re: #9 wrenchwench

AI and HRW have made their opposition to honor killings well known.

HRW - calls on India to prosecute rampant honor killings.
- stop making excuses Syria over honor killings.
No substitute for reforms - Jordan.

Jordan should reform penal code provisions that effectively reduce or eliminate punishment for violence against women instead of establishing special tribunals to hear “honor killings” cases, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Jordanian Ministry of Justice on August 10, 2009.

On August 12, the Jordan Times reported the 14th such killing this year, of a 16-year-old girl by her 39-year-old uncle to “cleanse his family’s honor.” He shot the girl after learning that his sons had raped her and that she had a child by one of them. Under Jordanian law, murder of a relative believed to be engaged in extramarital sex carries a reduced sentence.

“The current law is nothing less than an endorsement for murdering women and girls,” said Nadya Khalife, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The women of Jordan need protection from these vicious acts enshrined in law, not preferential treatment for their killers.”

Amnesty International’s workup of honor killings: religious, social, and political justifications and issues.

So, to claim that they’ve said and done nothing to deal with Sharia and honor killings is patently false. Could those groups have said and done more? Absolutely - just as any one of us can do more to spread the word about this heinous criminal act against women around the world - and one that isn’t confined solely to Muslims.