Nearly 1,000 Pakistani women were victims of honour killings last year

[Minimalist]

Yet it seems to happen over and over.....


http://www.islamist-watch.org/928/does-i...r-killings

Honor killings are justified under Islam in some Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia. For example, tenth-grade textbooks teach Saudi children that it is permissible to kill adulterers. In April 2008, a girl was killed by her father for talking to a boy on Facebook, an online social networking website. A leading Saudi cleric, Sheikh Ali al-Maliki, was outraged that girls had access to such websites where they could post pictures of themselves and otherwise "behave badly," but showed no concern over the girl actually killed.

Honor killings are justified as a necessary part of culture in other Muslim countries such as Jordan, which is technically a secular kingdom with a representative parliament. In 2001 King Abdallah presented a bill outlining stiff penalties for honor killings, but parliament rejected it, stating, "it [punishing honor killings] would encourage adultery and create new social problems." Four years later, honor killings accounted for one-third of all violent deaths in Jordan in 2005, where perpetrators received as little as six months in prison under the penal code.

Secular Iraq offers no punishment. Consider the following anecdotal evidence. This year, a 17-year-old named Rand Abdel-Qader was killed by her father because she had a crush on a British soldier. The arresting Iraqi sergeant stated that "not much can be done when we have an 'honor killing' case. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws." The father also killed his wife, who left him after the murder of their daughter. He will not be prosecuted for either murder in Iraq.

Perhaps this is a chicken and egg question, Rayaan. Does "Islam" create barbarous societies or do barbarous societies embrace Islam?