to honor killings, you have evidence that 27 people were killed in the United States for honor killings according to a DOJ report.
Simon Henshaw, State Department official in charge of the refugee program: I have no evidence that there were any honor killings among the refugee population resettled in the U.S., sir.
Sessions: Well, it’s from the same cultural background I would say. [The Atlantic]
As a result, some Muslim rights advocates have slammed President Trump for appointing Sessions to his Cabinet. “[Former] Senator Sessions is one of the most, if not the most, anti-immigrant senator in the U.S. Senate,” Farhana Khera, director of the civil-rights group Muslim Advocates, told The Atlantic. “He has a long record of demonizing non-white immigrants, especially Muslim and Latino immigrants.” Jeva Lange