A sick crime that still blights Britain

(c) alancleaver_2000

Honour killing is one of those phrases that debases the English language. It ranks alongside “joyriding” and “happyslapping” as a euphemism that masks how truly dreadful the crime is. It was for this crime that Mehmet Goren was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment for murdering his 15-year-old daughter, Tulay, in January 1999.

The Gorens had arrived in Britain from the Kurdish area of Turkey in 1996. Tulay was in a relationship with a man named Hillal Unay who she met at the factory where she worked during her summer holidays. Goren disapproved of the relationship because Unay was a Sunni Muslim whilst the Gorens are of the Alevi sect. He had hoped to arrange a marriage for his daughter and collect a £5,000 dowry.

Police had been  informed by both Tulay and her boyfriend that her father had attacked her twice. She had also run away from home twice and had begged to be placed in a children’s home. Despite this, the police informed her family where she was and allowed them to take her home.

Tulay’s mother Hanim testified against Goren in court, which was scant consolation after a succession of missed opportunities and silence led to a young life being brutally snuffed out. Honour killings now get better coverage than they used to, but many people still live in fear. Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the Karma Nirvana charity and Choice helpline for vulnerable women still checks her car for bombs every morning. ‘Zena’, founder of The Zena Foundation, a charity committed to helping women fleeing from either Culturally Aggravated Murder or Domestic Violence, still moves house every six months 16 years after she escaped her family. 400 people, 30% of them children, have to be retrieved by the British Government after being abducted by their families to be married abroad.

At a time when multiculturalism has been repudiated, particularly on the left, these reactionary counter-cultures must be tackled so that tragedies like these don’t happen again and thousands of women don’t have to live their lives in fear.