All in the Name of Love

How much would you be willing to give up for love?
In Pakistan you might lose a lot more then you bargained for.

Pakistani loses ears, nose for love marriage
Members of wife's tribe assault man for marrying without family's OK

MULTAN, Pakistan - Armed men cut off the ears and nose of a Pakistani man who married one of their tribe for love after he and his family refused to hand over his wife, police said on Wednesday.

The attackers also chopped the ears off the man’s brother and severed his mother’s hand in the latest “honor” crime to hit Pakistan’s conservative rural areas.

Such crimes, including killings, are common in areas where marriages without the consent of girls’ families are still taboo under centuries-old tribal and feudal traditions.
Although not exclusive to Islam, honor killings are nothing new to the "Religion of Peace" or to Pakistan.
Historically most of the victims are usually women.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of women are murdered by their families each year in the name of family "honor." It's difficult to get precise numbers on the phenomenon of honor killing; the murders frequently go unreported, the perpetrators unpunished, and the concept of family honor justifies the act in the eyes of some societies.

Complicity by other women in the family and the community strengthens the concept of women as property and the perception that violence against family members is a family and not a judicial issue.

In Iran, the most common method is stoning and under Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the practice has increased.

Treated like a Muslim corpse, the victim, usually a woman, is washed and wrapped in shrouds. She is then buried in a ditch up to her shoulders and then stoned by a crowd surrounding her.

The stones should be neither too small nor too large, but just the right size to guarantee a gradual and excruciating death. Although a man, too, might be sentenced to stoning for adultery, the legitimacy of polygamy and extra-marital sex (sigheh) often allows men to escape punishment.

In May 2006, a woman and a man, Mahboubeh M. and Abbas H., were stoned to death in Mashhad. There are currently eight people--seven women and a man--sentenced to stoning.
"Females in the family—mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, and cousins—frequently support the attacks. It's a community mentality," said Zaynab Nawaz, a program assistant for women's human rights at Amnesty International.

Such a lovely religion.