A Syrian refugee who fled to the Netherlands has reportedly confessed to murdering his 18-year-old daughter and dumping her body in a canal before fleeing the country in an apparent admission note sent to a Dutch newspaper.
Father-of-nine Khaled al-Najjar, 52, wrote in an email sent to De Telegraaf that he had killed his 18-year-old daughter Ryan al-Najjar, urging the publication to report ‘I am the one who killed’.
The confession did not specify exactly why he had decided to murder his daughter, with al-Najjar writing only that he was ‘very angry with her’, adding: ‘The reason is between me and the judge. I will read that in court’.
But neighbours and friends suspect Ryan’s death came as the result of an honour killing, with one claiming they had previously sheltered her when she had fled the family home in fear of retribution from her father.
Requesting anonymity to prevent any backlash, they told De Telegraaf that Ryan had a Dutch boyfriend, wanted to stop wearing a headscarf and had been beaten by her father who disagreed with her adoption of a Western lifestyle.
I was certain that this was not true (I could swear I’ve even read articles about it). Took a 3 second google search to disprove it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honour_killing_in_Pakistan
I don’t know, maybe they just fucking lie?
I was talking about state executions for adultery, which now that I think about it was not clear from the wording so apologies for that. I was trying to provide an example of how Islam delegitimizes the practice by making it almost impossible to meet the legal criteria for it, but as I said this is ultimately a cultural practice so without strong state intervention it’s not going anywhere, no matter what the religion actually says.
Prosecution does have to verify the witnesses’ accounts, and falsely accusing someone of extramarital sex gets you 80 lashes, so it’s not quite that simple.
Sounds like moving the goalposts a little bit, no? Why did you have to specify “for adultery” when we’re talking about the general concept of honor killings?
Because that’s the only case in which sexual conduct warrants death in Islam. As for the rest it’s straight up not a thing. As I said Islam pretty explicitly states that cases such as the woman in the article aren’t to be punished by death. The punishment is lashing if you can meet the (again, nearly impossible) standard of proof.
And yet, here we are…
I mean, yes, because people are horrible and culture has a way of trumping religion. “Honor” killings are a thing in the Middle East and South Asia to varying degrees and I hate it, but Islam is—if anything—a restraining force on such actions and a framework within which people who commit them can be punished.
Do the people committing these acts typically deny that their religious views played a role (or were the sole reason) for what they did?
I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. We know how Islam generally treats women in practice. We know how they view chastity. We know how some of them feel about girls even going to school.
Why else would they murder their child, if not because of their religious views?