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BERLIN -Two Afghan brothers suspected of killing their sister for adopting a Western lifestyle went on trial in Berlin on Wednesday, in a case that highlights the violence against women and cultural tensions among some recent migrants to Germany. The defendants, identified as Sayed H. and Seyed H. under German privacy laws, are accused of luring their 34 year-old sister to meet them last July in Berlin and choking her and cutting her throat, the Berlin prosecutor’s office said. All three siblings had Afghan citizenship and had been living in Germany for several years. The brothers, aged 23 and 27,...

It was bad enough that the alleged rape took place in the sanctity of a mosque and that the accused man was a mullah who invoked the familiar defence that it had been consensual sex. But the victim was only 10 years old. And there was more: The authorities said her family members openly planned to carry out an honour killing in the case – against the young girl. The mullah offered to marry his victim instead. This past week, the awful matter became even worse. On Tuesday, local policemen removed the girl from the shelter that had given her...

Police said 25-year-old Farzana Iqbal was stoned to death by her family for marrying the man she loved .. and not her cousin. ... Around 1,000 Pakistani women are killed every year by their families in honour killings. The true figure is probably many times higher since the Aurat Foundation only compiles figures from newspaper reports.

Violence against women is endemic in Afghanistan with cases of “honour” killings, rape, domestic violence and forced marriage well-documented and well-known. But women and girls who have been displaced from their homes during decades of conflict seem to be even worse off, according to the latest edition of Forced Migration Review, which looks at Afghanistan's displaced people and their prospects after foreign troops withdraw this year. Displaced Afghan women are especially vulnerable to exploitation and violence because of their often reduced circumstances, according to a piece by Camille Hennion, project director at the Kabul-based Samuel Hall research group. ... A...

A silvery green olive grove set in the red soil of a Palestinian village is a crime scene - testament to a practice so sensitive that it is spoken of only in whispers. One night in late November, Rasha Abu Ara, a 32-year-old mother of five, was beaten to death and strung from a gnarled tree branch as a gruesome badge of "family honor" restored. The woman's alleged sin was adultery, and her killer was either her own brother or husband ... Her murder brought to 27 the number of women slain in similar circumstances in Palestinian-run areas this year,...

As wedding scenes go, it is a rather sedate affair. But four women who joined in the celebrations are thought to have paid with their lives. They are feared to have been the victims of honour killings after dancing with men. In scenes from the wedding, they are pictured in heavy robes and headdresses, sitting on the floor while singing and clapping. Two men were apparently dancing next to them, while out of shot another person captures the moment on a mobile phone video camera. Soon afterwards, the women were said to have been shot or had their throats cut...

I wrote about the murders of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia and their father's first wife Rona over two years ago, when their bodies were found in the Rideau Canal in Kingson, Ontario: Three or so weeks back, a submerged car was found in the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., containing the bodies of three teenage girls and their aunt — a story initially reported as Mysterious Death Of 4 Quebecers Baffles Kingston Police. When it emerged that the four female Quebecers were, in fact, Muslim, the tearful parents offered up a strange tale of an impromptu midnight driving lesson...

A JORDANIAN man has been charged with killing his 35-year-old sister when she was released from detention over allegedly having sex outside marriage, a judicial official said today. "The suspect, in his 40s, was charged on Sunday with premeditated murder after fatally shooting his sister five times in Zarqa," northeast of Amman, the official told AFP. "She had been in administrative detention since February over a fornication case. Apparently she had (sexual) relations with a man who took advantage of her and pretended he wanted to marry her." Murder is punishable by death in Jordan but in so-called "honour killings"...

NEW DELHI -- Infamous for their conservative outlook towards love and marriage, the khap panchayats are finding their way on to the silver screen with several Bollywood directors lining up films based on honour killings. TV soap maker Ajai Sinha and director Avtar Bhogal are the latest to try and use a cinematic medium to deal with the complex issue. Known for soaps such as Ghar Ek Sapna, Haasratein and Astitva, Sinha decided to make Khap- A Story Of Honour Killing after he came across a related newspaper article. "These killings have taken place even in the capital Delhi also....

We usually associate jihadic warriors with fiery, anti-American and anti-Israeli sermons and with homicide bombings and airplane hijackings. We don’t think of jihadists as homebodies or in terms of their family relationships. But we should. Islamic fundamentalism (Islamism) is associated both with terrorism—and with Islamic gender apartheid. Thus, Islamists demand that their women shroud themselves, marry their first cousins, serve their brothers and father as domestic servants, keep quiet about routine daughter--and wife--battering, and keep away from infidel influences. If they don't, they risk being honor murdered. show me a jihadist and I’ll show you someone who believes in polygamy,...

Anyone who thinks murder is better than suffering the indignation of a community needs more than a softly-softly approach The dust has barely settled on the case of Tulay Goren – the Turkish schoolgirl murdered by her own father. Tulay's murder will not be the last of its kind, but she should be the last who was failed by a system that tiptoes around cultural sensitivity.

SNIPPET: "Another European publisher has fallen victim to the continent’s blasphemy laws – blasphemy against Islam, that is. As the German press is reporting: Dusseldorf – A German publisher has cancelled plans to publish a mass-market novel out of fears that it might face violent protests due to a rude reference to the Koran, Der Spiegel magazine reported Saturday. The crime novel – about the “honour killing” of a Muslim woman – had been scheduled for September publication, but the Droste publishing company of Dusseldorf decided not to print it after all, the magazine said in a story to appear...

A 41-YEAR-OLD Jordanian man was charged with premeditated murder after his raped teenage niece was shot dead on Tuesday to "cleanse" the family's honour... "The man was arrested and charged after he shot the 16-year-old girl eight times in different parts of her body,'' ... "The suspect, who was arrested while carrying his gun, confessed to the crime, saying that he wanted to cleanse his family's honour after his niece was raped last year. She gave birth to a baby boy two months ago and her family kept the child.'' "honour killings'', a court usually commutes or reduces sentences... Between...

German police charged Thursday that the grisly death of a 20-year-old ethnic Kurdish woman had been an 'honour killing,' and that her brother had confessed to the crime. Germans have been outraged at a recent series of execution-style honour killings of young women by immigrant families. Police said the family had attempted to force Gulsum into a planned marriage and then discovered she was not a virgin and had undergone one or more abortions. Gulsum had left home last year with the help of welfare officials and moved to a safe house, but then returned home to Rees. Honour killings...

SNIPPET: "She gave a dying statement to the police saying the accused beat her and set her on fire. Vijay Singh, station officer at Bhojpur police station in Ghaziabad, said: "The girl has succumbed to her injuries. We have been looking for the four men accused in this case. One of them has been caught and charged with murder.""

Gruesome killing poses another test for US Muslims ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer February 21, 2009 The crime was so brutal, shocking and rife with the worst possible stereotypes about their faith that some U.S. Muslims thought the initial reports were a hoax. The harsh reality of what happened in an affluent suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. — the beheading of 37-year-old Aasiya Hassan and arrest of her estranged husband in the killing — is another crucible for American Muslims. Here was a couple that appeared to be the picture of assimilation and tolerance, co-founders of a television network that aspired...

ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: Balochistan Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri stunned the upper house on Friday when he defended the recent incident of burying alive three teenage girls and two women in his province, saying it was part of “our tribal custom.” Senator Bibi Yasmin Shah of the PML-Q raised the issue citing a newspaper report that the girls, three of them aged between 16 and 18 years, had been buried alive a month ago for wishing to marry of their own will. The barbaric incident took place in a remote village of Jafarabad district and a PPP minister and some...

* Baloch senator Israrullah Zehri says members should not politicise issue ISLAMABAD: The killing of women for honour is a demand of the tribal traditions, Balochistan Senator Israrullah Zehri informed the Senate on Friday. Zehri was responding to Senator Yasmeen Shah’s statement in which she had drawn the House’s attention towards reports that five women had been buried alive in Balochistan in the name of honour. She called it a sheer violation of human rights. Zehri asked the members not to politicise the issue, as it was a matter of safeguarding the tribal traditions. Leader of the Opposition in Senate...

Murder in the Family: Honor Killings in America When she was just 19, Sandeela Kanwal traveled from America to Pakistan for an arranged marriage to a cousin twice her age. Less than six years later, she was dead — strangled — and her father, Chaudhry Rashid, was arrested by police as the suspect for what some have called an "honor killing." After their marriage, Kanwal had lived in the United States apart from her husband, who remained in Pakistan. She was reunited with him in April at her family home in Atlanta, but he moved to Chicago days later, leaving...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...