There is no "honour" in murdering your daughter

News coverage of the tragic story of Tulay Goren, whose father has just been convicted of murdering her, suggests that so-called "Honour Killings" are claiming a victim every month.

It is offensive to call these murders 'honour killings', because there is nothing honourable about them. To kill your daughter or sister can never redeem your family's honour, it destroys it by proving you to be a particlarly depraved criminal.

What is even more extraordinary is that these murders are being linked to the rise in certain forms of fundamentalist religion.

There is no valid religious justification for murder, and the perpetrators of such crimes should not be allowed to hide behind any faith.

It would not justify these crimes if the perpetrators could point to a passage in the Koran or any other holy book as the inspiration for their actions, but in fact it is my understanding that no major faith or sacred text calls on the adherents of that religion to enforce it's precepts by killing members of their own family.

The authorities must work with responsible community leaders - plenty of members of the ethnic minority communities in Britain are as horrified by crimes such as the murder of Tulay Goren as the rest of us - to stamp out this abomination.

Comments

Jane said…
Murder, is murder, is murder and it is against the law of the land to intentionally take life, without lawful sanction. Human life is sacrosanct and no one has the right to take it. I do not want this to be misconstrued by the extreme right as being anti-Islamic. I respect Islam and realise that the majority of Britain’s Moslem citizens are law abiding and peace loving.

Respect for human rights allows anyone to express religious and cultural identity in so far as it does not interfere with the rights of others to their individual rights i.e. the right to life. These so called honour killings have to be looked at proportionally. It cannot be acceptable for an individual or a section within the community to express themselves, in a manner that denies an individual the right to life. This is good reason for the state to intervene in order to preserve the greater good of society.

The murder of Tulay Goren is utterly unacceptable in a civilised society. What is wrong is wrong irrespective of race, religion and culture. I do not consider myself politically incorrect for saying so.
1:12 am
Jane said…
We have to talk about this as a society, openly honestly and respectfully without fear of the PC thought police.
1:16 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more