Yesterday a man has just beheaded his sister for family honour.
A 29-year-old man dragged his sister out on the street and cut off her head with one stroke of the sword in Ayubnagar yesterday. The killer walked to a police station with the severed head in his left hand and the sword in his right, dripping blood all along the way.
Almost everyday women get killed by their fathers, brothers, uncles or male relatives for family honour. Almost everyone calls these killings ‘honour killings’. If killing of the family members are necessary for protecting the family’s honour, then men would have been killed too. But it hardly happens. It is true that in many backward societies it is not as shameful for men to have affairs or extra-marital affairs as it is for women. But even in some backward societies sometimes some people try to do justice to the people. You can not just go on naming the killing of women ‘honour killing’! It is nothing but cold-blooded murder of women. You have to get rid of deep rooted misogyny in your society. I know it is not easy. But it’s not so hard if you want to do it.
In civilized countries, the right of self-defense includes the right to defend others. In countries where dishonourable murders happen, I wonder how the defense of others would be handled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_self-defense#Defense_of_others
I suspect that anyone who attempted to protect such women would be beaten by a mob. Or that the cowardly and/or complicit governments in those countries would charge the person with assault or murder for preventing murder of the women. Such barbarity is only possible with the complicity or cowardice of the populace.
Does the fact that he walked right to the police station indicate that on some level he realized that his action was wrong? Or did he just want validation from their corrupt system that allows this in most cases?
Probably because he thought he was a brave man and not a coward, that he did not run away rather he surrendered to police as killing people was against the law. He was proud to take the law into his own hands. He thought her chastity was the property of her family and he did justice to his sister and the court could not do better.
It’s conceivable that someone who values his sister’s chastity more hightly than he values her life, also values his own pride-in-having-killed-for-his-honour more than he values his freedom. Crazy either way.
The main reason for these so called “honor killings” is control. These men are so insecure with themselves psychologically and they project it onto women in their awful backwards countries. Just like the USA, these oppressed women live under a patriarchal rule but it is much much more extreme than here. There is no logical reason why any of these women should be murdered. Being beheaded is a nightmarish way to die! What is the matter with these “men?!” They want to make examples of the murdered women to other women and girls in their twisted society. It deeply saddens me that their reality and behaviour is so barbaric. Thanks for writing this article. Honor killings must be stopped!!!
You should have to mention the name of town and country where this hounor kiling happend!!!
If i am not wrong , this incident happend in kolkata(india).
Ok, so this is a sad case of a twisted sense of honor inflicting damage but I wonder why focus on women only when most murder victims are male and most male killings are due to status and “honor”?