Wikipedia defines Honor Killings thus, "An Honor Killing or shame killing is the murder of a member of a family, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonor upon the family, or has violated the principles of a community or a religion, usually for reasons such as divorcing or separating from their spouse, refusing to enter an arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by their family, having premartial or extramarital sex, becoming the victim of rape or sexual assault, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, engaging in non-heterosexual relations or renouncing a faith." The first question that some will ask is wether there is a difference between Honor Killings and Domestic Violence. In an article in the Spring 2009 issue of Middle East Quarterly author Phyllis Chesler pointed out some of the distinctions. In domestic violence, the victims tend to be adult women abused by spouses or boyfriends. In Honor Killings, the victims tend to be the daughters of Muslim men. In domestic violence, the acts are usually spontaneous and not thought out. Honor Killings are usually carefully planned in advance. It is unusual for more than one person to carry out acts of domestic violence. In Honor Killings the planning often includes other family members - mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, etc., in addition to the father. Other family members often participate in the killing. Domestic violence incidents are usually condemned by the larger community. Honor Killings are often approved of by the community in which they take place, and punishments tend to be minimal or non-existant. While the perpetrators of domestic violence are often remorseful after their actions, the murders in Honor Killings usually feel they have done nothing wrong and very rarely have any regrets. According to the United Nations, there are 5,000 Honor Killings in the Middle East every year, with about 1,000 occurring in Pakistan. These figures are uncertain, however, and many believe the actual numbers are much higher, as high as 5,000 for Pakistan alone. Many of these killings are covered-up, but some drew international attention. The first of these was the murder of Samia Sarwar, 29, on April 6, 1999. Her father was a prominent businessman and her mother was a medical doctor. When she was nineteen her parents arranged for her to marry her first cousin. She had two children with him, but he was abusive (while she was pregnant with her second child he threw her down a flight of stairs), and she eventually left him and returned home with her children in 1995. Her parents let her return but flatly refused to allow her to get a divorce because it would shame the family. She eventually fell in love with an army officer she met while taking her children to riding lessons. When she asked her parents for a divorce so she could re-marry, their reaction caused her to flee for safety. She went to prominent Pakistani Human Rights lawyers Asma Jehangir and Hina Jilani, who were sisters and ran a home for battered women. After she was given shelter there, her mother, Sultana, contacted the lawyers and asked to meet with her daughter to discuss a solution. Samia agreed to meet her mother privately at the lawyers' off in Lahore. On April 6th, her mother arrived with a man named Habib-ur-Rhemna. She said she had injured her foot and needed his help walking. They entered a room where Samia and Jilani were sitting and when Samia stood to greet her mother, Habib grabbed her and shot her in the head. He had been hired by Sultana and other family members to killed Samia. As Habib and Sultana left the building, Habib fired at a police guard and was killed by return fire. Sultana later told reporters that she could have killed her daughter at the women's shelter, but wanted to do it at the office in order to teach the lawyers a lesson for interfereing in a family matter. Many Pakistanis agreed with her, and neither Sultana nor any of the relatives invoved in the plot were ever charged. In fact, Imams' issued a fatwa against the two lawyers saying that they were infidels for undermining family traditions and therefore deserved to die. In December 2005, a woman called Mugadas fled her abusive husband and returned to the home of her stepfather, Nazir Ahmed, a laborer in the town of Multan. During the night, Ahmed decided he couldn't tolerate such a disgrace, and slit his stepdaughter's throat with a machete. Then, while their mother watched, he cut the throats of his own three daughters - aged 8, 7, and 4 - because he was afraid that with Magadas' bad example they MIGHT disgrace the family as well. When arrested he had no remorse saying "We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor." On April 27, 2009, a thirty year old rising female vocalist named Ayman Udas was shot and killed in her home by her two brothers, Alamgir and Ismail. The married mother of two was killed because her conservative brothers thought her artistic career violated Islamic tradition and disgraced the family. Farzana Parveen, 25, married Mohammed Iqbal against her family's wishes. Her family filed charges against Iqbal, claiming he had kidnapped Farzana. On May 27, 2014, the couple left the courthouse at Lahore after testifying against the allegation. As they left, a mob of twenty people attacked them, hitting them with bricks. Mohammed escaped, but the pregnant Farzana was beaten to death. The mob included her father and two brothers. When arrested, her father, Muhammad Parveen, told police, "I killed my daughter as she had insulted all our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it." In June, 2016, 18-year-old Zeenat Rafiq ran away from home to marry her long time sweetheart, Hassan Khan. Her family had rejected several marriage proposals from Khan, whom they disapproved of because he was poor. A week after the marriage, while the couple was living with Khan's family, Zeenat's mother Parveen Bibi, contacted her and told her the family had decided to accept the situation and wanted to throw a wedding reception for her. On the 6th when she arrived home, she was seized, beaten, and tied to a bed while her mother poured kerosene over her and set her afire. When neighbors heard the screams they ran to the house, but other family members kept anyone from entering the building. In January 2017, Pakistan sentenced Parveen Bibi to death for murdering Zeenat, and her son Anees Rafique was given a life sentence for helping her. These punishments are highly unusual for Honor Killings.
We had very little with this in East Texas. All Muslim men are visited regularly by those they respect who tell them what will happen if they put a hand of a Muslim women in anger.
