How sick is this?

On June 20, 2005, Jalil Ahmed, 45, tied his wife and daughter to a wooden bed, doused them with kerosene and burned the women alive, after his brother told him that his daughter had been having sex with a neighbor in a nearby town.

Ahmed killed his daughter to cleanse his honor and murdered his wife because she had supposedly not done enough to discourage the daughter´s behavior.

In July, two young men were arrested in Cairo for burning their 18 year old sister alive and watching the fire until she had been reduced to ashes. The girl had become pregnant out of wedlock (making this another double homicide) and they wanted to cleanse the family´s honor. And to top it all off, their father held off anyone that tried to come to the girl´s aid.

First, I would like to say that their is no honor in murder, especially if you are killing a family member. It is a cowardly and inhuman act. Even animals don´t kill their young. So in my book these men are less than animals, not worthy of ever being allowed to set foot in the civilized world again. Unfortunately, honor killings are rarely taken seriously, with the perpetrators often facing little to no punishment.

There have been over 4,000 honor killings in the past four years, and the victims are primarily women and girls. All you have to do is type "honor killings" into any web search engine and you will find hundreds of stomach turning stories that are all too similar to ones above.

Sources: Qué!, Madrid, Spain, July 5, 2005
All Headline News, June 20, 2005