The accused and the victim were a gay couple who had recently broken up, from what I understand (having known the accused relatively well some years ago).

Mere Puppets….and who pulls your strings?

Staines is nowhere near Forest Gate. The Forest Gate incident is a completely different one from the Staines one. In the Forest Gate incident there were two attackers, in the Staines one there were one. The investigating police force is different, the chief inspector is different. And, knowing the affected family by sight I can tell you that the victim is white not hindu.

This case has not been mentioned much but when it has it has invariably been confused with the Forest Gate case, which is a *completely separate case*.

Nadim Kurrimbukus has nothing to do with the Forest Gate case. It is strange that two such similar incidents happened so close together in time in the same region of England (even though Staines and Forest Gate are quite far apart.) But they are not the same incident.

+ just as globally religion was encouraged
[with muslims dwelling in an enormous contiguous band overlapping oil-areas] as a harmless cull-de-sac varient to political opposition,
in eg prisons here it was doubtless seen as a benign way of dealing with newly-troubling elements.

The 2nd case does not apply here, and for the 1st case, what would enhancing the sentence do?

Another aspect is that of honour being slighted in the perception of a community, so steps are taken sacrificially as a necessary evil; may be heightened in eg the case you cite /Dundee where some one had particular standing within a community.
However, to commision some one else to do the deed commercially exposes this for the sham it is.

Quite a few pioneers and their families went through great anguish, alone, to from the reactionary attitudes of their particular communities, until enough of the reactionaries’ progeny followed suite to make it less of an issue.
Some sections tho’ became more ghettoised and reactionary, largely as a reaction to the prevailing racism was that never dealt with, rather held as a baccilus for times like now.

As like many things, HBV could be dealt with and expunged within a few years if done sincerely, while the liberals amongst you dealt with the likes of Don(2) and Rio de Plata, the tip of an apparently vast growth in reactionism.
I’m not holding my breath though.

Thanks for the response. Although it’s a bit devalued, I’d have thought ‘whatever works’ should be the criteria.

“The last case I can recall where a lesser sentence was asked for by community members was the case of Mohammed Arshad (2006). Arshad a board member of Dundee mosque and a Justice of the Peace (!) who hired a hitman to kill his daughter who had married by choice.”

That was pretty ridiculous. I’m more worried about whether lobby groups would try and get cultural factors included in the legislation that governs the length of sentences. Perhaps I am just being pessimistic, as officials are increasingly refusing to indulge the idea that HBV is somehow a lesser crime.

The last case I can recall where a lesser sentence was asked for by community members was the case of Mohammed Arshad (2006). Arshad a board member of Dundee mosque and a Justice of the Peace (!) who hired a hitman to kill his daughter who had married by choice. An Islamic group asked for Arshad to get a non-custodial sentence as he was a community figure. Link They didn’t get it.

I can’t think of another case where the reducing of a sentence was actively requested, rather than coming from the judge’s own cultural relativism, but it’s possible.

I’m not normally known for my sunny optimism; I do hope that HBV is now unacceptable and murder is murder, and that there wouldn’t be many people who would step up to defend Ari Mahmod’s right to hire men to rape and kill his niece. Not publicly anyway.

But on the question of HBV as aggravating factor, I’m honestly not sure. I can see the logic that if racism is an aggravating factor, then ‘honour’ is as well, because it has may have the same kind of collective affect: IKWRO have had cases of women directly threatened by family members using the names of Banaz and Heshu. However, Shahien Taj (Henna Foundation, South Wales) tells me that if anything, South Asian women on the whole are less aware of HBV than the majority. She says she holds awareness raising sessions where she shows photos of some of the most famous victims, and asks if they know who they are, and that white people are often familiar with one or two cases while the South Asian women often don’t know any. Could be of course that the white women are social workers, council employees, police and DV workers who would naturally read the papers more. Also, surveys in Jordan show that men are much more aware of HK than women, which possibly just shows that women are more occupied in the domestic sphere and don’t get involved in the broader world. So now I’m genuinely confused as to whether HBV actually has the same knock-on effects as racial violence.

So while I like the idea of an aggravating factor in theory, or as a gesture, I’m not sure of what logic could justify it. Also, as the term HBV becomes widely used it becomes more and more misapplied and misunderstood: for me, it must be collectively decided and planned to qualify. But since the government has not decided to create HBV as a distinct category to DV, making ‘honour’ an aggravating offence could potentially lead to DV within communities with a reputation for HBV being prosecuted more severely for the same crime.

“I don’t think there is anyone left with power who’d want to be known as pro-HBV.”

Perhaps not in parliament, but there will always be those ‘community leaders’ who will push for a lesser punishment, because they believe that it enhances their standing, while firming up the base. You yourself have documented plenty of cases where judges in supposedly developed countries have given murderers reduced sentences for cultural reasons.

We r taykin they wimminz.

This a respectful question. Do you think you’ve won that war yet?

I can see clearly the point you are making, that the outcome of an ‘honour’ killing is to effect everyone else in that community. It is clearly a measure of what that group might do. And thus has a carry over beyond the actual crime committed. This, I’d put to you, is unacceptable and requires a response.

Which was why I suggested it should be treated as bad as racially motivated violence. I accept that that is not ‘fair’, but it seems to me at least to be ‘sending a message’ in an opposite direction. Which, given Rumbolds’ post up above, seems to be something we should be addressing.

Correct me if I am wrong.

…including a powerful lobby who will plead the cause of reduced sentences for HBV, for cultural reasons.

I don’t think so. I don’t think there is anyone left with power who’d want to be known as pro-HBV. Also, Europe advises member states “not to accept any reference to cultural practice as an extenuating circumstance in cases of men’s violence against women such as in crimes of honour and genital mutilation.”

Even so, my argument isn’t based on the intent of the murderer but the result of the murder: the intimidation of a community. I can see your point about intent very clearly: I hate the fact that all of us have no choice but to keep on using the term ‘honour’, because even with the scare quotes, we are using the vocabulary of the murderers, a vocabulary which is designed to excuse these murders in the name of his ‘honourable’ motivation.

It all depends on how strictly you define honour isn’t it.

I’m pretty sure the farmers daughter jokes didn’t arrive with the coloured in the 50s.

Don’t be so silly, Don.

Is it just me, or does that fail to address the point? Are you suggesting bestial violence in defence of “honour” is common among Anglicans or Catholics, so third world immigrants have made no difference to the combustion stats? And how about gang rape? Electoral fraud? Suicide bombing? Consanguineous marriage? All flourishing here before third world immigration began?