Hacker News Reader

> This BBC article from 2011 details some statistics on "honour" attacks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16014368. Including that London's Metropolitan Police ("MET") reported about 500 Islamic honour related acid attacks for 2010.

The article does not say Islamic, nor acid-attacks in relation to the 495 attacks.

The article says "so-called honour attacks" and goes on to say:

> Honour attacks are punishments on people, usually women, for acts deemed to have brought shame on their family.

> Such attacks can include acid attacks, abduction, mutilations, beatings and in some cases, murder.

In other words, it says nothing about how many acid-attacks were included among those 495, and does not tie it to specific religions. Honour attacks are more strongly correlated to specific cultural ties than religion. It is likely a substantial majority of those have muslim perpetrators (because the South Asian communities that are over-represented in "honour" related crime are majority muslim), but certainly not all.

> I wonder how the MET managed to report up to 500 per year to 2010 (first link above), then only one for the subsequent 15 years [1]?

Because you're comparing all honour attacks of any type to honour-related acid-attacks.

You're right, in the video interviewee says "the majority of the victims are from the Muslim community" and the interview goes on to question whether the problem of policing it is exacerbated by political correctness in not wanting to confront Muslim communities.

So I did pretty poor analysis.

Do other UK communities have a concept of "honour killings"?

>Honour attacks are more strongly correlated to specific cultural ties //

Any support for this? For example in Pakistan are "honour" attacks equally prevalent across all religious beliefs?

> Do other UK communities have a concept of "honour killings"?

Honour killings are far rarer - only about a dozen a year are reported in the UK. Most "honour" attacks are violent but not deadly. But both Hindu and Sikh communities at least have had issues with both "honour" violence and specifically "honour killings". E.g. here's a case of a Sikh man being convicted for a "honour killing" [1].

> Any support for this? For example in Pakistan are "honour" attacks equally prevalent across all religious beliefs?

I did not suggest they were equally prevalent, but that location/culture is a stronger predictor that religion.

This plays out both in what you yourself have pointed to, namely that countries like Pakistan have substantially larger problems with it than many other predominantly muslim countries, but even within Pakistan you'll find large regional differences, and the same in India where honour violence has been on the rise in recent years but is predominantly correlated to caste, not religion, though it certainly is a problem among both Hindus and Sikhs too. South Asia as a whole have had a significant problem with it, but with large regional variation. E.g in Pakistan it is a problem of tribal culture that remains far stronger in rural areas.

As an indicator that this is about culture rather than religion, here is a case of a Pakistani Christian carrying out a "honour killing" [2]. While the article also point out that Christian "honour" killings are extremely rare in Pakistan, it goes on to say:

> "Unfortunately, I do hear about cases of where Christian daughters are beaten for marrying individuals not approved by the family," Stark wrote. "Again, I have not heard of a Christian family performing an honor killing because their daughter had married someone that was not approved by the family. That is really rare."

But remember that Christian parts of Europe too have had problems with "honour" based violence. Until 1981, "honour" was a mitigating circumstance to murder in the Italian penal code, for example.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-12431942 [2] https://www.christianpost.com/news/pakistani-man-beats-siste...

>"Honour killings are far rarer - only about a dozen a year are reported in the UK." //

Part of the issue that lead to this sub-thread was the report that:

"police recorded at least 2,823 so-called honour attacks last year [2010], figures from 39 out of 52 forces show." (~500 were in London)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16014368

Were they wrong?

I followed your search link and just clicked the second article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5d38c003-c54a-4513-a3...

No where does it say that there were only 1 attack in 15 years.

In the article:

>"Only one so-called ‘honour’ attack [using acid] was recorded in 15 years"

But my analysis was flawed in two places (at least).

One, the other page says only (in the video) that the majority of "honour" attacks are Muslim.

Two, it also is counting abductions, mutilations, killings as well when they're classed as "honour attacks".

Its interesting that these sort of offences can lead to life sentences - in the past I believe it was a capital offence ie hanging.

White people do throw actual vitriol from time to time, and not just in Sherlock Holmes stories too.