Germany: Afghan Muslim migrant brothers accused of killing their sister because of her Western lifestyle

In the Qur’an, a mysterious figure, known as Khidr in Islamic tradition, kills a boy in an apparently random and gratuitous attack. He then explains: “And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.” (18:80-81)

And according to Islamic law, “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2).

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.” In Iran, according to the New York Times, the legal system “treats parents who murder their children with relative leniency, as the maximum sentence for the crime is only ten years.”

“Afghan brothers go on trial in Germany for ‘honour killing’ of sister,” by Riham Alkousaa, Reuters, March 2, 2022:

BERLIN, March 2 (Reuters) – Two Afghan brothers suspected of killing their sister for adopting a Western lifestyle went on trial in Berlin on Wednesday, in a case that highlights the violence against women and cultural tensions among some recent migrants to Germany.

The defendants, identified as Sayed H. and Seyed H. under German privacy laws, are accused of luring their 34 year-old sister to meet them last July in Berlin and choking her and cutting her throat, the Berlin prosecutor’s office said.

All three siblings had Afghan citizenship and had been living in Germany for several years.

The brothers, aged 23 and 27, did not accept that their sister had divorced her husband, to whom she was married at the age of 16, after a violent marriage….

So-called “honour killings” in Syria and Afghanistan, from where the majority of refugees in Germany came from six years ago, are socially accepted and common in some communities there. The two countries rank near the bottom of the United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Inequality Index….

Some 25 people were victims of attempted or actual “honour” murders in the last two years in Germany, TDF research found.

“However, this number is only the tip of the iceberg,” TDF said in a statement.