Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings

by Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2012

http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/1089/hindu-muslim-honor-killings

Excerpt:

Although the overwhelming majority of honor killings worldwide occur within Muslim communities, one would not know this by reading the mainstream media. Fearful of being labeled "Islamophobic," the American press has given only glancing attention to the widespread, honor-related ritual murder of Muslim women in the Middle East and South Asia while treating periodic honor killings among Muslim immigrants in the West as ordinary domestic abuse cases.

Over the last few years, however, the media has published a flurry of articles about Hindu honor killings in India, the only non-Muslim-majority country where these murders are still rampant. Apologists for Muslim culture and civilization rushed to herald the upsurge in Hindu (and Sikh) honor killings as evidence that the practice is "a universal problem, not an Islamic issue."

While India is indeed a striking exception to Islam's near monopoly on contemporary honor killings, the following preliminary statistical survey shows Hindu honor killings in India to be different in form and commission from those of Muslims in neighboring Pakistan. Though no less gruesome, the Hindu honor killings seem largely confined to the north of India and are perpetuated by sociocultural factors largely specific to India. The millions of Indian Hindus who have immigrated to the West do not bring the practice along with them.

Read the complete original version of this item...

Related Topics:  Honor Killings receive the latest by email: subscribe to phyllis chesler's free mailing list