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Honor killing

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Honor killing is the practice of males killing their female relatives or spouses when the female relative or spouse is considered to have damaged the family honor through unwarranted sexual activity. The males involved in the sexual activity, which might have been a rape, are not adversely affected, in general. The murder is considered to be private matter within the affected family, rarely do non-family members or the courts become involved. Honor killings are viewed as murder by most people.

Honor killings include both crimes of passion - when the female relative in question is caught in the act - and premeditated murders. No country's laws allow the latter; a few allow the former (see below.) Similar practices have been known since ancient Roman times, when the paterfamilias retained the right to kill an unmarried but sexually-active daughter or an adulterous wife. Until 1975, the French Penal Code commuted the sentence of a husband who found his wife in flagrante delicto and killed her . (See crime of passion) As of 2004, honor killing has been observed in numerous countries, including: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom. In Europe, the practice has not been reported in recent decades except in Muslim and Sikh communities . Many cases of honor killing have been reported in Pakistan, where its known as KaroKari.

Islamic law prescribes severe punishments for zina' (extramarital sex) by both men and women; premarital sex may be punished by up to 100 lashes, while adultery is punishable by stoning. The act must however be attested by at least four witnesses of good character, punishments are reserved to the legal authorities, and false accusations are themselves punished severely. The term "honor killing" refers specifically to extra-legal punishment by the family against the woman, and as such is forbidden by the sharia.

Interpretations of these rules vary; some Arabs regard it as their right under both tradition and sharia, though this contradicts the views of the vast majority of Islamic scholars (fuqaha.) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has condemned the practice as "un-Islamic", though the punishment under Iranian law remains lenient. In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, honor killings are unknown, as also in Muslim parts of West Africa. According to Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr, former head of the al-Azhar Fatwa Committee (one of the oldest and most prestigious in the Muslim world):

"Like all other religions, Islam strictly prohibits murder and killing without legal justification. Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93) The so-called “honor killing” is based on ignorance and disregard of morals and laws, which cannot be abolished except by disciplinary punishments."

See also: al-urf

Sharif Kanaana, professor of anthropology at Birzeit University states that honor killing is

a complicated issue that cuts deep into the history of Arab society...What the men of the family, clan, or tribe seek control of in a patrilineal society is reproductive power. Women for the tribe were considered a factory for making men. The honor killing is not a means to control sexual power or behavior. What's behind it is the issue of fertility, or reproductive power.

Countries that allow men to kill female relatives in flagrante delicto (but not in cold blood) include:

  • Jordan: part of article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code states that "he who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty" . This has twice been put forward for cancellation by the government, but was retained by the Lower House of the Parliament.
  • Syria: Article 548 states that "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants, descendants or sister committing adultery or illegitimate sexual acts with another and he killed or injured one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty."

Countries that allow husbands to kill only their wives in flagrante delicto include:

  • Morocco, where Article 418 of the Penal Code states "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery."
  • Haiti, where Article 269 of the Penal Code states that "in the case of adultery as provided for in Article 284, the murder by a husband of his wife and/or her partner, immediately upon discovering them in flagrante delicto in the conjugal abode, is to be pardoned."

In two Latin American countries, similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal "honor killings"; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery."

The United Nations Population Fund estimates as many as 5000 females are killed each year around the world.

Some anonymous sources in the Israeli press claim that Hamas has allowed women to be female suicide bombers, including a mother of six and a mother of two children under the age of 10, in place of being the victims of an honor killing.

See Also: Islam#The role of women in Islam, dowry murder, Domestic violence, machismo

References

  • "Jordan Parliament Supports Impunity for Honor Killing," Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch Press Release, January 2000

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