Honor killings challenged

Honor killings are essentially unknown in Western countries. Not so in the Middle East where the practice, perhaps unbelievably in the 21st century, is still practiced. To a Westerner's eyes it is barbaric and totally unnacceptable in an enlightened society. Rana Husseini, an award-winning Jordanian journalist, also considers the practice needs to be exposed and challenged - and is leading the cause to expose and fight honor killings of women in the Middle East.

As Women's Media Centre reports [as reproduced on AlterNet]:

"Dua Khalil is stoned to death in Iraq for being seen with a man of another religion. A woman is shot dead in Jordan after her photo appears on her brother's friend's cellphone. Muqadas Bibi's throat and those of her young sisters are slit by her stepfather in Pakistan after she leaves her abusive husband. Every year, across religious and national boundaries, around 5,000 women and girls are murdered by family members in so-called honor killings. "There is nothing honorable in these crimes," says Rana Husseini, award-winning Jordanian journalist and author of the forthcoming Murder in the Name of Honor, who has dedicated her career to exposing and fighting such crimes."

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