Posted on 12/06/2005 8:31:22 PM PST by Alouette
LONDON (Reuters) - Rukhsana Naz was 19 when her mother pinned her to the floor of their family house and her brother strangled her with a length of plastic cable.
Sahjda Bibi, 21, was preparing to celebrate her wedding when her cousin stabbed her 22 times with a kitchen knife. The father of 16-year-old Heshu Yones slit her throat because he disapproved of her Western habits and non-Muslim boyfriend.
All were victims of "honor killings," murdered by relatives who believed they had brought shame on their families through their behavior or choice of boyfriend, husband or lover.
Until recently, honor crime was rarely reported and often misunderstood in Britain, viewed as something which happened elsewhere -- mainly in the Middle East or southern Asia.
But a series of gruesome killings has forced Britons to recognize that such crimes, although still rare, are committed here too, often within the country's large ethnic Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani communities.
Girls and young women have been killed, abducted, physically abused and held prisoner in their own homes. Police believe scores have been taken out of the country, often to the Indian subcontinent, and have disappeared.
Nazir Afzal, director of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in west London where there is a large south Asian community, says there have been at least a dozen honor killings in the country in the past year.
"And murder is just the tip of the iceberg," he said. "There are other crimes, like rape, abduction and physical violence, which we would consider steps on the stairway to murder."
ON THE RISE
The CPS, which decides whether to press charges against suspects in British criminal cases, says such crimes are on the rise, particularly since the July 7 London bombings.
The bombs, which killed 52 people on the city's transport system, were planted by four Islamist suicide bombers, all of them British.
That shone a harsh spotlight on the country's 1.6 million Muslims and, according to the CPS, prompted some Muslim families to turn in on themselves, with worrying consequences.
"I've certainly seen more cases of honor crime since July 7," said Afzal. "When communities perceive themselves to be under threat they tend to turn in on themselves, regardless of whether that perception has any basis in fact.
"They try to restore and reinforce their own social norms. They put pressure on their own members to conform, and if they don't conform there is sometimes some kind of retribution."
Specialists on violence against women also say social cultural changes, partly spread by globalization and mass media, have left men from southern Asia feeling threatened and women are bearing the brunt of their fear.
The CPS stresses honor crime is not just a Muslim issue.
"I'm aware of crimes being committed in Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, and also within those communities in this country," Afzal said.
"That said, the bulk of these crimes involve the South Asian community and in particular the Muslim community."
GIRLS AS YOUNG AS 11
Jasvinder Sanghera set up the Karma Nirvana center for women from the Asian subcontinent in Derby, central England, because of her own experiences.
At 14, her family showed her a photograph of the man she was told to marry. Her mother refused to heed her objections and a week before her wedding day Sanghera ran away, never to return.
Her sister failed to escape.
She accepted her parents' choice of husband, found herself in an abusive relationship and eventually committed suicide.
"She suffered horrific violence in her marriage but when she turned to my family, they sent her back to an abusive partner because of 'honor', because of the family name, because of the family's reputation," Sanghera said.
"Within days she killed herself. She set herself on fire."
Sanghera says she has dealt with cases of children as young as 11, betrothed to husbands against their will.
Reunite, a charity which campaigns to stop child abduction, estimates that around 1,000 British Asian girls are forced into marriage each year. Between a third and a half are minors.
MEN TARGETS TOO
While young women are the primary victims of honor crimes, two court cases have shown how men have been targeted too.
In early November, two brothers aged 16 and 19 were convicted of murdering a British Iranian because their family disapproved of his relationship with their sister.
The brothers, from an ethnic Bangladeshi family, stopped their victim in his car, pinned him to the seat and stabbed him 46 times in the chest.
Less than three weeks later, a Muslim man was convicted of hacking a 21-year-old Afghan to death with a scimitar after finding out he was having a relationship with his sister.
Honor crimes, often carried out behind closed doors in tight-knit communities, are notoriously difficult to prevent, and police say they struggle to garner enough evidence to bring suspects to trial.
Two years ago, London's police force set up a task force to tackle the issue and it is re-examining over 100 unsolved murder cases to see if they may have been honor crimes, even though they were not recognized as such at the time.
The government is also considering changing the law to make forced marriage a criminal offence.
Ultimately though, campaigners say that what is needed to bring an end to honor crimes is a change of attitude among more conservative elements within some of Britain's communities.
Until then, young girls and women like Rukhsana Naz, Sahjda Bibi and Heshu Yones will remain at risk.
When the eeville colonialists were informed that suttee was a traditional Indian custom, the officer replied, "well, we have a traditional custom of hanging chaps who burn their brother's widows."
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Now now.. we must learn to be tolerant of multi-culturalism. After all, we can't be ethno-centric and force our Patriarchal Western Christian culture on these proud people. That would truly be a hate crime.
All cultures are created equal.
Diversity is our strength... repeat after me..
When the eeville colonialists were informed that suttee was a traditional Indian custom, the officer replied, "well, we have a traditional custom of hanging chaps who burn their brother's widows."
That made my week. Those brits were funny when they had an empire.
enough of these sub-humans claiming that western countries need to adapt to their culture.
When honor killings occur, they need to be prosecuted as cold, pre-meditated murder and send the ones responsible to prison or an electric chair.
End of story.
SEE UK that what happen when you allow Barbarians inside the country they are barbarians NO QUESTION Alouette
I know this is Britain but where is the equivalent NOW group? Feminists should be outraged, but no they're too concerned with gender neutral vergbiage in colleges/high schools. Words like 'freshman'. They have no time to speak out again true crimes again women. sickening. I am a proud recovered feminist because of this kind of crap.
The question is very simple - will British law be truly supreme in Great Britain or will a deliberate closing of the eyes in the name of multiculturalism result in the establishment of an alternate law that is in every respect superior to it? Because every time one of these murderers turns up safe and triumphant in Pakistan or wherever, British law is just that much more weakened. It's happening in Canada as well. Our turn next?
England needs to bring back public hanging.
They really do have time. . .but Feminism was never meant to be a caring for women per se or exclusively. . .it was a 'reach out' to women so as to facilitate Leftist idiological changes in a culture. . .
. . .i.e. in a word or two, a variation of the theme. . .'the hand that rocks the cradle. . .rules the world'.
I am glad you saw the discrepencies. . .the hypocrisy. . .and moved out and on. . .
That is part of the backwards attitudes towards abortion and capital punishment. A living breathing feminist is safe from abortion. It cannot happen to her (him either)and thus can be espoused. Capital punishment is something that could possibly happen to a an adult leftist so must be opposed zealously. They think-"what if I were mistakenly picked up for a capital crime?" or "what if I am deliberately framed by an evil Christian?"
this is exactly why immigrants to any country should be allowed in only if they are willing to give up their old ways and acclimate totally to their new country, its laws and its ways of life.
But do you notice that if someone were running around killing child molesters some lib group would be screaming bloody murder!
That was Sir Henry Hardinge, the first Viscount Hardinge of Lahore. He was a serious Christian man who did much to liberate the people of India by introducing them to enlightened western ways. But he was not dealing with Muslims there. Would that we could bring him back to the UK today.
Grapples? GRAPPLES? What the hell kind of society sits around wringing hands when young women are strangled to death for choosing the wrong male companion? If this isn't an example of decadence, nothing is - on both the British and Islamic sides.
Where are the hags'n'bitches of NOW? What do they have to say about these atrocities committed against women? Don't they care?
what kind of punishment do they get these days for murder?? a few months probation??
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