Robert Fisk on “honor” killings

Robert Fisk penned a searing piece last week about the scourge of "honor" killing.

I think religion plays a much smaller causative role in this awful problem than I think many Western observers assume is the case–fact is, non-Muslims with comparable cultural hangups about family honor, parental authority and gender do it, as well, as this shocking case involving Sikhs in Canada seems to illustrate–but that doesn't make it any less horrific and obscene. Nor does it explain how many religious leaders on the ground in many Islamic societies could've been impotent for so long when facing this savage, grossly un-Islamic practice in their midst.

Robert Fisk: The crimewave that shames the world:

It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the
murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death,
stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the "honour" of
their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women's
groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at
least four times the United Nations' latest world figure of around
5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers,
slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but
which now spans half the globe.

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It's depressing, but well worth reading.