Britain: Family sent to jail for 'honor' killing

In the summer of 2004, Manna Begum was in love with Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, a young Iranian studying in the city of Oxford. Her Bangladeshi parents had arranged for her to be married, but she wanted nothing of it. Ms. Begum's parents forbade her to see Mr. Ghorbani-Zarin, but she ignored their wishes. Upon discovering in August that she was pregnant, Begum and her boyfriend decided to get married.

In November of last year, his body was found in his car, with 46 stab wounds. His girlfriend was paid off to have an abortion.

A High Court judge told Chomir Ali, 44, that there was “no honour in murder” and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. His two sons, Mohammed Mujibar Rahman, 19, and Mamnoor Rahman, 16, were jailed for a minimum of 16 and 14 years respectively.

The older boy held the victim down while Mamnoor, who was only 15 at the time, stabbed him so furiously that the tip of the knife snapped. (Letting minors commit the actual murder is a regular practice since minors are treated less harshly in Western countries.)

While "crimes of passion" against wayward spouses occur worldwide according to a 2000 report by the UN Population Fund, premeditated honor killings originate specifically in Middle Eastern and South Asian countries where they are often both illegal and socially acceptable.

The number of such "honor killings" carried out in Britain is unknown. But in late 2004, British police began reexamining 117 murders to see how many were motivated by honor.

"A tiny percentage of the community carries out honor killings," says Humera Khan, who advises An-Nisa, a respected Muslim women's group she helped to found in 1985. "It's just like the bombings — Muslims see a lot of police resources get put into [honor killings] and then say why is nothing done about Islamophobic attacks? This gives the community a feeling of double standards."

Why are honor killings not considered anti-Islamic???

Supposedly it should be in the interests of the Muslim community to protect their own daughters from such attacks. Any excuse just shows that the community accepts these murders. Honor killings would not be taking place if the murderer wouldn't feel vindicated by the community.

Honor killings are not the only crime committed in the name of 'social norms'. Forced marriages are another, and while the British government is considering making forced marriages a criminal offence, 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.

Source: Times Online, CBS News, l'express (English)

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