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Honour killing

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Honour killing is most often the killing of a female, but in some cases also a male, and sometimes his/her family members, love-interests or other associates,<ref>Men murdered six-year-old girl in honour killing arson attack -- UK Telegraph, September 9, 2006</ref><ref>Five people including a teenage couple who married against their families' will have been killed by relatives in the latest incident of so-called honour killing in Pakistan -- Sydney Morning Herald, August 24, 2006</ref> for supposed sexual or marital offences, typically by his/her own relatives or relatives of a purported romantic interest, with the justification being that the "offence" has brought "dishonour" to the family. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of honour killing victims may be as high as 5,000 women.

In societies and cultures where it occurs, honour killing is often regarded as a private matter for the affected family alone; rarely do non-family members or the courts become involved or prosecute the perpetrators. The practice is condemned by human rights supporters for being a double standard and sexist, since males will not be killed for such an "offence"; i.e. if a man rapes a woman, it is the woman who "brings dishonour" to her family and not the rapist.

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[edit] Definitions

Human Rights Watch defines "honour killings" as follows:

Honour crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are perceived to have brought dishonour upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce — even from an abusive husband — or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a specific way to "dishonour" her family, is sufficient to trigger an attack. [1]

For example, honour killings can sometimes target those who choose boyfriends, lovers or spouses outside of their family's ethnic and/or religious community. Some women who adopt the customs (or religion) of an outside group, may also be more likely to be victims. [2] Furthermore, in certain cultures a raped single woman will garner no bride price if she marries, and thus be considered "worthless" to the family. There is some evidence that homosexuality can also be grounds for honour killing by relatives. Several cases have been suspected but not confirmed. There is also a documented case of a gay Jordanian man who was shot (but not fatally) by his brother. [3]

Many hold the practice to be self-contradictory, since an honour killing is sometimes justified by its participants or supporters, as an attempt to uphold the morals of a religion or a code, which at the same time generally forbids killing as morally wrong.

[edit] Honour suicides

Honour suicides occur when, in an effort to avoid legal penalties for killing, a woman is ordered or pressured into killing herself. This phenomenon appears to be a relatively recent development. A special envoy for the United Nations named Yakin Erturk, who was sent to Turkey to investigate suspicious suicides, was quoted by the New York Times as saying that some suicides appeared to be "honour killings disguised as a suicide or an accident." [4] [5]

[edit] History

[edit] Based on suspicion

The killing of people for sexual crimes has been known since the times of Ancient Babylon (1700 BCE). The Codes of Hammurabi and Assyria (some of the earliest sets of laws discovered), focus on the perception that a woman’s virginity belongs to her family. In Peru from 1200 BCE - 1532 CE, alleged adulterers were punished by having their hands and feet tied to a wall and being left to starve to death. A man was allowed to kill his wife if he caught or suspected her of having an extra-marital affair, while if a woman caught or suspected her husband of doing the same thing and killed him, she was given the death penalty.

Individuals within certain Chinese, Japanese and other (South) East Asian cultures, legally sanctioned the killing of unfaithful wives by their husbands to protect family honour. In some (past and present) South Asian and/or Hindu cultures, new wives are at times murdered by their husbands because of failed dowry demands. The killings are sometimes carried out by burning the victims to death through "accidental" kitchen fires. The prior practice i.e. the honour motivated killing of adulterous wives, occurred within (certain) Germanic tribes of Western Europe as well. [6]

In Ancient Roman times, the pater familias, or senior male within a household, retained the right to kill an unmarried but sexually active daughter or an adulterous wife. Even in the United States, until recent times, wife-killings by husbands (especially against adulterous wives - whether or not they were premeditated) were not considered a crime in some jurisdictions. [7] Such practices, to a large extent, have ceased to be endemic in North America, although some immigrants from North Africa and the Near East (for example) have brought the practice with them in recent decades. [8]

[edit] Based on proof

In the Valley of Mexico from 150 BCE - 1521 CE, the punishment for female adultery was death by stoning or strangulation, but only after the husband could prove the offence. According to interpretations of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the Halakha (Jewish law) punishes certain sexual misconduct for both men and women, with capital punishment (also through stoning) [9] [10] as approved by a court (or Sanhedrin). It should be noted such practices do not currently take place within Judaism worldwide.

Honour killings, generally considered premeditated, are typically held to be distinct from Crimes of passion, which occur throughout the world. Crimes of passion often have special status under the law. For instance, until 1975, the French Penal Code commuted the sentence of a husband who killed his wife after finding her in the act of committing adultery; [11] this law passed into the legal frameworks of the many nations who based their modern legal codes on the Napoleonic Code. Thus, Crimes of passion are different from honour killings, in the sense that they are spontaneous acts that aren't planned. Furthermore, many honour killings (along with some Crimes of passion) are based on sheer suspiscion as opposed to (what appears to be) factual proof, in relation to the idea that an individual has committed or been involved in an "undesirable act", in the mind of the perpetrator(s). [12]

[edit] Locations

As of 2004, honour killings have occurred at the hands of individuals within parts of various countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy [13], Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States. Honour killings are more common among poor rural communities. In Europe, honour killings have mostly been reported within some Muslim and Sikh communities. Individual Arab Christians living within parts of the Near East, such as sections of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, are said to sometimes carry out the act as well. [14] Many cases of honour killings have been reported in Pakistan. In December 2005, Nazir Afzal, director of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, stated that the United Kingdom has seen "at least a dozen honour killings" between 2004 and 2005. [15] Critics argue that the practice is over-whelmingly associated with certain Muslim cultures and the peoples influenced by those cultures. [16]

[edit] Honour killing as a cultural practice or religious practice

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

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

An Amnesty International statement adds:

The mere perception that a woman has contravened the code of sexual behavior damages honour. The regime of honour is unforgiving: women on whom suspicion has fallen are not given an opportunity to defend themselves, and family members have no socially acceptable alternative but to remove the stain on their honour by attacking the woman. [17]

[edit] In countries with Islamic law

Contrary to stereotypical beliefs, honour killing is forbidden in Islam. [18] There is no specific mention of the practice in the Qur'an or Hadiths. An honour killing, in Islamic definitions, refers specifically to extra-legal punishment by the family against the woman, and is technically forbidden by the Sharia (Islamic law). Some Islamic religious authorities and Muslims, disagree with extra-legal punishments such as honour killing and prohibit it, since they consider the practice to be a cultural issue. [19] They believe that since certain pre-Islamic cultures have influence over a number of Muslims, murderers of females use Islam to justify honour killing, even though there is no support for the act in the religion itself. However, honour killings cannot always be punished according to many interpretations of Islamic law, as murders are a type of "qisas" ("retaliation") crime. This means that the deceased's family should be offered the choice of capital punishment or "diya" ("blood money") and no execution can take place without them opting for death. Because a relative(s) is responsible for the honour killing, it is unlikely that the deceased's family will punish one of their own for the crime. [20]

Traditional interpretations of Islamic law (or Sharia) prescribe severe punishments for zina, or extramarital sex, by both men and women. This is not a new practice; it has been around since ancient times and has been practiced by other religions and cultures as well. Premarital sex could be punished by up to 100 lashes, while adultery is punishable by the death penalty i.e. stoning. The act of sexual penetration must, however, be attested by at least four male Muslim witnesses of good character, the accused has a right to testify in court, the suspect's word or testimony is required to hold the most weight in the eyes of the judge(s), punishments are reserved to the legal authorities and the law states that false accusations are to be punished severely. [21] [22] The former regulations also make some Muslims believe (whether or not they regard pre and extramarital sex as sinful), that the process' goal was to eventually abolish the physical penalties relating to acts of fornication and adultery, that were already present within many societies around the world when Islamic teachings first arose. According to this view, the principles are so rigorous in their search for evidence, that they create the near impossibility of being able to reach a verdict that goes against the suspect in any manner. [23]

The execution of the Saudi Arabian princess Misha'al is an example of an honour killing, in which the execution did not follow any Islamic religious court proceeding, but was ordered directly by her grandfather.

Interpretations of these rules vary. Some Arabs regard it as their right under both tradition and Sharia (by the process of urf), though this contradicts the views of many Islamic scholars (fuqaha). Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran has condemned the practice as "un-Islamic", though punishment under Iranian law remains lenient. In certain (Sufi influenced) Muslim regions like Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, honour killings are little known, as also in parts of West Africa with majority-Muslim populations and many other Muslim countries. [24] According to Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr, former head of the al-Azhar University Fatwa Committee (one of the oldest and most prestigious in the Muslim world):

Like all other religions, Islam strictly prohibits murder and killing without legal justification. Allah, Most High, says, “Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom.” (An-Nisa’: 93) The so-called “honour killing” is based on ignorance and disregard of morals and laws, which cannot be abolished except by disciplinary punishments. [25]

This opinion makes a clear distinction between "hudud" crimes, which have specified legal penalty in Islamic law, and "ta`zir" offenses, which can have a discretionary punishment decided by the judge. Honour killings are ta'zir crimes, not hudud ones meaning that any punishment is culturally defined.

[edit] Honour killing in national legal codes

According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (2002) concerning cultural practices in the family that reflect violence against women (E/CN.4/2002/83):

The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honour defence in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defence in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Peru, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority. [26]

Some of these, including those of Turkey, have since been modified.

Countries where the law can be interpreted to allow men to kill female relatives in a premeditated effort as well as for crimes of passions, in flagrante delicto in the act of committing adultery, include:

  • Jordan: Part of article 340 of the Penal Code states that "he who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty." [27] This has twice been put forward for cancellation by the government, but was retained by the Lower House of the Parliament. [28]

Countries that allow men to kill female relatives in flagrante delicto (but without premeditation) include:

  • Syria: Article 548 states that "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants [sic], descendants or sister committing adultery (flagrante delicto) or illegitimate sexual acts with another and he killed or injured one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty."

Countries that allow husbands to kill only their wives in flagrante delicto (based upon the Napoleonic code) include:

  • Morocco: Article 418 of the Penal Code states "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery."
  • Haiti: Article 269 of the Penal Code states that "in the case of adultery as provided for in Article 284, the murder by a husband of his wife and/or her partner, immediately upon discovering them in flagrante delicto in the conjugal abode, is to be pardoned."
  • Turkey: Recently Turkey changed its laws concerning honour killings. Persons found guilty of this crime are sentenced to life in prison. [29]
  • In two Latin American countries: Similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honour killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery." [30]

Countries where honour killing is not legal but is frequently in practice include:

  • Pakistan: Honour killings are known as Karo Kari (Urdu: کاروکاری ). The practice is supposed to be prosecuted under ordinary murder, but in practice police and prosecutors often ignore it. [31] Often a man must simply claim the killing was for his honour and he will go free. Nilofer Bakhtiar, advisor to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, stated that in 2003, as many as 1,261 women were murdered in honour killings. [32] On December 08, 2004, under international and domestic pressure, Pakistan enacted a law that made honour killings punishable by a prison term of seven years, or by the death penalty in the most extreme cases. Women's rights organizations were, however, wary of this law as it stops short of outlawing the practice of allowing killers to buy their freedom by paying compensation to the victim's relatives. Women's rights groups claimed that in most cases it is the victim's immediate relatives who are the killers, so inherently the new law is just eyewash. It did not alter the provisions whereby the accused could negotiate pardon with the victim's family under the so-called Islamic provisions. In March 2005 the Pakistani government allied with Islamists to reject a bill which sought to strengthen the law against the practice of "honour killing". The parliament rejected the bill by a majority vote, declaring it to be un-Islamic. [33] However, the bill was brought up again, and in November 2006, it passed. [34]

[edit] Notes

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  1. ↑  The defence of non-premeditated killing of a wife caught in adultery in Italy was legally abolished in 1981 (Legge 442/81)

[edit] See also

[edit] References and further reading

[edit] External links

[edit] Included in article

[edit] Not included in article

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