Honor Killings.

I just finished watching a documentry on Honor Killings in Pakistan in the name of " Islam ", not to say the least shocked, but disgusted by this primitive belief system.

Men can kill thier wives, Daughters, Sisters, Mothers all in the name of Honor, and justified by the word of " Allah ".

www.mwlusa.org...

Due to recent media attention, the problem of �honor killings� has come under increasing global scrutiny. In various countries throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East and parts of South Asia, women who bring dishonor to their families because of sexual indiscretions are forced to pay a terrible price at the hands of male family members. Attempted murder and other forms of corporal punishment have been reported. The most severe manifestations of punishment affect only a small percentage of women, even though the notion of family honor and shame is extremely important in most communities of the Muslim world. Women from other faith groups may also be subject to similar attitudes from within their own communities in those countries. Clearly, the prevailing view that devalues and belittles women is derived from sociocultural factors that are justified by a distorted and erroneous interpretation of religion, especially of Islam.

womensissues.about.com...
womensissues.about.com...

www.ishipress.com...

In Pakistan's eastern Punjab province alone, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said 286 women were killed last year for allegedly bringing shame on their husband or family. The death of a woman is explained away on ``the flimsiest of grounds," the Amnesty report said, citing the case of a man who killed his wife after having a dream that she betrayed him.

This is where my family is from, though Punjab is not a part of Pakistand but India.

www.amnestyusa.org...

Tribal Code of Honor

Originally a Baloch and Pashtun tribal custom, honor killings are founded in the twin concepts of honor and commodification of women. Women are married off for a bride price paid to the father. If this commodity is 'damaged,' the proprietor, the father or husband, has a right to compensation. If a husband kills his wife for alleged sexual misbehavior and her alleged 'lover' gets away, the latter has to pay the husband compensation, for the wife that was lost and for his own life which was spared. Often the dead woman's alleged 'lover' hands over a sister to the husband, in addition to a large amount of money.

Deep

A few months before I left the UK, there was a TV show about honour killings happening in Britain.

Jack & Zena is an interesting book telling the true story of a couple from different cultures whose only crime was to fall in love with each other. This so infuriated Zena's Muslim family that the couple had to go on the run with death threats hanging over them.

In a back-to-back street in Leeds, a beautiful young Pakistani girl had fallen in love with a white man ten years her senior. Zena (as we called her in the book) was one of the much-loved daughters of a local restaurateur. Jack, whose sister lived in the same street, was a semi-criminal wheeler-dealer.

Jack had first noticed Zena sitting on her front doorstep with friends. He got to know her better in the local park, as they supervised the young children of their respective families. Eventually, he summoned up the courage to ask her out. Right from the start, he said, he knew he was getting himself into trouble. He just didn't know how much.

The pair began a secret affair, meeting in parks and cinemas and other out-of-the-way places. It was innocent enough, as Zena's Muslim religion forbade her sleeping with anyone before marriage. But their love had grown deep. When her older sister Miriam discovered what was going on, Zena decided to elope. She had been promised, under the system of arranged marriage to which her family still adhered, to a hill farmer from Kashmir she had met only once.

When Jack and Zena ran away, early one January morning, they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for. Zena's family went crazy. Her brothers were going to come after them, Miriam told Jack when he phoned, and if they caught them, they would both end up 'in binbags'. Later, when Zena spoke to her beloved father, he told her coldly that she was now dead to him. The family hired a private detective and a bounty hunter to track them down. Meanwhile, the brothers called on Jack's elderly mother and smashed up her house.

So began an extraordinary life on the run, as Jack and Zena searched in vain for sanctuary. One by one the agencies that could - and should - have helped them let them down. The police, the DSS, Victim Support. The pair ran from Leeds to Huddersfield to Cleethorpes to Grimsby to Lincoln to the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth and on, in fear of their lives. Eventually they ended up under a sort of police protection in Norfolk, where they eked out an existence on basic welfare.

Having exhausted the official outlets, they eventually wrote in desperation to a number of prominent figures: Tony Blair, Peter Lilley (he was then the DSS Minister), and the hostages Terry Waite and John McCarthy.

John McCarthy was the one who replied and followed through with practical assistance ...

I wish I could say that the book had solved their problem and Jack and Zena were now living happily and freely as they should be (their only crime having been to fall in love). But this isn't the case. Seven years on, they are still in hiding, still too traumatised for normal life. As the politicians try and work out how to deal with forced marriages without upsetting immigrant communities, Jack and Zena are living victims of this culture clash.

In the UK months back a christian man was dating a muslim lady. I think he was 22 and she was 20. The father of the daughter ambushed the man and tied him up and tortured him and killed him. He claimed he had to do it to defend his honor.

I was totally disgusted when i read this article.

my aunt lived in saudi arabia for the better part of a decade and saw countless of these killings... the worst was she saw a man and son push their daughter/sister off a 5 story building. she was bound at the ankles and her hands behind her back. she didn't die the first time. or the second. or the third. they kept taking her up there and dropping her until she finally died.

cmdrkeenkid, thats horrible!!!!

These people are barbarians, puting their "honor" before the lives of their own familly. Anyone who does this loses their homor in my eyes. A person's honor should not be connected to the actions of other familly members. How sick is that when its more acceptable to kill someone that to live with the "shame" of being related to them. Some people need to be taught about life in the civilized world. I mean come on, people are free to be with who they want and its none of the family's business. These "honor whores" make me sick

yeah, it is all really sick. and it's quite disturbing that their religion, society, and culture condones this...

Guys, as much as they are barbarians and evil, it is their choice to do that.

It is not your place to judge their actions or their behavior.

If you want to do that, first judge your customs and tradition before you start accusing them of wrongdoing.

Their sense of honor is different than ours, and I don't think you will understand it not now, nor ever.

Yes, it is horrible, but what about the stuff you do? I don't want to point out anything or anyone. But in our system there are as many flaws as theirs.

And before you start accusing me for God knows what, think about it.

yeah they have a right to slaughter each other like savages! but let one Iraqi get his hair parted the wrong way by an American and watch out!

Originally posted by THENEO
yeah they have a right to slaughter each other like savages! but let one Iraqi get his hair parted the wrong way by an American and watch out!

Gee, I never realized that it wasn't the Americans who slaughtered the Indians by millions, enslaved and killed Africans by millions.

THENEO, what I'm trying to say that it is bad, if not extremely unjustified, to do what they are doing, but we don't have a right to question their actions and called them savages, when we were doing the same thing some time ago.

surf,
yeah, i agree. our systems arn't really any better... i mean, child molestors and rapists get off free (no pun intended!!) and other stuff like that? neither system is good if you ask me, and a utopia is just a dream that would never come true.

and to what you were saying about african slaves... they were doing that to each other long before we started doing it, and in some parts still are. i'm not condoning slavery or anything, i'm just saying it was a major part of african culture

Originally posted by surfup

Originally posted by THENEO
yeah they have a right to slaughter each other like savages! but let one Iraqi get his hair parted the wrong way by an American and watch out!

Gee, I never realized that it wasn't the Americans who slaughtered the Indians by millions, enslaved and killed Africans by millions.

THENEO, what I'm trying to say that it is bad, if not extremely unjustified, to do what they are doing, but we don't have a right to question their actions and called them savages, when we were doing the same thing some time ago.

Excuse me are you ignorant? When did americans killed Indians and Blacks by the millions? I doubt there was a million Indians in North America when Canada and the US was formed and it did not make sense to kill slaves. If Blacks were killed then it was by europeans and other blacks.

In my studies the number I've come across for the Native population of North America (Turtle Island) at the time of contact is a possible 18 million, THENEO.

Whether they were killed.. wel...

...what I'm trying to say that it is bad, if not extremely unjustified, to do what they are doing, but we don't have a right to question their actions and called them savages, when we were doing the same thing some time ago.

Two wrongs dont make a right. These are peoples lives we are talking about. That was then, this is now. Thats been corrected, this has not.

Originally posted by surfup
Guys, as much as they are barbarians and evil, it is their choice to do that.

It is not your place to judge their actions or their behavior.

If you want to do that, first judge your customs and tradition before you start accusing them of wrongdoing.

Their sense of honor is different than ours, and I don't think you will understand it not now, nor ever.

Yes, it is horrible, but what about the stuff you do? I don't want to point out anything or anyone. But in our system there are as many flaws as theirs.

And before you start accusing me for God knows what, think about it.

What? their choice? Not our place to juge?

We're talking about people getting killed for something as immature as "honor" (screw honor BTW) Do you think it was the victim's choice to die? do you think that they believed it was for a good cause? If one of these people atacked you for asociating with someone of their family without their aproval would you think of this as being ok? This king of violence is never justified no matter how much important "honor" is to someone. And what is honor anyway? what is it worth? Its does'nt amount to anything to me.

Originally posted by parrhesia
In my studies the number I've come across for the Native population of North America (Turtle Island) at the time of contact is a possible 18 million, THENEO.

Whether they were killed.. wel...

Yes and you need to know that a large proportion of those natives resided in Mexico and central America. Look it up.

No, those projected numbers are for the Natives residing north of present day Mexico. North of Mexico ranges from 2-18 million, for the most part, leaning toward the higher end of the spectrum.

Projected population for all the America's ranges from 40-90 million.

Originally posted by THENEO
Excuse me are you ignorant? When did americans killed Indians and Blacks by the millions? I doubt there was a million Indians in North America when Canada and the US was formed and it did not make sense to kill slaves. If Blacks were killed then it was by europeans and other blacks.

THENEO, think back to your history books: America was settled by Europeans.

I am sorry there weren't a million Indians, there were more than that.

And about slaves, when Europeans, I think Dutch and Portugese mainly, transported the slaves from Africa, the slaves were crammed so that they couldn't breathe, therefore most of them died before seeing land again.

I don't know the exact number of slaves killed by suffocation in the ships and mistreatment and lyncing etc. but I'm sure it is more than a million.

Okay, but 2 to 18 kinda a big range of estimates don't you think?

Sorry but I doubt 18 million due to life style of natives and their nomadic way of life and their dislike of other tribes.

Besides most natives died due to disease rather than being slaughtered.

Yes many natives were slaughtered directly but I doubt it was a very high number. In Mexico and central and south america more natives were slaughtered than in the rest of Americas not just in numbers but in percentage of the total native population.

Originally posted by THENEO
Okay, but 2 to 18 kinda a big range of estimates don't you think?
Sorry but I doubt 18 million due to life style of natives and their nomadic way of life and their dislike of other tribes.
Besides most natives died due to disease rather than being slaughtered.
Yes many natives were slaughtered directly but I doubt it was a very high number. In Mexico and central and south america more natives were slaughtered than in the rest of Americas not just in numbers but in percentage of the total native population.

Not really.

Yes most of them died of disease rather than slaughter, but who brought the disease with them?

So you only care if Indians were slaughtered by millions?