Honor Killings Not Simply Abuse

Are honor killings a simple matter of domestic violence or abuse? (Should chopping off your wife's head not raise an eyebrow?)  Phyllis Chesler, Middle East Quarterly:

When a husband murders a wife or daughter in the United States and Canada, too often law enforcement chalks the matter up to domestic violence. Murder is murder; religion is irrelevant. Honor killings are, however, distinct from wife battering and child abuse. Analysis of more than fifty reported honor killings shows they differ significantly from more common domestic violence.[1] The frequent argument made by Muslim advocacy organizations that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam and that it is discriminatory to differentiate between honor killings and domestic violence is wrong.

Families that kill for honor will threaten girls and women if they refuse to cover their hair, their faces, or their bodies or act as their family's domestic servant; wear makeup or Western clothing; choose friends from another religion; date; seek to obtain an advanced education; refuse an arranged marriage; seek a divorce from a violent husband; marry against their parents' wishes; or behave in ways that are considered too independent, which might mean anything from driving a car to spending time or living away from home or family. Fundamentalists of many religions may expect their women to meet some but not all of these expectations. But when women refuse to do so, Jews, Christians, and Buddhists are far more likely to shun rather than murder them. Muslims, however, do kill for honor, as do, to a lesser extent, Hindus and Sikhs. [snip]

Police, politicians, and feminist activists in Europe and in some Muslim countries are beginning to treat them as a serious social problem.[5]

Willingness to address the problem of honor killing, however, does not extend to many Muslim advocacy groups in North America.[snip]

For example, in response to a well-publicized 2000 honor killing, SoundVision.com, an Islamic information and products site, published an article that argued,

Four other women were killed in Chicago in the same month ... They were white, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian … Islam is not responsible for [the Muslim woman's] death. Nor is Christianity responsible for the deaths of the other women.[8]

In 2007, after Aqsa Parvez was murdered by her father in Toronto for not wearing hijab (a head covering), Sheila Musaji wrote in the American Muslim, "Although this certainly is a case of domestic violence … 'honor' killings are not only a Muslim problem, and there is no 'honor' involved."[9] Mohammed Elmasry, of the Canadian Islamic Congress, also dismissed the problem. "I don't want the public to think that this is an Islamic issue or an immigrant issue. It is a teenager issue," he said.[10]

Indeed, denial is rife.

Don't get along with your teenager? Murder is OK?  I don't think so. "There are lots of things to kill them for", and the extended family often joins in. The victims are young women, the murder premeditated. Some mothers collaborate in the killing.

What kind of a culture is this? Inhuman. Chesler points out organizations which are complicit:

As with issues relating to terrorism, law enforcement and civil servants must be mindful of which Muslim community activists they seek to engage. Many self-described civil rights organizations—CAIR or the Islamic Society of North America, for example—lean towards more radical interpretations of Islam. Groups such as the American Islamic Congress and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy advocate for gender equality and human rights, [28] but because their efforts against radicalism antagonize Saudi Arabia and other sources of funding, they often lack resources. Given alternative funding, they might be willing to assist in an effort to educate Muslims against honor murder.

The Islamic Society of North America is based in Chicago, and CAIR has a local chapter. They should be ostracized.