Frankly, I'm taken aback that in an article about a horrific and terrifyingly widespread cultural practice, the first reaction of many of you is to worry about hypothetical Muslim backlash, rather than the very real victims of this barbaric mindset.
Knicholas wrote:It's a bit unfortunate that the interviewee is Muslim, since honour killings happen across many cultural and religious lines.
That's overstating the case. So-called "honor killings," are heavily concentrated among two cultural groups: Kurds and South Asians from Pakistan and northern India. (Moreover, Hindus don't generally engage in "honor killings" so much as sati, which is a slightly different horrific practice.)
It's true that "honor killings" are widely practiced by Yazidi Kurds and Sikhs, but pretty much all "honor killings" from outside the two cultural areas I mentioned are done by Muslims. (Also, Alevi Kurds don't do "honor killings,: AFAIK.) The only counter-example I'm aware of was an "honor killing" of a Turkish Armenian (yes, there's still a few left), because unfortunately, under the leadership Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, "honor" killings have become increasingly popular among all Turks.
As for the article itself, it's horrifying, but also interesting to read from the perspective of someone who is the target. Usually when reading about "honor killings," the targets don't get to speak for themselves, instead you hear from family, friends, and the perpetrators.
I've been morbidly curious about "honor killings" since Turkey, when I had a very smart student with a very religious (and hypocritical) father, who wanted to study in Ankara. While I knew her, her father told her she had to go to school at a university in the town she already lived in. I asked her why she didn't apply anyways (college is basically free for Turkish students) and she said "my family will kill me," She said that a lot when I asked her about things she wanted to do (such as explore Poland when visiting her father, or or on a date with a boy she liked). I finally started to wonder if she meant it literally. I'm still not sure, but I did conclude that as a half-Kurdish woman with a very religious Sunni father, it was horrifyingly likely.