Thread by @JewhadiTM

Horrific Honor Killings in Phoenix clarionproject.org/honor-killings…

A Muslim man in Arizona was arrested for four honor killings — his wife, two daughters and the man with whom he believed his wife was having an affair.

According to Phoenix Police Sergeant Tommy Thompson, “[Austin Smith] said that the reason he shot these individuals is because in God’s eyes, it was all right for him to deal with someone in this manner who had been involved in adultery, extramarital affairs.”

Smith also told police he killed his seven-year-old daughter because she was “weeping for the wicked.”

According to court documents, he said spared his three-year old who was found hiding under a bed because she reminded him of himself.

To understand how honor killing is institutionalized in many Muslim countries, one only needs to look at their penal codes:

In areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, a man who kills a relative is either pardoned, given a suspended sentence or six months to three years imprisonment which is reduced further once appealed.

In Syria, an honor killer was exempt from punishment until 2009 when the punishment for honor killing became a minimum of just two years in prison.

Jordan, which has one of the highest rates of honor killings, and in Iraq, punishments are significantly reduced for honor crimes, as directed by the penal code.

Since the Islamist government took over in Turkey, the country has the highest rate of honor killings in the world. While Turkey was trying to be accepted as a member of the European Union, the leniencies in its laws regarding honor killings were changed.

Now, women who are considered to have violated the family’s honor are often forced to commit suicide (or their deaths are made to look like suicides) so that family members can avoid being sent to prison.

The Turkish city of Batman in southeastern Turkey is now called “Suicide City” because of the high incidences of honor killings. Young boys are also often ordered by other family members to do the actual killing so they can get a shorter jail sentence as they are minors.

Until the ideology of honor and its accompanying culture is abolished in the Islamic world (and elsewhere where it is practiced), even women in Phoenix like Dasia Patterson, don’t have a chance (even if they aren’t committing adultery, as close friends of Patterson attest).

Those accused can rarely make a case for themselves, like in the case of a newlywed woman in Iraq, who was beaten to death by her brother after being returned to her family by her husband who suspected she was not a virgin. An autopsy showed her hymen was, in fact, intact.