Some UK Asians in the police and in Government jobs have been accused of blocking the crackdown against so-called honour killings.

It is alleged they are not only failing to help desperate women trying to flee abuse and arranged marriages but are actively encouraging punishment for those they believe are breaking traditional taboos.

Terrified victims who seek official help are even being tracked down by a network of Asian men working in Government departments and social services, according to a study written by the think-tank Social Cohesion.

The report also claims some Asian police officers actually return women to their abusive families or refuse to act against men enforcing 'traditional' roles.

Meanwhile, non-Asian officials and police officers are scared of acting against families who abuse their relatives for fear of being branded as racist, the report says.

Controversially, the report accuses one of the Government's closest advisers on Muslim matters, the Muslim Council of Britain, of hampering attempts to criminalise forced marriage. It said: The MCB has sought to block legislation aimed at ending honour-based violence. Almost all women's groups interviewed for this report say that the MCB has done little or nothing to end honour-based violence...

In many northern towns...South Asian women are often afraid to seek help because they know that Asians working in local government believe that women who break traditional taboos deserve to be punished.

A tale of forbidden love that ended in a man's violent death has sparked rioting in Calcutta and led to the removal of the city's police chief.

The fate of Rizwanur Rahman has exposed the religious and class divisions in modern India. Rahman, 30, was a computer graphics teacher from a Muslim family of modest means. His widow, Priyanka Todi, 23, is the daughter of a wealthy Hindu clothing manufacturer.

Their doomed relationship began after Miss Todi began attending the bookish Rahman's computer classes at a private academy. They secretly married in August and she left her family's lavish suburban villa for his cramped apartment in a poor Muslim area of Calcutta.

In response, her father, Ashok Todi, a prominent businessman, went to Rahman's house with relatives. There, he dropped to his knees and clutched his daughter's feet, begging her to save him from the "humiliation", saying: I cannot take a Muslim son-in-law.

The young couple wrote to the city's police force, seeking protection. Senior officers, however, sided with Todi, and even warned Rahman that he would be charged with kidnap unless he relinquished his wife.

On September 8, Miss Todi visited her father in the belief that he was ill. Instead, her mobile phone was confiscated and she was taken hundreds of miles away to southern India. She managed to call her husband and begged him to wait months or years for her. Yes I will wait for you for ever, he replied. She never saw him again.

Rahman's death just a fortnight later and the subsequent actions of the police shocked Calcutta. When rumours circulated in the city that Rahman's body had been removed from the morgue as part of an attempt to cover up his death, it sparked rioting in which cars and buses were stoned, a police car was set alight and two senior officers were injured. Armed police eventually restored calm.

In the aftermath, the Calcutta police commissioner, Prasun Mukherjee, sided with conservatives, suggesting that it was his force's job to help Todi lure his daughter back. His comments caused further public outcry and the city's authorities have now removed the police commissioner and four other senior officers from their posts.

No arrests have been made following Rahman's death but the country's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is now understood to be inclining towards a verdict of "suicide with abetment", suggesting that they believe he may have been pressed to kill himself.

The case file of a father who murdered his daughter in an act of "honor killing" with the assistance of another man by stoning her to death, is now under review in Zahedan's general court.

Sharif, the father, confessed, and provided a disturbing account of Samieh's murder. Sharif stated: A while ago, I noticed that my 14 year old daughter is acting suspiciously. Initially, I tried to approach the issue gently, and to find out why Samieh is acting this way. She would leave the house without any reason, and when she returned, she could not provide a convincing explanation. Finally, I could not take it any more and I got in a fight with her, but that didn't do any good because my daughter accused me of being suspicious and maintained that she has not done anything wrong. After a while, I became fully convinced that Samieh is having relations with a man. I perceived my honor to have been damaged, and tolerating such a condition and remaining silent was like death to me. So I decided to kill Samieh and rid myself of this shame. In this context, I had to make a decision about how I should kill Samieh and save myself from such disgrace.

I had to choose a method for killing my daughter that would fit her wrong-doing. Finally, I became convinced that I should stone her to death, but because I could not personally carry out the execution by myself, I sought the assistance of my friend, Ghafoor. When he learned about my problem, he accepted to help me kill Samieh to wash the stain of disgrace from my family. Ghafoor contacted a few other people and established the time and place to carry out the act. On the day of the incident, I forcefully took my daughter out of the house and dragged her to the outskirts of Holoor. She was terrified during the whole trip, and while she realized that she is about to face a horrifying fate, she was not sure of the punishment that I had planned for her. When we reached the planned destination, I threw my daughter on the ground and we began to stone her. Samieh kept screaming and pleaded and begged for her life. But, in order to restore my honor and return myself to a respectable life, I had no choice but to kill her. Then I fled.

After the shocking confession of the murder suspect, the authorities continued their investigation, and found the body of the 14 year old Samieh. They also arrested Ghafoor for his role in the murder of the teenage girl. With the confession provided by the second suspect, Ghafoor, the case has been sent to undergo official trial proceedings. Currently, Ghafoor and Sharif remain in prison until the trial has been conducted.

Israel's Haifa District Court has sentenced two brothers to life in prison for murdering their sister in what was termed an "honor killing."

The two brothers, Anwar Salameh and Hassan Salameh were convicted of conspiring to commit a crime, kidnapping with intent to murder, and premeditated murder.

The murder occurred in December 2005, when the victim was 21. The two defendants conspired to kill their sister after they discovered she had a secret romantic relationship, defying them. They viewed their sister's behavior as harming the family's honor and consequently planned to convince her to join them on a trip somewhere and then kill her.

The two arrived at their parent's home in a car belonging to the older brother and convinced their sister to join them to go to her lover to work out their relationship. The sister was convinced and joined her brothers on the trip. However, during the ride, the defendants veered from the route into the woods. The two brothers locked the doors of the vehicle and closed the windows to prevent their sister's escape. Then they proceeded to strangle her with their hands.

Anwar Salameh said to the judges that the penalty is a little severe for us; we received a very serious punishment. I ask you to take into consideration our situation ? my family is bereaved. Their defense attorney to prevent the publication of the story in the media.

The judges ruled that they could see no reason to deviate from the norm and permitted the publication of the trial's details.

The country’s powerful Islamic parties and leaders are resisting reform of a law that sanctions lenient punishments for those found guilty of so-called honour killings.

Article 111 of the Iraqi penal code - passed in 1969 - allows a lesser punishment for the killing of women if the male defendants are found to have had “honourable motives”.

Under the law, a man can receive a maximum of three years in prison if he immediately kills or disables his wife or girlfriend after witnessing her engaging in a sexual act with another man. This sentencing also applies if the defendant immediately kills or disables the other man.

In most cases, the sentence is commuted if the defendant has no criminal background

Acting minister of state for women’s affairs Narmin Othman is leading a campaign to change the Ba’ath-era law. She is pushing for parliament to ditch the honour killings statute, so that men accused of such crimes are prosecuted for murder, the punishment for which is life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Othman’s initiative is primarily backed by secularists and has received the support of about 60 members of parliament from the secular Iraqi List and the Kurdish Alliance, according to Iraqi List MP Maysoon al-Damalogy.

However, representatives from the Shia United Iraqi Alliance and the Sunni-led Iraqi Accord Front both oppose the legislation.

A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook.

The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported. The woman was murdered in August but her death was highlighted following Maliki's comments.

The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the "strife" the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation.

Saudi preacher Ali al-Maliki has emerged as the leading critic of Facebook, claiming the network is corrupting the youth of the nation: Facebook is a door to lust and young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they are spending on food.

More than 6,500 people have signed the online petition in a bid to stop the conservative Muslim kingdom following Syria in banning access to the network from local internet servers.

A Jordanian criminal court has sentenced an Egyptian to only six months in prison for murdering his Jordanian wife for committing adultery last year.

The court prosecutor had charged the suspect, whose identity was withheld, with premeditated murder, but the tribunal immediately reduced the charge to a misdemeanour because the defendant committed his crime in defence of "family honour," judicial sources said.

Another court also sentenced a 30-year-old mechanic to only three months in jail after finding him guilty of murdering his younger married sister.

The man opened fire on his sister, headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in, claiming he killed her to "cleanse his family's honour" because she had been missing for over a week.

Jordanian law allows for sentences to be reduced when "family honour" is involved.

Iraq's powerful Islamic parties and leaders are resisting efforts to reform a law that sanctions lenient punishments for those found guilty of so-called honor killings.

Article 111 of the Iraqi penal code, first approved in 1969, stipulates that a man can be sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison if he kills or disables his wife or girlfriend immediately after witnessing her engaging in a sex act with another man. The same penalty applies if a defendant is convicted of killing or disabling the woman's sexual partner. And if the defendant has no criminal background, such sentences are usually commuted.

Acting minister of state for women's affairs, Narmin Othman, is leading a campaign to change the Baath-era law. She argues that men accused of killing their wives or girlfriends should be charged with murder, the penalty for which is life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Othman's initiative has received the support of about 60 members of parliament, including members of the Iraqi List and the Kurdish Alliance. But members of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's United Iraqi Alliance and the Sunni-led Iraqi Accord Front both oppose the legislation, meaning that the reform legislation has little chance of passing.

Qais Al-Ameri, a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, argues that honor killings are permitted under sharia law: Illicit sex is the most dangerous thing in a society, and there should be severe punishments against those who practice it.

Nor have leading clerics shown any indication they would support eliminating the statute. After meeting opponents of honor killings, Sheikh Mohammed Al-Yakoobi, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Fadhila party, made it clear he believes men have the right to kill women they find engaged in illicit sexual activity.

A father beat his 12-year-old daughter to death to “save his honour” in a small village in Uttar Pradesh, India.

The victim’s grandmother, Natho, told Newsline that her sons killed Mamta after they found a boy, Pintu (14), her schoolmate, in her room. Father Jagdish Singh and his brother Soni Singh then allegedly burnt her body and dumped it in a well.

The police are, however, yet to recover the body and have registered a case of murder against Singh and his two brothers, who are at large.

Natho said Mamta was dear to her, but what she did was “unacceptable” and that she “deserved” the punishment. How could she let a boy into her room?

We were sleeping and were supposed to wake early because there was a wedding in the family. Around 9.30 pm, I heard a noise and went to Mamta’s room. I saw Pintu there. Seeing the boy, her father and uncles got angry and started beating her up. The beating continued till she died, Natho said with a straight face.

According to Natho, Pintu, who lives next door, had managed to escape initially after he was found in Mamta’s room, but was tracked and beaten up. We would have killed him too, but the villagers came and stopped us, said Sarvesh, Mamta’s sister.

An Iraqi teenage girl was brutally murdered by her father in an "honour killing" after she fell in love with a British soldier in Basra.

Seventeen-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader told her best friend how she had fallen for Paul, a 22-year-old she met at a charity where she worked as a volunteer.

When her father learned she had been seen speaking to a foreigner he rushed home and butchered her, strangling and stabbing her while screaming that he was "cleansing his honour".

He was arrested, but Iraqi police took no action. His wife has since left him and is in hiding.

The Ministry of Defence was last night trying to trace the soldier. Officials stressed he appeared to have done nothing wrong by befriending the girl.

Update: Dishonouring Humanity

15th May 2008. See full article from the Guardian

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. They are men and know what honour is, he said.

The stoning death of Ms Du'a Khalil Aswad led to the establishment of an Internal Ministry unit in Iraqi Kurdistan to combat violence against women. It reported that last year in Sulaymaniyah, a city of 1 million people, there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through "family problems", and threats of honour killings. Rape is not included as most women are too fearful to report it for fear of retribution. Nevertheless, police in Karbala recently revealed 25 reports of rape.

Despite the stoning outrage, recent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. Honour killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government, said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.

In the past five years it is has got [much] worse. It is difficult to described how terrible it is, how badly we have been pushed back to the dark ages. Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off. Self immolation is rising – women are left with no choice. There is no government body or institution to provide any sort of support. Sharia law is being used to underpin government rule, denying women their most basic human rights.

The new Iraqi constitution, according to Mrs Mahmoud, is a mass of confusing contradictions. While it states that men and women are equal under law it also decrees that sharia law – which considers one male witness worth two females – must be observed. The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone. The fundamentalists have sent out too many chilling messages. In Mosul two years ago, eight women were beheaded in a terror campaign.

It was really, really horrifying, said Mrs Mahmoud. Honour killings and murder are widespread. Thousands [of people] ... have become victims of murder, violence and rape – all backed by laws, tribal customs and religious rules. We urge the international community, the government to condemn this barbaric practice, and help the women of Iraq.

...Read full article

An honour killing can't possibly be worse than this. The only 'crime' 18-year-old Rekha Gokavi had committed was to love a boy belonging to a poor family. Rekha was clobbered and burnt alive by her father and uncle.

Rekha, a high school dropout, was in love with Narasanagowda Patil. The families were opposed to the match. Rekha's parents had sent her to a relative's house, in another village, to keep her away from Patil. On April 22, she returned to her village to meet Patil but told her family she had come to participate in a village festival.

According to the FIR, Patil's mother saw them together in his house and informed Rekha's father, Narasa Reddy. Narasa Reddy and his elder brother, Bhooma Reddy, rushed to the place, dragged Rekha out and beat her black and blue.

Villagers said Rekha's father and uncle set her on fire at their farmhouse.

She was crying for help, but we could not do anything other than being mute spectators, fearing consequences, said a farmer, tears in his eyes.

A neighbour said the girl's parents, who had been looking for a suitable match, could not digest the fact that she was with her lover at his house. A source said the boy's financial status might have triggered the Reddy brothers' savagery.

Narasa Reddy and his brother are under arrest for murder.

A Jordanian court has sentenced a man to just six months in jail after convicting him of the honor killing of his 16-year-old daughter.

The court ruled that the man killed his married daughter because she had an affair out of the wedlock. The enraged father severely beat her with a baton and ultimately electrocuted her in November 2006.

Like other tribal-oriented societies, many Jordanians consider sex out of the wedlock an indelible stain on the family's honor that can only be cleansed by blood.

The United Nations estimates that at least 255 women died in honour-related killings in Kurdistan, home to one fifth of Iraqis, in the first six months of 2007 alone.

The murder of women who are deemed to have disobeyed traditional codes of morality is even more common in the rest of Iraq where government authority has broken down since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

A surprising reason explaining the massive increase in the number of honour killings is the availability of cheap mobile phones able to take pictures. Men photograph themselves making love to their girlfriends and pass the pictures to their friends. This often turns out to be a lethal act of bravado in a society where premarital or extra-marital sex justifies killing.

The first known case of sex recorded on a mobile leading to murder was in 2004. Film of a boy making love with a 17-year-old girl circulated in the Kurdish capital, Arbil. Two days later she was killed by her family and a week later he was murdered by his.

Since then there has been a sharp increase in the number of women suffering violence – it is almost always the women rather than the men who suffer retribution – as a result of some aspect of their love life being pictured on mobile phones.

In 2007, at least 350 women, double the figure for the previous year, suffered violence as a result of mobile phone "evidence", according to Amanj Khalil of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, citing figures compiled by women's organisations and the police directorate in Sulaymaniyah.

The true figure is probably much higher. Bodies are buried in the mountains. Violence is concealed. Whole extended families and clans feel a genuine sense of shame because of some supposed act of immorality.

The position of women in Iraqi society has deteriorated dramatically since the start of the occupation. Despite the horrific number of honour killings, their status may be improving only in Kurdistan, where the government is secular, in contrast to Baghdad where the religious parties hold power.

Five weeks ago Leila Hussein told The Observer the chilling story of how her husband had killed their 17-year-old daughter over her friendship with a British soldier in Basra. Now Leila, who had been in hiding, has been murdered - gunned down in cold blood.

Leila Hussein lived her last few weeks in terror. Moving constantly from safe house to safe house, she dared to stay no longer than four days at each. It was the price she was forced to pay after denouncing and divorcing her husband - the man she witnessed suffocate, stamp on, then stab their young daughter Rand in a brutal 'honour' killing for which he has shown no remorse.

Though she feared reprisals for speaking out, she really believed that she would soon be safe. Arrangements were well under way to smuggle her to the Jordanian capital, Amman. In fact, she was on her way to meet the person who would help her escape when a car drew up alongside her and two other women who were walking her to a taxi. Five bullets were fired: three of them hit Leila, 41. She died in hospital after futile attempts to save her.

It was two weeks after her daughter Rand's death on 16 March that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step. Leila told The Observer in April: No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq. But I would prefer to be killed than sleep in the same bed as a man who was able to do what he did to his own daughter.

Her words were to prove prescient. Leila turned to the only place she could, a small organisation in Basra campaigning for the rights of women and against 'honour' killings. Almost immediately she began receiving threats - notes calling her a 'prostitute' and saying she deserved to die like her daughter.

Even her sons Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, whom she claimed aided their father in their sister's killing, disowned her. Meanwhile, her husband, a former government employee, escaped any charges, and even told The Observer that police had congratulated him on what he had done.

Police were appealing for witnesses today following the attempted murder of a man who was doused in petrol and set on fire in east London.

The 20-year-old, who is fighting for his life in hospital, was torched as he sat in his car in Forest Gate.

It is believed the Hindi victim, who suffered 65% in the attack, was targeted because he was dating a Muslim girlfriend.

Today's appeal comes as a 15-year-old girl and a man in his 20s are both still critically ill after being set alight in two separate attacks in the Greater London area last weekend.

Two men aged 20 and 21 have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and released on bail.

A man and three contract killers he hired to carry out the cold-blooded execution of his sister's husband because she married for love against her family's wishes were jailed for life by a UK court.

Arza Khan arranged the murder of Mian Shahid Mehmood, who was also his wife's brother to punish his sister, Yasmin Bibi Rakha, for her refusal to marry her first cousin.

Yasmin had been promised to her uncle's son when she was still a child, but during a visit to Pakistan in 2004 she fell in love with Mehmood and married him secretly.

Her husband was taken from his house in February last year and driven to nearby moors, where he was shot dead.

Khan from Halifax, and the three men he hired, Sam Lee, John Reeves and Naveed Mahmood all from Sheffield, were found guilty of murder at Leeds Crown Court.

Condemning the killers yesterday as men for whom life “seems so cheap”, Judge James Stewart, QC, told Khan that he must spend a minimum of 32 years in prison before he becomes eligible for parole.

The judge said that This was a planned execution of an innocent victim for no reason other than he married the person he loved, contrary to your wishes, Arza Khan. There is no honour in what you did, quite the reverse. You have only brought dishonour and disgrace upon your family, which has been rent asunder by your cruelty and arrogance. This sort of behaviour in a civilised world cannot be tolerated.”

Reeves and Mahmood were told that they would spend at least 32 years in jail, while Lee must serve at least 25 years.

The body of a Christian teenager has been dragged out of a canal in Pakistan after he was allegedly tortured to death in a honour killing for seeing a Muslim girl.

The 19-year-old victim, was brought up by Christian parents in a city in Punjab. He met the 19-year-old girl on their way to school.

Although it was taboo for Muslims and Christians to become romantically linked they started to call one another on their mobile phones.

The girls parents issued a stark warning that they would not permit a Christian man to disgrace Islam, and threatened to kill the boy if the relationship continued.

But the relationship continued until the boy was lured to his death at the hands of the family of his girl. They held him and tortured him for almost two days until he died.

Eventually, the teenager's body was pulled out of a canal.

Lawyers say the police refuse to report the case as murder and are insisting on registering the cause of death as suicide.

The police were biased, because it was a matter of religion, says Joseph Francis. The Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement has now taken up the case with the authorities and is pressing for justice for the victim's family.

Infuriated because his younger sister was going to clubs, wearing immodest clothing and planning to leave her family for a new life in New York City, Waheed Allah Mohammad stabbed her outside their Henrietta home, prosecutors allege.

Afterward, he told Monroe County sheriff's investigators that he attacked his sister because she had disgraced their family and was a bad Muslim girl, according to court documents.

Mohammad, 22, is scheduled to appear in Monroe County Court on charges of attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the May 8 attack on Fauzia A. Mohammad, 19.

The case is the second in four years in Monroe County in which an immigrant from South Asia is alleged to have killed or tried to kill a family member over the perceived loss of family honor — an occurrence that is not uncommon in South Asia but is rare in the United States.

Fauzia Mohammad is recovering from her wounds.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from a remote area of Balochistan province, that five women were buried alive, allegedly by the younger brother of Mr. Sadiq Umrani, the provincial minister and a prominent leader of the Pakistan People's Party, the ruling party. However, police have still not arrested the perpetrators after one month of the incident.

According to the information received, five women were Fatima, wife of Umeed Ali Umrani, Jannat Bibi, wife of Qaiser Khan, Fauzia, daughter of Ata Mohammad Umrani, and two other girls, aged between 16 to 18 years. They were discussing their options after elders of the tribe had refused them permission to marry.

As the news of their plans leaked out, Abdul Sattar Umrani, a brother of the minister, came with more than six persons and abducted them at gun points. They were taken in a Land Cruiser jeep, bearing a registration number plate of the Balochistan government, to a remote area. Abdul Sattar Umrani and his six companions took the three younger women out of the jeep and beat them before allegedly opening fire with their guns. The girls were seriously injured but were still alive at that moment. Sattar Umrani and his accomplices hurled them into a wide ditch and covered them with earth and stones. The two older women were an aunt of Fauzia and the other, the mother of one minor. When they protested and tried to stop the burial of the minors that were plainly alive, the attackers were so angry that they also pushed them into the ditch and buried all alive. After completing the burial, they fired several shots into to the air so that no one would come close.

After one month the police have still not registered the case and it is difficult to get more detailed information. The provincial minister is so powerful that police are reluctant to provide details on the murder.

On 14 August, in a village called Kani Dinar in  Iran a "father" stabbed her 18 years old, daughter, Fereshteh Nejati, and slit her throat because she sought a divorce. Fereshteh had been forced into a marriage when she was 14 years old.

She fled to her uncle's house to seek refuge after her father threatened to kill her but her father forced them to hand her over and brutally murdered her on the same day.

More than 2000 people came to the street and held a demonstration against "honour" killings; they went to hospital and collected for Fereshte's body, and buried her with respect.

They demanded the perpetrator be arrested and face justice for committing the crime for killing his daughter; there was enormous anger in the crowd against the murderer. They asked the change in the legislation of Iran in favour of women and especially against so-called 'honour' killings.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of women in Jordan and other conservative societies who rights groups say are killed every year by their male relatives in so-called honour crimes for "sullying" the reputation of their families.

The United Nations has reported such crimes in Brazil, Britain, Ecuador, India, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Uganda as well as in Muslim nations such as Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey.

Accurate figures on such killings are hard to come by because they often go unreported.

In Jordan, between 15 and 20 women are murdered annually in the name of "honour" and at least eight such killings have been reported so far this year, according to Jordanian authorities. Last year 17 such murders were recorded.

But the label "honour killings" can be misleading in this tiny kingdom's male-dominated society of about six million people.

Judges, lawyers, activists and experts agree that in most cases men exploit lenient laws and social misconceptions about women to murder them for inheritance, settling family feuds or to hide other crimes.

Judge Jehad Oteibi, spokesman for the Judiciary Council, said court records show that many "honour killings" are committed for reasons related to inheritance. Under sharia-based laws in Jordan, female heirs are entitled to an inheritance, even though it is half that which male heirs receive.

Forensic tests prove that a lot of victims were virgins, which show that there are other motives behind the killings, including family problems. It's a very sensitive issue in our society, Oteibi said.

According to Human Rights Watch, 95% of women killed in 1997 in Jordan in alleged honour killings were later proved to be innocent.

University of Jordan sociologist Seri Nasser blamed the legal system: Most of the judges are males who use their powers to reduce the sentence. They forget that women are victims of their male relatives' greed.

Perpetrators get reduced sentences as parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher sentences, despite campaigns by local and international human rights activists.

According to article 340 of the penal code, a defendant who surprises his wife or any close female relative in an act of adultery or fornication may invoke a defence of crime of honour should they murder the woman.

Article 98 of the penal code stipulates that an extenuating justification can be invoked by anyone who commits a crime in a fit of rage as a result of an unrightful and dangerous act carried out by the victim -- which may significantly reduce penalties for murder.

Most killers have avoided trial for murder, rights activists say. But even those convicted rarely spend more than two years in prison.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, his wife Queen Rania and other royals have led efforts to fight "honour killings" and reform the law.

This practice of 'honour killing' is a form of murder without trial, which is contrary to Islam, the queen has said: We should have no tolerance for the acceptance of 'honour killings' ... We have to change some cultural and societal perceptions of the place and value of women in society.

Update: Light Sentence

1st October 2008. Based on article from stophonourkillings.com

A 19-year-old who killed his divorced sister in the name of family honour when he was a minor in September 2006, walked free from the Criminal Court on Monday after receiving a reduced sentence.

The court sentenced the defendant, who was 17 at the time of the murder, to serve 16 months at a juvenile centre after convicting him of stabbing his 24-year-old sibling to death at their family's home on September 19. But the court ordered his immediate release since he already spent the sentence period in custody while on trial, according to the verdict.

The same court acquitted the victim's 55-year-old father, a truck driver, of complicity in custody in premeditated murder charges for lack of evidence.

Court papers said the victim, the mother of a 12-year-old child who had been married for over 13 years, asked her husband for a divorce a few months before she was murdered.

The husband took his wife to her family home and informed them about the matter, then filed for a divorce, according to the court. The victim reportedly went with her husband to a lawyer's office on the day of the incident where she wrote a letter listing the names of all the men she had slept with in return for money," the court said.

Upon returning home, the defendant heard about the matter from his father and became enraged, the court said. He rushed to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and stabbed his sister repeatedly until he made sure she was dead, while his father watched, according to court papers. The father congratulated the defendant and told him that he had cleansed the family's honour, court papers said.

In its ruling, the court decided to amend the premeditated murder charges to a misdemeanour as stipulated in Article 98 of the Penal Code because the defendant committed the murder in a moment of rage.

It is obvious that the defendant did not plot the murder and his actions came immediately after reading his sister's confessions," the court said, noting that the defendant benefits from a reduction in penalty because his sister was involved in extramarital affairs in return for money, which led to her divorce and brought her family shame and disgrace.

A total of 428 Pakistanis comprising 260 women and 168 men were brutally killed across Pakistan in the name of honour between January 1 and August 31.

The number of honour killings in Pakistan are estimated to be around 2,500 to 3,000 cases every year. However, the report states that a good number of such cases still go unreported or are passed off as suicides and only 25% of these are brought to justice.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 260 women and 168 men have already been killed in the first eight months of 2008. Honour killings are treated as murder under Pakistan’s penal code; however, the relevant law states that the family of the victim is allowed to compromise with the killer who is a close relative in most of the cases. Provisions of the Pakistani law also allow the next of kin of the victim to forgive the murderer in exchange for money. And most of the offenders continue to use this clause to escape punishment.

Asma Jahangir, the chairperson of HRCP, says the Pakistan government has not taken any concrete steps to put an end to honour killings and to hold perpetrators to account.

Police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are being urged to review their witness protection schemes to help combat honour crimes.

A new Association of Chief Police Officers' document aims to help forces identity potential victims and ensure all steps are taken to protect them.

It says it is also essential religious and community leaders are encouraged to speak out against such crimes.

Every year police investigate about a dozen suspected honour killings.

Police also investigate an average of 500 reports a year from people who fear being forced into marriage or people who are in a forced marriage and have been threatened or abused.

Some 65% of the forced marriage cases dealt with by a specialist government team involve Pakistani families.

The strategy document, which contains 19 recommendations, says that under no circumstances should honour-crime victims be turned away and told that honour-based violence is not the police's problem.

Next month sees the introduction of new powers to use court orders to protect people from forced marriages. The special sanctions, ordered by a judge, will allow police to seize passports or take other steps, including arrest, to prevent someone forcing a man or a woman into a marriage they do not want. Anyone who breaks an order will face jail.

Crucially, the law has been drawn up to allow third parties to intervene where the victim is too scared to act or contact the authorities.

An 11-year-old girl has been set on fire by a relative in India's northern city of Jaipur for wearing lipstick and being inappropriately dressed.

Police say the girl suffered burns over 90% of her body and her chances of survival are bleak.

They've arrested her great uncle who allegedly poured kerosene on the girl and set her alight.

Investigators say the 55-year-old man, a conservative Muslim, told the police he was enraged at the girl wearing lipstick and being scantily dressed.

But relatives have accused the man of trying to molest the girl and setting her on fire when she objected.

A teenager was brutally murdered by her boyfriend's Muslim flatmate because he did not approve of him going out with a Catholic.

Lidia Motylska, 19, was strangled in an alleyway in Leeds by Iraqi immigrant Abobakir Jabari who objected to his Kurdish flatmate's relationship with her.

Jabari, 39, who was given British citizenship in 2005, pleaded guilty at Sheffield Crown Court to murdering the petite Polish teenager.

The court heard he garrotted her from behind, using the cord from his tracksuit bottoms, before inflicting "gratuitous" wounds on her lifeless body. He stabbed her repeatedly in the chest and stomach and slit her throat.

Sentencing Jabari to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 19-and-a-half years, Mr Justice McKinnon said the murder involved an exceptional degree of violence.

An Afghan-born man has been charged with murdering his teenage sister in Germany because she lived a Western lifestyle.

A court heard that Ahmad Obeidi took out a knife and stabbed his 16 year old sister Morsal 23 times. Ahmad fled, and Morsal died an hour later.

Morsal had been a lively teenager who did community service and liked to wear skirts and makeup -- normal for a girl her age in Hamburg.

Yet her brother did not agree with her lifestyle. Ahmad, who has a history of criminal violence, repeatedly beat her according to the prosecution.

The so-called honor killing has enraged women's rights activists. One group staged a demonstration in front of the Hamburg courthouse. It wanted to direct attention to cases like Morsal's and that of Hatun Surucu, a Berlin woman of Turkish background who was killed by her brother in 2005 for her unwillingness to accept the traditional customs her family wanted to impose on her.

Update: Life Sentence

7th June 2009. See article from stophonourkillings.com

A German-Afghan man was sentenced to life in prison for the honour killing of his sister, creating mayhem in the court room as family members screamed, assaulted journalists and attempted suicide.

The 24-year-old Ahmad-Sobair O. was convicted of murdering his 16-year-old sister Morsal O. on May 15, 2008 because she had turned away from her family. The girl died after suffering 23 stab wounds in a Sankt Georg district parking lot in Hamburg. Both siblings, who immigrated to Germany 13 years ago, have German citizenship.

He killed out of pure intolerance, Hamburg Judge Wolfgang Backen said while reading the verdict, adding that the murder was treacherous and a premeditated bloodbath after all other attempts to discipline his sister had failed.

His verdict sparked dramatic scenes in the court room as Ahmad Sobair O.’s family and friends wailed and hit the security glass behind which he was sitting. The accused himself began screaming: You son of a whore! What is this, honour? I know no honour! He also yelled that had the trial taken place in Kabul, Afghanistan, he would have already been released long ago.

The murderer's mother then tried to throw herself out of a courtroom window, but was restrained by family members. Relatives of the accused also assaulted and threatened a journalist in the room.

Maryam, 14, was raped by a man in  Bamyan Province, central Afghanistan, five months ago. Her mother and brother used razor blades to cut the girl open, take out the foetus, and bury it alive to hide the disgrace, according to Habiba Surabi, the governor of Bamyan.

Maryam had initially concealed the rape, fearing this could devastate her family and possibly end her own life. But five months later, when it became clear that she was carrying a baby, her family decided to “remedy” the problem.

The surgery was conducted violently, recklessly and without any medical arrangements. She was butchered like an animal, said a physician at Yakawlang hospital where the victim was in intensive care. Maryam’s abdomen was stitched up with an ordinary needle and thread, medical experts said. Dirty wounds led to her condition deteriorating rapidly. Five days later, she was reportedly taken to hospital half-dead.

Doctors informed the police and other authorities, and now her mother and brother are in custody. The alleged rapist has also been arrested, local people said.

Maryam’s life had been saved but extended treatment and care - unavailable in Bamyan Province - was needed for her to make a full recovery.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has called on the government to bring the man who raped Maryam as well as her mother and brother to transparent and unbiased justice.

An attractive 16-year-old Muslim teenager was stabbed to death 23 times by her elder brother Ahmad to protect the family's honour.

Morsal Obeidi was the daughter of an Afghan jet fighter pilot who fled the country after the Taleban came to power. Together with his wife and five children the father settled in Hamburg, Germany.

At his trial which started recently a Hamburg Court was told Morsal liked listening to Western music and wearing make up. She also wore mini-skirts and tight jeans and enjoyed going out to discos with pals she met at school.

But instead Ahmad wanted her to wear a veil and go to a mosque for daily prayers.

Although he enjoyed going out drinking with his mates Ahmad did not think it was suitable for his sister to do the same.

The so-called 'honour killing' was allegedly the tragic end to Ahmad's violence against his young and pretty sister. Public prosecutor Boris Bochnick told the court that in the months leading up to the murder Ahmad had kicked Moral several times, hit her and also threatened her with a knife.

Although Morsal's brother has pleaded guilty to killing her, his defence is that he did not plan it but that it happened on the spur of the moment and was an honour killing. If the jury agrees it could make the difference between a guilty verdict of manslaughter or murder.

Update: Not Kabul

24th February 2009. See article from stophonourkillings.com

A German-Afghan man was sentenced to life in prison for the honour killing of his sister, creating mayhem in the court room as family members screamed, assaulted journalists and attempted suicide.

The 24-year-old Ahmad-Sobair O. was convicted of murdering his 16-year-old sister Morsal O. on May 15, 2008 because she had turned away from her family. The girl died after suffering 23 stab wounds in a Sankt Georg district parking lot in Hamburg.

He killed out of pure intolerance, Hamburg Judge Wolfgang Backen said while reading the verdict, adding that the murder was treacherous and a premeditated bloodbath after all other attempts to discipline his sister had failed.

His verdict sparked dramatic scenes in the court room as Ahmad Sobair O.’s family and friends wailed and hit the security glass behind which he was sitting.

The accused himself began screaming: You son of a whore! What is this, honour? I know no honour! He also yelled that had the trial taken place in Kabul, Afghanistan, he would have already been released long ago.

The murderer's mother then tried to throw herself out of a courtroom window, but was restrained by family members. Relatives of the accused also assaulted and threatened a journalist in the room.

The Lahore High Court has declared murder to save a woman’s honour not a crime, a private TV channel reported.

According to the channel, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa ruled this while hearing a murder case. The court acquitted Ghulam Nabi and his son Iftikhar, saying murder to save a woman’s honour was not a crime.

The accused had killed one Yasin while saving a female relative’s honour. The trial court sentenced them to 10 years’ imprisonment but the court acquitted them.

The premiere of the UK’s first feature film about the subject of honour killings will take place in Birmingham ahead of its national release in the spring.

Shot entirely on location in Birmingham, Land Gold Women follows the story of a British-Asian family caught between Eastern tradition, Western culture and political turbulence.

The Anglo-Indian collaboration aims to highlight the problems of forced marriage and honour crime, which affect thousands of women in Britain and across the world.

The team that created Land Gold Women was led by writer and director Avantika Hari and producer Vivek Agrawal, both from India.

The premiere of Land Gold Women will take place on February 12 at Cineworld, Broad Street, Birmingham.

A Jordanian man who killed his unmarried sister and her Syrian lover to defend the family’s honor has been jailed for just six months after the court found 'honour' as a mitigating circumstance.

The accused, a 23-year-old-man whose name was not disclosed, shot dead the couple in March 2008 after they disappeared from the family home in the middle of the night. Together with a cousin, the angry young man later found them in an indecent situation at an isolated spot, the court heard.

He took out his gun, killing his sister on the spot with four bullets and the Syrian shepherd with six shots, the source said. He then surrendered to the police. The court ruled the accused had acted in an explosion of rage which caused him to lose the capacity to think. The judgment was based on Jordan’s penal code, which recognizes mitigating circumstances in case of honor killings.

Update: 7.5 Years for honour murder

18th March 2009. See article from stophonourkillings.com

A Jordanian court has convicted a Syrian man of strangling his sister and sentenced him to 7 1/2 years in jail.

The court said Wednesday that the man had killed his sister because he believed her behavior to be shameful and harmed family honor. He claimed she was working in night clubs.

The man traveled to Jordan to carry out the murder and then dumped her body in a deserted area, before fleeing to Libya, according to the indictment sheet. He was later extradited to Jordan to stand trial.

Bridges TV founder and Chief Executive Muzzammil Hassan founded the TV network in 2004.

According to a Reuters story at that time, his wife came up with the idea in December 2001 while listening to the radio on a road trip.:

Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her, Hassan told Reuters: She was seven months pregnant, and she thought she didn't want her kids growing up in this environment.

So he founded Bridges TV to combat negative perceptions of Muslims.

Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband: She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th of February.

But that didn't help her much, nor even the cause of limiting negative perceptions of Islam. From the local press:

Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police.

Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan with second-degree murder.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today.

A new helpline to help victims of forced marriage and honour based violence is already receiving calls.
Northumbria Police have joined up with the Cleveland and Durham forces to provide a 24-hour confidential crisis helpline CHOICE for victims of honour based violence and forced marriages.

Forced marriages are recognised by the government as a human rights abuse, and honour-based violence can include serious crimes such as assault, kidnap, and even murder.

Detective Chief Inspector Max Black, from the public protection unit, said: We fully understand the problems and very difficult choices facing people who are being forced into marriage or who have been subjected to or fear honour based violence. It is for this reason that we joined Durham and Cleveland Police Forces in operating the CHOICE helpline on 0800 5999365 which is answered by specially trained staff within our Communications Department.

The Helpline became active in December and already a number of calls have been received.

All Northumbria Police officers and staff have received training in recognising and dealing with instances of honour based violence and forced marriage to ensure that the safety of victims and witnesses are paramount and that any offences are fully investigated.

Each incident reported to police will be dealt with by specially trained investigators based within the six Public Protection Units in each area command.

The helpline number for anyone who fears they may be at risk of honour-based violence or forced marriage, or people calling on their behalf, is 0800 5999365.

Police revealed the decapitated wife of a Muslim TV network founder in New York was stabbed several times with hunting knives and may have been alive as her killer beheaded her.

As WND previously reported, Muzzammil Hassan who has been charged with beheading his wife, Aasiya Hassan was the recipient of an award from the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations, the self-described Muslim civil rights group that boasts of its influence on U.S. government policy.

Hassan is accused of cutting off his wife's head at his Buffalo, N.Y., station Feb. 12. However, sources have now confirmed that the woman was gouged with hunting knives before she was decapitated, the Buffalo News reports.

The victim's lawyer said Aasiya, a Pakistani national, filed for divorce after numerous incidents of domestic violence. She cited cruel and inhuman treatment as reason for the dissolution.

Background: Is there any special significance to beheading in Islam?

See article from slate.com

A Muslim man was accused of beheading his wife last week in Buffalo. In recent years, Islamic terrorist groups have made a common practice of decapitating their political and religious enemies and broadcasting the acts in gory videos. Is there any significance to beheading in Islam?

The president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at the mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die.

Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had loose morals and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.

If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed, Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.

The former militia leader is carrying out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya, in an effort to blunt the appeal of hardline Islamic separatists and shore up his power. In doing so, critics say, he is setting up a dictatorship where Russian laws do not apply.

Some in Russia say Kadyrov's attempt to create an Islamic society violates the Russian constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state. But the Kremlin has given him its staunch backing, seeing him as the key to keeping the separatists in check, and that has allowed him to impose his will.

...Read full article

A young Christian man and his father have been murdered by Egyptian muslims after a rumour circulated that the young man had a relationship with a Muslim man’s sister.

Yasser Ahmed Qasim approached 25-year-old Sabri Shihata and poured gasoline on the Coptic Christian and then set him on fire. The young Copt tried to put out the fire by throwing himself into a nearby canal, but the burns were too severe and he later died.

His 60-year-old father, also named Sabri Shihata, later arrived at a village rally where a group of Muslims stabbed him to death.

The Muslim lynch mob also attacked the Coptic man’s younger brother, 22-year-old Rami Sabri Shihata, causing a serious injury to his head.

Local police have arrested those involved in the attack, including Yasser Ahmed Kassem. The perpetrators are charged with deliberate homicide.

Security forces have also surrounded the victims’ house and extra security has been deployed throughout the village of 60,000 people.

A media blackout has been put in place as the prosecution and the State Security Services continue investigation.

In Egypt recently, sectarian violence has been on the rise as Christian-Muslim relations have been strained by conversions to Christianity and government opposition to recognising the conversions.

Furthermore, changes in living arrangements have also contributed to increased tension between the two groups. Previously, Christians and Muslims used to live peacefully in mixed communities, but recently the two groups have tended to live separately only among their own religious communities and there have been less interaction between the two groups.

The When Elif's father told her she had to kill herself in order to spare him from a prison sentence for her murder, she considered it long and hard. I loved my father so much, I was ready to commit suicide for him even though I hadn't done anything wrong, the 18-year-old said. But I just couldn't go through with it. I love life too much.

All Elif had done was simply decline the offer of an arranged marriage with an older man, telling her parents she wanted to continue her education. That act of disobedience was seen as bringing dishonour on her whole family – a crime punishable by death. I managed to escape. When I was at school, a few girls I knew were killed by their families in the name of honour – one of them for simply receiving a text message from a boy, Elif said.

So-called honour killings in Turkey have reached record levels. According to government figures, there are more than 200 a year – half of all the murders committed in the country. Now, in a sinister twist, comes the emergence of honour suicides. The growing phenomenon has been linked to reforms to Turkey's penal code in 2005. That introduced mandatory life sentences for honour killers, whereas in the past, killers could receive a reduced sentence claiming provocation. Soon after the law was passed, the numbers of female suicides started to rocket.

Elif is from Batman, a grey, bleak town in the south-east of Turkey nicknamed Suicide City. Three quarters of all suicides here are committed by women – nearly everywhere else in the world, men are three times more likely to kill themselves. I think most of these suicide cases are forced. There are just too many of them, it's too suspicious. But they're almost impossible to investigate, said Mustafa Peker, Batman's chief prosecutor.

Peker said women who are told to kill themselves are usually given one of three options – a noose, a gun or rat poison. They are then locked in a room until the job is done.

A woman's fate is usually decided during a family council, when the extended family meets to discuss breaches of honour. In these meetings, it is agreed how the victim must be killed. If it is not to be a forced suicide, a killer is chosen. The youngest member of the family is often ordered to kill, in the belief they will be treated more leniently if caught.

Dr. Muazzam Nasrullah at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan compiled a statistical study that attempts to quantify honour killings in Pakistan.

Nasrullah used local and national newspaper reports systematically compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan as the basis for his study.

A total of 1,957 incidents of honor killings were recorded over four years, the study reported. The majority occurred in response to alleged extramarital relations.

But Nasrullah said he is confident the results were lower than the actual number because not every event makes it into the media.

Honor killings are not unique to Pakistan, and the World Health Organization estimates about 5,000 women are murdered by family members in the name of honor each year worldwide. Dr. Claudia Garcia-Moreno, an adviser on gender violence at the World Health Organization, said honor killings are an extreme form of violence against women which we see primarily in the Middle East and in parts of Asia, but in many ways they are not very different than some of the murders that are being documented in other places.

Nasrullah said the most important conclusion of his study is that more research needs to be done on honor killings to reveal more about the causes and scope of the problem. His hope, expressed in the published study is that clear knowledge about the extent and the brutal consequences of [honor killings] may serve to alter traditional practices.

Taliban militants publicly executed a man and girl for eloping when she was already engaged to marry someone else.

Hashim Noorzai, head of Khash Rud district in southwestern Nimruz province, said the two were executed by gun shots in front of a crowd of villagers.

Nimruz is a sparsely-populated area near the Iranian and Pakistani borders where foreign or government troops have little presence.

Mini Skirt and Mini Humanity

Based on article from theaustralian.news.com.au

An Azeri immigrant in Russia's Saint Petersburg has been charged with hiring hit men to kill his 21-year-old daughter for wearing a mini-skirt, police have said.

The man's arrest follows the detention last week of two other citizens of Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim state in the Caucasus, who confessed to murdering the girl, a university medical student. They admitted to being paid 100,000 rubles ($4140) by the girl's father. They said he wanted to punish his daughter for flouting national traditions and wearing a mini-skirt.

The girl was abducted on the street in Russia's second city on March 8, taken to the outskirts of Saint Petersburg and then shot twice in the head, the source said.

Hacked off with his Sister

Based on article from stuff.co.nz

A Jordanian man confessed to stabbing to death his pregnant sister and mutilating her body supposedly to protect the family honor.

The man turned himself into police and has been charged with murder.

The 28-year-old married woman was five months pregnant and stabbed repeatedly in the face, neck, abdomen and back as well as being hacked up with a meat cleaver.

The incident is the ninth such case this year and the second this month.

A Sikh man acting with a warped sense of honour carried out an attack on a female witness and the priest who conducted the wedding ceremony of his sister after finding out she had married a man of a different faith, a court has heard.

Sandip Singh Rooprai allegedly poured petrol through the letter box of the Bristol home of the priest and set it alight, then firebombed the car and house in Swindon of the witness at the marriage.

Jurors were told he believed his family had been dishonoured in the Sikh community after his 22 year-old sister, Pardip, married Hindu Gaurav Kapoor without their permission.

The court heard that they had married hurriedly at a Hindu temple because she feared her parents were about to take her to India for an arranged marriage.

The trial, at Winchester Crown Court, continues.

23-year-old Yildiz A was stabbed in the stomach six or seven times and her nose and ears and part of her lip cut off, then she was dumped in a field. She managed to crawl to the road and was spotted by a minibus driver who took her to the hospital where she is in intensive care.

According to the newspapers, Yildiz A was married and accused of having a relationship with another man, so a family council was called and it was decided to kill her to cleanse the family's honor.

The woman's husband, Bayram A, ran away, but was soon arrested. Their two children are with the family, although will be taken under protection. Bayram A had gone off to work in construction in Izmir. His relatives accused his wife of having a secret relationship with one of her relatives while her husband was gone.

The husband's relatives called on Bayram A. to return, and held a family council that made a kill decision. Hearing of this, the young woman, Yildiz A, went to the police to ask for protection. They took her under their protection and arranged to send her to the nearby town of Agri, but her husband convinced them that his wife was slandering him. The police returned Yildiz A to her husband.

A twisted sense of values led an Ottawa man to murder his sister and the man she loved, the judge in an honour killing trial said.

You put your own self-esteem over those of your own sister and the young man she had chosen to become her life partner, Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford told an expressionless Hasibullah Sadiqi. And consigning them to partnership in death has shocked and bewildered every community in the nation's capital. The forfeiture of your liberty for the rest of your life seems only just. Sadiqi, who had pleaded not guilty, will spend the next 25 years in jail.

Minutes earlier, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on two counts of first-degree murder against the 23-year-old Sadiqi, who gunned down his 20-year- old sister, Khatera, and her fiance, Feroz Mangal, 23, in the early hours of Sept. 19, 2006 while the couple sat in her parked car.

Prosecutor Mark Moors said Sadiqi was motivated by a perverted notion of honour and respect for the sole purpose of restoring the family's reputation and respect in the Afghan community.

Moors told the court that Sadiqi murdered the couple because Khatera moved in with Mangal's family before the wedding and because she refused to have her estranged father involved in her wedding plans.

In Turkey a young woman who had refused to marry a man was kidnapped by members of his family - who then tortured her, broke her arms and legs and killed her with blows to the head.

The victim, 19-year-old Nimet Gurbunar, was "guilty" of turning down the marriage proposal of 24-year-old Tayfun Sahin. His sister Fadime and one of his brothers, Sayfi, kidnapped the girl to convince her to accept the wedding. They started torturing her and, when the girl still refused, they started breaking her limbs one by one.

Despite the injuries the girl had already sustained - a newspaper writes - her suitor wanted to rape her as final act, but only abandoned the idea when he saw her bloodstained legs. Then, several blows to the head, probably with a bat, smashed the victim's skull.

The woman and her brothers have been arrested.

Syria has updated its law limiting the length of sentences handed down to men convicted of killing female relatives they suspect of having illicit sex.

Women's groups had long demanded that Article 548 be scrapped, arguing it decriminalised honour killings.

Activists say some 200 women are killed each year in honour cases by men who expect lenient treatment under the law.

The new law replaces the existing maximum sentence of one year in jail with a minimum jail term of two years.

Justice Minister Ahmad Hamoud Younis said the change was made by the decree of President Bashar al-Assad, following a recent increase in wife-killings... on the pretext of adultery.

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.

The legislation covers any man who unintentionally kills his wife, sister, daughter or mother after catching her committing adultery or having unlawful sex. It also covers cases where the woman's lover is killed.

Reports say women's rights activists have given a cautious welcome to the change, with one group calling it a small contribution to solving the problem. Their objection remains, however, that the new law still apparently invites men to murder women if they catch them having sex or suspect them of doing so.

A Saudi women's group has blamed the country's religious police in the "honour" killing of two sisters shot dead by their own brother after they were arrested for mixing with unrelated men.

The Society for Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia said the religious police had placed the sisters' lives in danger when they arrested them and then placed them in a Riyadh women's shelter.

The two women, identified as Reem, 21, and Nouf, 19, were murdered after they left the shelter on July 5. The brother shot them in the presence of their father who, according to newspaper reports, quickly forgave the son for defending the family's honour.

But the society blamed the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or the religious police, for sparking the brother's anger over his family's honour by arresting the girls in the first place: These women have not committed any crime to be killed in a such brutal way. Arresting women for mingling with (unrelated males) should be stopped because it puts many Saudi women in danger and sometimes (costs) them their lives.

The women's group called on the Saudi authorities to charge the brother with murder and also bring to justice members of the religious police involved in the two girls' case.

A Saudi Arabian princess who had an illegitimate child with a British man has secretly been granted asylum in this country after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home. The young woman, who has been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for refugee status after telling a judge that her adulterous affair made her liable to death by stoning.

Her case is one of a small number of claims for asylum brought by citizens of Saudi Arabia which are not openly acknowledged by either government. British diplomats believe that to do so would in effect be to highlight the persecution of women in Saudi Arabia, which would be viewed as open criticism of the House of Saud and lead to embarrassing publicity for both governments.

The woman, who comes from a very wealthy Saudi family, says she met her English boyfriend – who is not a Muslim – during a visit to London. They struck up a relationship. She became pregnant the following year and worried that her elderly husband – a member of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia – had become suspicious of her behaviour, she persuaded him to let her visit the UK again to give birth in secret. She feared for her life if she returned to Saudi Arabia.

She persuaded the court that if she returned to the Gulf state she and her child would be subject to capital punishment under Sharia law – specifically flogging and stoning to death. She was also worried about the possibility of an honour killing.

The woman has been granted permanent leave to remain in the UK after the Immigration and Asylum tribunal allowed her appeal.

Based on article from independent.co.uk

By claiming asylum in Britain, the Saudi princess is seeking to avoid the fate of another member of her royal family who was executed after admitting adultery.

Princess Mishaal bint Fahd al Saud, the 19-year-old great-niece of the late King Khalid, was shot several times in the head in 1977. Her death is thought to have been ordered by her grandfather, Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the King's older brother. She was unmarried but had confessed that she had committed adultery.

The killing became the focus of an international outcry in 1980 when the docu-drama Death Of A Princess was shown on television. Saudi authorities tried to get the film suppressed and, when that failed, they expelled the British ambassador to Riyadh, withdrew 400 members of their royal family from Britain and cancelled millions of pounds worth of exports.

Two men appeared in a UK court charged with attempted murder after a man was stabbed, beaten with bricks and had sulphuric acid forced down his throat during an apparent honour attack.

The 24-year-old victim, believed to be a Danish man of Asian origin, is in a critical but stable condition in Broomfield hospital, Chelmsford, Essex. He is thought to have been blinded, to have suffered up to 50% burns and to have had his tongue destroyed in the attack, which took place in Leytonstone, east London, on 2 July.

Police have refused to comment on reports that officers have warned a married Muslim woman – who was allegedly having a relationship with the victim – that her life was now at risk.

The two suspects, who are aged 19 and 25 and come from east London but cannot be named for legal reasons, were remanded in custody after appearing at Waltham Forest magistrates court. They will appear at the Old Bailey on 30 September. Seven men were originally arrested, although five were released on bail. One of them, a 16-year-old, was later rearrested.

A bill, which has passed unanimously in the lower house of Pakistan's parliament, will come into effect after it is approved by the senate and signed into law by President Ali Zardari.

Those found guilty of beating women or children would face a minimum six months behind bars and a fine of at least 100,000 rupees (£1,000).

The law will classifies domestic violence as acts of physical, sexual or mental assault, force, criminal intimidation, harassment, hurt, confinement and deprivation of economic or financial resources.

Human rights groups say Pakistani women suffer severe discrimination, domestic violence and honour killings - when a victim is murdered for allegedly bringing dishonour upon her family.

Rape is commonplace and used as a punishment in many villages.

Marvi Memon, a parliamentarian from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League, welcomed the bill and called on the government to ensure the law was implemented.

Young Danish muslim girls are subjected to rape and other sexual assault by muslim boys and men who threaten them into silence by saying the girls will being shame on their families because they willingly met with the boy or man.

Social mediator Birgitte Karlsson, who runs a day institution for youth of immigrant background in Høje Taastrup, says that in a period of three months she met about 15 immigrant girls who were raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by immigrant boys.

Often the girls chatted with the boys on the internet, after which they set to meet. But the boys in these cases abused the girls and left them with threats that they will tell the girls' parents that the girls themselves agreed to have sex with them. And in some immigrant families, having sex before marriage is the worst thing a girl can do. Therefore the girls don't dare tell about the attack, says Birgitte Karlsson.

As a Muslim immigrant girl you're raised that if you have sex before marriage, you're punished by Allah. Sex before marriage is according to Islam the greatest shame. There are some boys who you this honor-concept against the girls, since the girls will be considered the guilty ones.

Couples who defy traditions — and their murderous parents — to enter love marriages rather than arranged unions in India are to be given police protection in safe houses.

Police in Haryana, an affluent but conservative northern state, said that they had been overwhelmed by hundreds of cases in which couples had been attacked by enraged relatives for ignoring the strict social codes that dictate who they should marry.

Under a pilot scheme that will start this month, newlyweds judged to be most at risk will start their lives together under armed guard.

In the rural villages of Haryana, caste purity and adherence to traditions are paramount. As a result, the state has grown notorious as the honour killing capital of India.

To counter a sharp rise in such crimes, a safe house will be established in the Rohtak district of Haryana. The scheme will be expanded if successful.

Vikash Narain Rai, the director-general of police for Haryana, said: Villagers are becoming more exposed to the outside world and young people are choosing to marry without getting their parents’ nod. We have to take action as we’re seeing more and more cases of kids being harmed by their own kith and kin.

There are plans for a programme where police will explain the law to councils of village elders, who often sanction honour killings. We’ll be telling them that these practices are bad parenting, Rai said.

A Muslim man has been sentenced to life in prison after killing his German-born wife because she was too independent, a court in Germany heard.

The Kurdish man, identified only as Onder B, was found guilty today of stabbing his wife in the eyes, beating her with a billiard cue and then running over her in his car.

His mother-in-law had once told him to be strict with her strong-willed daughter, Mujde.

On New Year's Eve 2008 he stabbed his 18-year-old wife Mujde 46 times and beat her with a billiard cue. And because she was already so disfigured from the stabbing and beating that she would hate me for the rest of her life, he got into his car and ran over her body several times.

Bielefeld District Court judge Jutta Albert convicted him on a charge of murder arising from base motives, and one of cruelty, because the defendant stabbed his wife in both eyeballs while she was still alive. He stabbed her so hard in the head with a fruit knife that the blade broke off in her skull.

The court heard how he was upset that she behaved the way she did and didn't do what he told her. She was too independent and she had to die for it, said the prosecutor.

He returned to Germany at the end of 2008, killing her on New Year's Eve because, he claimed, she had turned up the car stereo when he tried to speak to her. She had also given him an incorrect PIN three times when he tried to check the calls on her mobile phone, and she had refused to answer him when he asked whether she had been unfaithful.

On July 19, Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17 hopped aboard a bus in Ohio and ran away to Florida. She did so because of the alleged abuse she has suffered at the hands of her father, as well as her fear that he will soon kill her.

Fathima was placed in foster care by the Florida Department of Children and Families, rather than send her back to Ohio with her parents, Judge Daniel Dawson has scheduled a hearing for September 3, at which time a dependency petition will be argued.

In a Youtube video, Fathima explains why she had to run away.

I'm a Christian, and my parents are Muslim. They are extremely devout. They threatened to kill me. … You guys wouldn't understand. Islam is very different than you guys think. They have to kill me. My blood is now halal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I'm from a Muslim background, it's an honor. If they love God more than me, they have to do this. I'm fighting for my life. ...

Update: Allowed to leave home

23rd January 2010. See article from dailymail.co.uk

A runaway teenage girl who converted from Islam to Christianity has reached a court settlement that allows her to live away from her Muslim parents.

Rifqa Bary, 17, will stay in a foster home under state custody in Columbus, America, until she turns 18 in August.

Bary's attorney read a statement in Franklin County Juvenile Court, saying that the girl and her parents love and respect each other and will try to resolve their differences through counselling.

The text message forwarded to me from my younger sister Saira was concise and chilling: Mum's sent a hit man to kill you, it read. Be careful.

As I read those words, my first instinct wasn't fear or even shock, but simply survival.

I'd become accustomed to behaviour like this from both my parents - behaviour that anyone else would find abhorrent - and I was emotionally numb to their threats.

But I also knew that my sister's warning was deadly serious and my life was in real danger. I'd been in hiding for several weeks when I received the text.

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In a bid to prevent their own honour killing, young lovers strangled their family after lacing chapatis with sedatives, a court was told

Informal village councils that dominate northern India came under scrutiny yesterday after the arrest of a 19-year-old girl and her lover who are accused of murdering seven of her family, including her parents and grandmother, because they would not let the couple marry.

Sonam and her boyfriend, Naveen, 20, were accused of drugging the victims with a sedative in their chapatis, and strangling them in their home in the northern state of Haryana on September 14.

Anil Kumar Rao, the superintendent of police in Rohtak, told The Times that Sonam and Naveen knew that the local khap panchayat, vllage council, would see their relationship as taboo because they came from the same gotra, a group descended from a common ancestor.

When Sonam's family learnt of the relationship they ordered her to break it off and sent her to a hostel, but she continued to meet Naveen, who enrolled at a nearby computer institute. Sonam's family then detained her at home, banning her from going out or having any interaction with outsiders. But she is said to have contacted her lover by mobile phone when her relatives were out, to plot the murders. After allegedly sedating her relatives, she called Naveen to help to strangle them with a piece of rope, then took a dose of sedative to send herself to sleep to provide an alibi.

A police spokesman admitted that she might have acted out of fear that the village council would order her own killing. It's definitely there in the minds of the people, he said.

Kirti Singh, the top lawyer at the All India Democratic Women's Association (Aidwa), also said that the police and courts should consider whether the couple's lives were threatened: It's like a case of domestic violence in which the wife kills the abusive husband, she said. Something has to be done urgently to stop khap panchayats from operating in this way, otherwise this kind of killing will only continue.

The number of young women – and men – being killed or assaulted after supposedly bringing shame on their families keeps on rising. But more than ever before, those who have escaped violence are speaking out to break the code of silence.

Old attitudes of accepting the crimes in the name of cultural sensitivity have also disappeared and the police are targeting the abusers.

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For Ahmet Yildiz, a stocky and affable 26-year-old, the choice to live openly as a gay man proved deadly.

Prosecutors say his own father hunted him down, traveling more than 600 miles from his hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul. Ahmet Yildiz was shot outside his apartment building.

Yildiz was killed 16 months ago, the victim of what sociologists say is the first gay honor killing in Turkey to surface publicly. He was shot five times as he left his apartment to buy ice cream. A witness said dozens of neighbors watched the killing from their windows, but refused to come forward. His body remained unclaimed by his family, a grievous fate under Muslim custom.

His father, Yahya Yildiz, whose trial in absentia began in September, is on the run and believed to be hiding in northern Iraq.

The case, which has caused a bout of national soul-searching, has underlined the tensions between the secular modern Turkey of cross-dressing pop stars and a more traditionalist Turkey, in which conservative Islam increasingly holds sway.

Ahmet Kaya, Ahmet Yildiz's cousin, said Yildiz was the only son of a deeply religious and wealthy Kurdish family from Sanliurfa, in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Kaya said Yildiz was tutoring fellow students so he could make extra money to live independently. But by coming out as gay in a patriarchal tribal family, he had become the ultimate affront to both religious and filial honor, even with parents who adored him.

Ahmet's father had warned him to return to their village and to see a doctor and imam in order to cure him of his homosexuality and get married, but Ahmet refused. Ahmet loved his family more than anything else and he was tortured about disappointing them. But in the end, he decided to be who he was.

That clash of values permeates Turkish society. While Turkey's aspiration to join the European Union is pushing the Muslim-inspired government to accept and even promote civil liberties for women and homosexuals, some traditionalists remain ill at ease with a permissive attitude toward sexuality and gender roles.

Ms. Darama, a religious Muslim who wears a gold satin head scarf, said she was the only one among her neighbors willing to testify: The police and local religious officials are trying to protect the killer because they think homosexuality is a sin, she said. But in Islam killing is an even bigger sin, and no one but Allah has the right to decide between life and death. Ahmet was a nice, gentle boy and he didn't deserve to die.

Queen Rania of Jordan is challenging Islamic hardliners by supporting tougher sentences for men who commit honour killings.

Queen Rania, who regularly appears without head-scarf, let alone hijab, has given her quiet support to women's rights groups who want to change laws amounting to legal impunity for men involved in honour killings.

But standing against is are another symbol of the country's attempts to show a progressive face. Jordan's MPs, who have been given more power to hold the government and royal family to account than in other Arab countries, have shown little enthusiasm for the moves.

This whole issue is being exaggerated, and the reason behind it is not innocent, said Sheikh Hamza Mansour, leader of the parliament's Islamic Action Front. His coalition of Islamist and tribal representatives has so far blocked an attempt to introduce tougher sentences for men who have killed their sisters and daughters for bringing shame on their families: It's as if the government is giving up our personality to turn us into a Westernised society.

For Rania, it is deeply offensive that the killing of women not only appears to be condoned, but seems to be on the rise: the number of deaths reported, currently between 20 and 25 a year, is increasing. Sentences remain low, often as little as six months to three years in jail.

The government is introducing a special tribunal to hear honour killing cases, but a parliamentary alliance has so far blocked attempts to change two articles of the legal code. The first is article 340, which allows an in flagrante defence to a man who kills his wife and her lover if he finds them in bed together. It has only ever been used once. More important is article 98, a crime of passion defence, which is commonly used and gives reduced sentences to those who claim they commit violence in the fury of the moment. The government wants a minimum penalty of five years even under this defence, but is coming under vociferous attack.

Police have seen honour crime surge by 40% due to rising fundamentalism, new figures show.

Honour-based violence, including crimes like murder, rape and kidnap has increased in London during the last year.

Reported instances of intimidation and attempts at forced marriage have also increased by 60%.

A report into the scale of the problem by Scotland Yard found there were 161 honour-based incidents recorded in 2007-8, of which 93 were criminal offences. But in 2008/9 the number of incidents had risen to 256, with 132 being criminal offences.

The latest figures indicate that the trend is continuing, with 211 incidents reported in the last six months until October, of which 129 were offences - more than double the number in the same period last year.

Diana Nammi, of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, said the group is now dealing with four times more complaints relating to honour than two years ago.

She said: More women are coming forward. They are becoming more aware of their rights in the UK, that there is help available and they feel confident enough to report matters to the police. But I also think cases and violence are increasing.

Jagdeesh Singh's sister was murdered by her in-laws for daring to seek a divorce. But, he tells Jerome Taylor, it is a crime his community would prefer to ignore

Jagdeesh Singh wants to get straight to the point. There is this very distinctive and self-incriminating silence within communities that have a history of 'honour' killings, he says. The so-called community leaders, the influential religious groups and the local language newspapers remain deafeningly silent when these killings happen. But that silence makes them just as guilty as the people who kill in the name of honour.

Talk like this has made Mr Singh a deeply controversial character within the suburbs of west London where he and many of Britain's 400,000-plus Sikhs have made their homes.

Many younger people regard him as a devout and tireless Sikh who is unafraid of speaking out against the more parochial traditions of Punjabi culture that they often find themselves struggling against. Others, particularly the more conservative and older elements, look on the 39-year-old as a troublemaker who needlessly provokes controversy by shining an unwelcome spotlight on things that should not be aired in public.

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Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an honour killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website. The girl had previously been reported missing. The informant told the police she had been killed following a family council meeting.

Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.

Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.