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event horizon · Dec 10, 2009

Police have seen 'honour' crime surge by 40 per cent due to rising fundamentalism, new figures show.

Honour-based violence, including crimes like murder, rape and kidnap has rocketed in London during the past year.

Reported instances of intimidation and attempts at forced marriage have also increased by 60 per cent.

A report into the scale of the problem by Scotland Yard found there were 161 honour-based incidents recorded in 2007-8, of which 93 were criminal offences.

But in 2008/9 the number of incidents had risen to 256, with 132 being criminal offences.

The latest figures indicate that the trend is continuing, with 211 incidents reported in the last six months until October, of which 129 were offences - more than double the number in the same period last year.

Police define honour crimes as offences motivated by a desire to protect the honour of a family or community.

Diana Nammi, of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, said the group is now dealing with four times more complaints relating to honour than two years ago.

She said: 'More women are coming forward. They are becoming more aware of their rights in the UK, that there is help available and they feel confident enough to report matters to the police.

'But I also think cases and violence are increasing.

'One reason is the rise in fundamentalism. The problem is increasing in communities around the UK.

'We are seeing a rise not only in honour killings, but also in female genital mutilation and polygamy.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... alism.html

shafique · Dec 10, 2009

I agree, the increase in crimes against Muslim women by Muslim men is to be deplored.

256 incidents (of which 131 are crimes) are 256 incidents too many.

The UK Home Office has produced a report on Domestic Violence for 2008/9:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/ ... plan-08-09

Domestic Violence accounts for 14% of all violent incidents. It has more repeat victims
than any other crime: repeat victimisation accounts for 66% of all incidents of domestic
violence and 21% of victims have been victimised three or more times.

And the crime stats are available here and say:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0809.html

There were 51,488 sexual offences recorded by the police in 2008/09, four per cent less than
in the previous year and the lowest figure since the introduction of the NCRS. The sensitivity
of reporting sexual offences has resulted in under-reporting of these offences to the police
and attempts have been made to encourage greater reporting, so trends in sexual offences
should be interpreted with caution.

(my emphasis)

On page 25 it shows that 27.9% of women above 16 have suffered domestic abuse.

Female population is in the 10s of millions, so 27% of this is a big number - and puts the 131 crimes (as bad they are) in perspective.

You did want to talk about stats, and not beliefs -right?

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 11, 2009

'One reason is the rise in fundamentalism. The problem is increasing in communities around the UK.

I agree with the conclusion of Diana Nammi that there is a direct correlation with fundamentalism (Muslims who are more devout in their religion) and violence against women, don't you?

shafique · Dec 11, 2009

Yes, I agree.

I would call it 'mullahism' rather than returning to the basics of Islam. As I said, it is analagous to the Christian Middle Ages where the clergy justified things such as Jewish slaughter (eg the women, children and men of York - who were massacred) using the Bible. That had little to do with Christianity - despite what the Church officials said at the time and what the baying mob believed.

That said, you didn't acknowledge that the statistics show that these (muslim) incidences are a minute fraction of the violence/abuse against women in the UK.

If you work out the statistics, it appears Muslim women have less chance of being subject of abuse than British women in general (divide the numbers you reported by Muslim population - and compare that with 29.7% of all women being subject to abuse - both are subject to under-reporting, so feel free to increase both numbers).

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 11, 2009

You wand to discuss 'statistics' by comparing honor attacks with domestic violence in general. Perhaps you're unaware that you are comparing apples to oranges.

Please, discuss statistics when you get some credibility.

shafique · Dec 11, 2009

Nope - happy for you to compare apples to apples - you were the one who introduced stats for the numbers of honour killings in this thread. I just put these horrendous incidences into perspective, relative to the total numbers of women in the UK subject to abuse.

Do you want to compare the numbers of honour killings/attacks against murders/violence of women in general? Or do you want to compare it against just rapes and sexual assaults?

I gave you the link to the Home Office site which contains the crime statistics and invited you to do the comparisons. (It's pointless me doing them, as you typically don't read information if it is more than a few sentences or doesn't agree with your views

)

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 12, 2009

You don't see the difference between comparing a specific form of domestic violence, 'honor crimes', by one group of people with all types of domestic violence by another group?

I have a pretty difficult time believing you when you claim you have taken a few statistics courses.

Err, actually, this is just common sense.

shafique · Dec 12, 2009

I fully understand your reluctance to look at the statistics - that is why I only provided you with the links and the main stats and invited you to compare. It is no surprise you don't want to test your theories against reality - you've come a cropper in the 'Convert terrorist thread' and are stuck on a grand total of 4 at the last count, compared to my 232!

I'm tempted to reel out my oft repeated phrase for your arguments... 'all mouth, no trousers' - but I'm trying to resist... :bigsmurf:

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 12, 2009

I'm sorry, I assumed I was dealing with someone of normal intelligence.

I forget who I'm talking to here.

To use an analogy to your comparison, it would be similar of looking at homicide rates of two cities.

Except for one city, only homicides caused by knife wounds are used. Whereas in the other city, all homicides are included - knife wounds, gunshots victims, beatings, etc.

Apparently, most people with normal intelligence would immediately see the fallacy in drawing comparisons between these two cities since the data from one city was restricted to deaths caused by knives but the other city included all forms of violent deaths.

Again, apologies if second grade logic confused you.

shafique · Dec 13, 2009

You and your assumptions again! I'd rather use the description 'beliefs' - but hey, why quibble over semantics?

You introduced some statistics about an increase in honour attacks in the UK - I pointed out that if you were interested in the truth, you'd put these into context (but after I condemned each and every one of the attacks). I gave you the crime statistics from the UK Home Office and invited you to do the sums (including grossing up the reported figures for the under-reporting we know happens).

But it appears you are more comfortable questioning motives rather than testing out your beliefs against statistics.

Neither disapointed nor surprised this time.
:albino:

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 13, 2009

I pointed out that if you were interested in the truth, you'd put these into context

Put what into context? The number of honor crimes carried out by fundamentalists of different faiths in the UK?

shafique · Dec 13, 2009

event horizon wrote:
I pointed out that if you were interested in the truth, you'd put these into context

Put what into context? The number of honor crimes carried out by fundamentalists of different faiths in the UK?

The context is in the title of this thread - violence against women.

I don't really care about the label given to this violence - nor do I look at the religion of the perpetrators - before condemning. It appears that on this forum you are the only one that refuses to condemn criminals when they happen to be Jewish/White/American - the case in point being Baruch Goldstein. The rest of us are at pains to point out that we condemn all violence against women.

In your Islamophobic zeal, you are overlooking the fact that honour attacks in the UK are indeed carried out by non-Muslims. Hindus and Sikhs have carried out honour attacks - but of course, perhaps you are among those who think that Sikhs with their turbans are Muslims?

Eg.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5325877/Sikh-man-carried-out-honour-attack-on-priest-and-witness-of-sisters-wedding-court-hears.html

But then again, given you tend to only read headlines, it is not surprising that facts like these are over-looked!

Again, I invite you to put the honour attacks against women (by all faiths) in context.

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 13, 2009

Yes, I agree that there are Sikh honor crimes as well.

But, let us look at the statistics - Britain's Sikh and Hindu population is half the Muslim population.

So, logically, honor crimes carried out by Sikhs and Hindus should be half of the number of honor crimes carried out by devout Muslims.

It's also interesting how this issue of honor crimes goes back to what I have been saying all along - devout Muslims would have more reasons to use violence against their female family members than more secular Muslims.

I mean, with the exception of certain cultures, such as the 'machismo' culture in Latin America, there are simply fewer reasons why a more secular population would control or use violence against women than religious Muslim populations would - ie, the woman went outside without a veil, or she mingled with men or she rode on motorcycle, etc.

shafique · Dec 13, 2009

Interesting views.

Also interesting that you introduced statistics and yet fail to follow through and put the stats in perspective.

Whoever commits violence against women is condemned by most here on the forum - regardless of motive or religion.

When 2 in 5 women face domestic violence, it seems pretty cheap to be seeking to focus on minority instances of domestic violence and ignoring the fact that the vast majority of men don't use religion as an excuse to batter women (if the stats you've shown are to be believed).

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 14, 2009

But, let us look at the statistics - Britain's Sikh and Hindu population is half the Muslim population.

So, logically, honor crimes carried out by Sikhs and Hindus should be half of the number of honor crimes carried out by devout Muslims.

shafique · Dec 14, 2009

Fair enough - let's look at the crimes against women carried out by various nationalities, religions and races. Let's look at the ratios of crimes, including honour crimes carried out by various groups.

For the Muslim perpetrators - let's see which religious scholar condoned their actions after they took place and said it was an act of a devout Muslim. We shouldn't take a non-Muslims interpretation of the Quran as a touchstone, but we should rather test out the quaint Orientalist view by asking them to give quotes from Imam's etc that celebrate/condone/excuse the violence against women carried out by Muslims (and justify it using the Quran etc).

Simple enough.

So, over to you eh - provide the statistics and show that someone agrees with you that honour crimes are condoned by Islam (based on your quaint interpretations of God's words).

As you are counting 'devout' followers of religions - you'll have to estimate the population for Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs (who are devout) in the UK - but I'm sure you are up to it.

When you have done that, I'll remind you of the total number of crimes against women in the UK and we'll examine whether religion is a significant factor in the violence faced by women or not.

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 14, 2009

Great, I'll simply refer you to the 'Wife beating - the Muslim perspective' thread where you can watch the videos provided of mainstream Muslim sheiks inform millions of Muslim viewers of the how to beat their wives.

event horizon · Dec 14, 2009

shafique · Dec 14, 2009

shafique wrote:For the Muslim perpetrators - let's see which religious scholar condoned their actions after they took place and said it was an act of a devout Muslim. We shouldn't take a non-Muslims interpretation of the Quran as a touchstone, but we should rather test out the quaint Orientalist view by asking them to give quotes from Imam's etc that celebrate/condone/excuse the violence against women carried out by Muslims (and justify it using the Quran etc).

Simple enough.

Apologies for having to re-state the simple challenge - provide a religous scholar that condoned a UK honour attack and said it was according to Islam.

MEMRI edited videos and Orientalist interpretations of the Quran don't count. Videos may count if they address a specific honour attack/killing.

Otherwise it is just another case of 'all mouth no trousers' - i.e. belief that is not based on any real evidence.

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 15, 2009

What's the matter? Now all of the sudden you want to find support for honor crimes as opposed to wife beating in general.

What ever happened to apples and apples?

You wand to discuss 'statistics' by comparing honor attacks with domestic violence in general. Perhaps you're unaware that you are comparing apples to oranges.

Nope - happy for you to compare apples to apples - you were the one who introduced stats for the numbers of honour killings in this thread. I just put these horrendous incidences into perspective, relative to the total numbers of women in the UK subject to abuse.

Dumbest poster ever.

shafique · Dec 15, 2009

event horizon wrote:
Dumbest poster ever.

Charming.

It reminds me of a quote from 'The Black Swan' by NN Taleb (pg279):

An ad hominem attack against an intellectual, not against an idea, is highly flattering. It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message.

Of course, I fully expect that eh believes he's the intellectual here! :albino:

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Dec 15, 2009

Sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade.

Berrin · Dec 16, 2009

Does EH know what honor crime/killing means first?
It is a terrible cultural tradition of a family member or a tribe, or a race or whatever it is…
In islam noone can be held responsible for the murder of certain individuals or groups, let alone the blame on religion.

This is the description:
An honor killing (also called a customary killing) is the murder of a family or clan member by one or more fellow family members, where the murderers (and potentially the wider community) believe the victim to have brought dishonor upon the family, clan, or community. This perceived dishonor is normally the result of (a) utilizing dress codes unacceptable to the family (b) wanting out of an arranged marriage or choosing to marry by own choice or (c) engaging in certain sexual acts. These killings result from the perception that defense of honor justifies killing a person whose behavior dishonors their clan or family.

In islam capital punishment cannot be executed by the individuals themselves, and there is judicial system for it just as there is in democracies…

So there is no point in escalating this issue when the educational material is out there on the net..

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Sate ... 9503543392

Crime and punishment in islam:
http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/253/viewall/

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