World News 30-09-2003 Kurdish Man Kills Teenage Daughter who: Iraqi refugee Abdulla Yones what: Jailed for life for slitting teenage daughter`s throat where: The Old Bailey, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: A 48 year-old Kurdish man who fled Saddam Hussein`s regime a decade ago has been jailed for life at the Old Bailey after pleading guilty to stabbing his 16 year-old daughter Heshu 11 times and slitting her throat, says The Sun. "He said she had brought disgrace on his family after starting a sexual relationship with a Christian boyfriend," writes Mike Sullivan, who describes the father of three as "the first person in Britain to admit a so-called `honour killing`." "The teenager had been planning to run away from home," says The Guardian. "In a note to her father she tried to cope with her ordeal by joking about the beatings he meted out to her: `Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick`." According to The Telegraph, there were a dozen honour killings in Britain last year, six of them in London. Ram Gidoomal, of the South Asian Development Partnership, tells the BBC that many more such crimes go unreported and he claims victims are sometimes taken abroad before being murdered. Telegraph reporter Sandra Laville calls it an "undetected saga of domestic violence and harassment being carried out as a punishment against women who do not conform to the strict cultural norms of some religions". But the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has quickly reacted to condemn such violence. "Islam categorically does not allow people to kill their own daughter," says Inayat Bunglawala. [... more]

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