Shedding light on why Islamic extremists sanction honor killings, an Australian Muslim cleric declared that women who are sexually assaulted are responsible for the attack. Why? Because women are like “uncovered meat“:

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [the headdress worn by some Muslim women], no problem would have occurred.”

Interestingly, the best response comes from another pile of uncovered meat, Wafa Sultan.

UPDATE: Joe wonders why can’t we all just get along.

UPDATE TWO: The Imam responsible for comparing women to “uncovered meat” has been suspended but refuses to resign “until we clean the world of the White House.”

ANKARA — A 15-year-old girl who gave birth to a child that she said resulted from a rape became the latest victim of so-called “honor killings” in Turkey, newspapers said Monday.

The young girl, from a mainly Kurdish town near Turkey’s eastern border with Iran, was murdered by an elder brother Saturday, press reports said. The victim, named only as Naile, had apparently not been aware that she was pregnant until she started feeling unwell and was admitted to a hospital, where she gave birth to a boy, the reports added.

She later told her mother that the pregnancy had resulted from a rape. When other members of the family heard the news, the elder brother shot her dead at point-blank range in a street of the town, and then fled.

The Vatan newspaper quoted the local public prosecutor as saying that the family were believed to have convened a meeting at which they designated the brother to kill the girl, in order to remove what they saw as a stain on their honor. (Source: The Middle East Times.

Not surprisingly, there’s no word as to the man who raped her and with the girl’s death, chances are we’ll never know.

Last week’s discussion about Iranian women scheduled for execution brought on a flurry of responses from those who continue to assert that “honor killings” are entirely attributable to Islamic extremists.

Interestingly, the BBC’s Asian network recently conducted a study on attitudes toward honor killings and found:

One in 10 young British Asians believes so-called honour killings can be justified, according to a poll for the BBC’s Asian Network.

Of 500 Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims questioned, a 10th said they would condone the murder of someone who disrespected their family’s honour.

Figures show 13 people die every year in honour killings, but police and support groups believe it is many more.

As many commenters here noted, Islam is not exclusive in calling for the death of women due to “misconduct.” This very point is explored by Smita Poudel in an article for a South Korean online news magazine:

Honor killings come about because the women live in cultures where they and their sexuality are treated as family property. In many past and present cultures in the Islamic and non-Islamic world enormous value has been placed on female virginity and chastity. The cultural concept is still so strong in many places that one can say that the situation is almost hopeless.

Matthew Goldstein records that the Codes of Hammurabi and Assura, written in 1780 BC and 1075 BC respectively, are some of the earliest set of laws prescribing that a woman’s virginity belongs to the family.

Further on in his report, Goldstein notes the worldwide prevalance of honor-killings:

Honor killings are surprisingly widespread. Reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights document continuing occurrence in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Great Britain, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda.

As to news of the seven Iranian women scheduled to death by stoning, Shamameh Malak Ghorbany’s lawyers were notified by Branch 27 of the Iranian Supreme Court that it had reached a ruling. At this time, however, they have still not been notified what the ruling is. Kobra Rahmanpour, who had been granted a one month stay of execution, is still trying to obtain an agreement from the deceased’s family to waive their right to demand payment in kind through Kobra’s death. Parisa Akbari and Iran Eskandari remain detained in prison. The court is currently reviewing the sentences of Fatemah and Soghra Mola’i. Permission has been sought to carry out the sentence against Khayrieh Valania.

Meanwhile, Delara Darabi remains under sentence of execution for a crime she allegedly committed when she was 17, even though Iran has agreed under international treaties not to execute people for offenses committed while under the age of 18.

So, too, continue the worldwide efforts to demand a change to laws such as those that condemned these women to death while allowing men, charged with similar crimes, to escape punishment altogether or face far lighter sentences. Join in and become part of “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws.”

Saudi Princess Loulwa al-Faisal, sister of Saudi Arabia’s new ambassador to the U.S. and member of the royal family, wants to set the record straight. World-wise as she is, the Princess is determined to correct the misperception that Saudi women are “downtrodden slaves to men.”

Loulwa said Saudi tradition supported a strong role for women because in the kingdom’s nomadic early days women managed the home front while the men were out trading and fighting.

She predicted Saudi women would continue to be veiled. But prohibitions on voting would fall once more women applied for national identification cards, while driving would come once women in urban areas decided they wanted to drive, she said. (Source: New Zealand Herald)

So, let’s see: Saudi women must still wear veils, they’re still barred from voting, they aren’t allowed to drive because it would undermine Islamic authority and “encourage women to discard their veils and mix with men”, they have to sit separated from men when they eat in public, they are restricted to women-only rooms in their own homes, and they can’t travel alone unaccompanied by a male family member.

But, gee, they’re not “downtrodden slaves to men.”

They’re just slaves.