Chechen Leader Condones Not So Honourable 'Honour' Killing

Tell me, what's so honourable about killing someone? I don't care if it's rooted in culture or religion or both, but killing someone to revenge one's supposed honour is simply cold-blooded murder. There is nothing, whatsoever, honourable about it, regardless of whether someone, in their supreme ignorance, believes it is warranted or not.

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Though, according to some Muslim scholars, honour killings are not specifically prescribed in Islamic theology, it happens all too frequently. And there are far too many countries that find nothing morally reprehensible about the practice, and actually outright condone it.

Take Chechnya, for example. President Ramzan Kadyrov, who is hell-bent on creating an Islamic state in that region (with the backing of the Russian government, even though it willfully violates the constitution) believes there is nothing wrong with honor killings. After 7 young women turned up dead, shot by relatives because they were deemed "loose", Kadyrov told the press they deserved it.

"If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed," Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.

Though some doubt that they were actually honour killings, and that this was simply a way of bringing the whole subject to the fore, to appeal to the hard-line separatists and keep his power intact, the fact that he has publicly approved of honour killings, frightens many. They believe that honour killings will increase with Kadyrov's approval, a man many fear and try to please.

"What the president says is law," said Gistam Sakaeva, a Chechen activist who works to defend women's rights. "Because the president said this, many will try to gain his favor by killing someone, even if there is no reason."

Sakaeva also said she worried that Chechen authorities would now be less willing to prosecute men suspected of killing women.

This does not bode well for Chechen women, who Kadyrov describes as

the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children. He encourages men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Russia. Women and girls are now required to wear headscarves in all schools, universities and government offices.

The reason why the Kremlin is backing him in his efforts to what essentially is a talibanization of Chechnya, is the fact that they are tired of the 15 or so years of fighting the Islamic separatists, and Kadyrov is seen as someone who can keep the militants in check. The people are also tired of all the mayhem destruction that is part and parcel of war.

Do you see any similarities between the Swat Valley and Chechnya? 2 regions where the military has fought what appears to be an un-winnable war against Islamic extremists. The people tired and weary of being caught in the middle of the fighting. 2 governments caving-in, in different ways, to the Islamist demands.

Is this appeasement setting a terrible precedent? I think so.