DAR AL HARB - U.K.: TERROR LINKS TO "HONOR" VIOLENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN

'Honour' violence 'terror-linked'

There are links between some cases of "honour" violence in Britain and extremist groups abroad, a BBC investigation has been told.

Victims of such attacks are alleged by their families to have disgraced them.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Islamist terror groups were behind one murder, as well as a case where a woman was threatened and is in hiding.

But the Muslim Council of Britain said "honour" violence was a cultural practice, and nothing to do with faith.

The CPS pointed to the death five years ago of Heshu Yones, 16, who was stabbed to death by her father.

Nazir Afzal, the CPS's national lead on honour crime, told BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme the threats to kill a woman known as Miss B, who is now in hiding, came from her family but originated in an Egyptian terrorist group.

He said: "They told her husband that if he didn't put his wife in her place then they would do it themselves."

Heshu Yones was stabbed to death by her father, Abdalla Yones, who had associations with a Kurdish nationalist organisation, says Mr Afzal.

While he was on remand, the group raised substantial amounts of cash to try to secure his release on bail.

Mr Afzal said honour violence was not confined to fathers and grandfathers, but was carried out by younger relations too.

"You have a second generation youth who have an exaggerated concept of what home is like," he said.

"They get their identity and their ethnicity from these traditions.

"We know they are bizarre and outdated but they get their identity from those traditions and they feel very strongly that how you treat your women is a demonstration of your commitment to radicalism and extremist thought."

However, Reefat Drabu of the Muslim Council of Britain told the BBC she disagreed with Mr Afzal's comments.

She said: "First and foremost there has to be clarity that this is nothing to do with any faith, in particular Islam.

"It is a cultural practice and there is nothing in any faith that would condone it or say that it is the right thing do it.

"This is to do with misguided notions of family honour. It has nothing to do with radicalism or terrorism."

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Pertinent Links:

1) 'Honour' violence 'terror-linked'