Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Blood-Curdling:
This article on [1]"honor killings" of Muslim women -- in Germany --
is generally shocking. There are many important points there, for
instance:
One of the unsettling truths about Hatin's death and the plight of
many Muslim women is that it took the comments of three Turkish
boys and the outrage of a male school director to get people to
notice. When the murder first happened, it sent no shock waves
through the mainstream German press. It only became big news when a
group of 14-year-old Turkish boys mocked Hatin during a class
discussion at a school near the crime scene. One boy said, "She
only had herself to blame," while another insisted, "She deserved
what she got. The whore lived like a German." The enraged school
director not only sent a letter home to parents, but also to
teachers across Germany. The letter ignited a media fury. Less
known, however, is that the letter also hit a nerve among
educators. "Teachers from across the country wrote back saying they
had had similar experiences," Boehmecke said. They reported Turkish
boys taunting Turkish girls who don't wear headscarves as "German
sluts." . . .
"People were afraid they would be called Nazis if they dared to
bring up issues of human rights in the Turkish community," said
Serap Cileli, a Turkish author and filmmaker who at 15 was forced
into an arranged marriage. . . . She has written prodigiously about
her experiences and now helps Turkish women escape oppressive
families. For the greater part of a decade, however, Cileli was
unable to find a publisher for her work. "Everything I wrote from
1994 to 1999 was rejected, even by newspapers," she said. "They
told me I was writing about a minority issue and they were afraid
of appearing racist." . . .
But this paragraph struck me as particularly troubling (thanks to
[2]InstaPundit for the pointer) -- "demented" (from the quote below)
and "death cult" (from the comments of others) are apt terms:
In many cases, fathers -- and sometimes even mothers -- single out
their youngest son to do the killing, Boehmecke said, "because they
know minors will get lighter sentences from German judges." In some
cases, these boys are revered by their community and fellow inmates
as "honor heroes" -- a dementedly skewed status they carry with
them for the rest of their lives. Currently, six boys are serving
time in Berlin's juvenile prison for honor killings. "In a way,
these boys are victims, too," she said. Sometimes they are forced
to kill their favorite sister.
References
1. http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,344374,00.html
2. http://instapundit.com/
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