FROM THE EDITORS July 16, 2007 Issue

THE HONOR WORTH PRESERVING

HISTORY RECORDS the sad refrains. Perceived affronts to personal or national honor prompt violent reactions that even the score, but dishonor the perpetrators.

One form of this honor-to-dishonor cycle is the ancient practice of honor killing. And this practice is more common today than one might think. The act of murdering a family member, often a woman thought to have brought shame on the family, is itself shameful. Organizations such as Amnesty International are working to bring this practice to worldwide attention. Many governments condemn it.

Honor killings are generally justified as an attempt to uphold longstanding codes of respect—even within cultures that normally forbid murder as morally wrong. Recent examples include the stoning death of a 17-year-old girl in Iraq for having a forbidden relationship with a boyfriend of another religion. In London, where about 12 such murders now occur annually, a father had his daughter killed for leaving an arranged and abusive marriage and falling in love with another man. The father and his accomplices were convicted on June 11.

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