Another "Honor Killing" in England

Last week, there was another “honor killing” by a Muslim man in London. Shighi Rethishkumar murdered his wife and 13-year-old twin daughters before hanging himself. He claimed that the West had corrupted them (“Honour Killings,” Breitbart, May 15, 2015). An honor killing is defined by the Human Rights Watch as “acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonor upon the family.” These are very common in the Middle East and Turkey. According to the United Nations, 5,000 females are murdered every year (“Murder in the Family,” Fox News, July 26, 2008). The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization says, “We’re seeing an increase around the world, due in part to the rise in Islamic fundamentalism.” Honor killings are on the rise in the West. The first documented case in America was in November 1989, when Zein Isa, a Palestinian terrorist living in St. Louis, murdered his 16-year-old daughter, Tina, for having a boyfriend, going to a school dance, and applying to work at Wendy’s restaurant. Her mother held her down while her father plunged a 9-inch knife into her chest 13 times, the mother shouting “Shut up!” in response to the girl’s pleas for help (Ellen Harris, Guarding the Secrets: Palestinian Terrorism and a Father’s Murder of His Too-American Daughter, 1995).

(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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