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Germany: Honor Killing Rekindles Integration Debate
The "honour killing" of a young Turkish woman by her brother and his subsequent trial and conviction have further plunged Germany into heated debate on the integration of Germany's seven million Muslim immigrants, Germany's Deutsche-Welle radio website reports. Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) parliamentary group have demanded a "zero tolerance" policy for such murders, calling them "a shameful form of self-administered justice." Hatun Surucu, 23, was shot several times in the head at close range last year at a Berlin bus stop by her youngest brother Ayhan, 19. The murder caused revulsion in Germany, and led to street protests by Turkish women.Ayhan, who a court last week sentenced to nine years and three months in prison, stated during his trial that he killed her for "bringing shame upon his family" by adopting a western lifestyle. She had returned to Germany after fleeing a forced marriage to her cousin in Turkey, and had chosen to bring up her small son alone. Two of Ayhan's other brothers were cleared of charges of conspiring to murder her. The trial followed heightened debate on the German school system's ability to educate the children of immigrants after teachers in two violent inner-city schools in the capital, Berlin, said they feared they could not keep order in classrooms where 80 percent of pupils are the children of immigrants. Germany's immigrant community forms nine percent of the country's population. Yet one-quarter of immigrants are unemployed and live on state benefits, half cannot speak German or speak it badly, and few have German citizenship. Surucu's slaying and other high-profile incidents have increased concerns that the country mainly Turkish and Moroccan immigrants are becoming increasingly ghettoised and isolated from the rest of the country. Politicians from across the German political spectrum have recently put forward proposals to better integrate immigrants, inclding compulsory language training and tests to ensure they share German society's basic social and cultural values, Deutsche Welle reports. Some conservatives who claim that lax multicultural policies have led the authorities to turn a blind eye to abuses have said that immigrants guilty of serious breaches of German law should be deported. Several prominent politicians from the CDU and also from the centre-left Social Democrat party, have called for the Surucu family to be deported. Cardinal Karl Lehmann, chair of the German Bishops's Conference, rejected calls for the expulsion of foreigners who prove unwilling to integrate in German society, terming such moves "acts of political desperation." Lehmann however condemned practices such as arranged marriages and so-called honour killings, saying the German authorities should never tolerate parallel societies which seek to flout German law and traditions. Surucu was the sixth victim of honour killings among Berlin's 200,000-strong Turkish community in as many months. The German police listed 45 cases between 1996 and 2004 - with 13 in Berlin. Muslim leaders in Berlin have taken pains to stress that there is no basis for honour killings in the Koran. But they have also been criticised for not condeming such murders outright. Merkel has called for an integration summit involving some of Germany's Muslim leaders. Successive German governments have been accused by many experts and critics of failing to develop policies to deal with the fact that millions of guest workers who entered the country in the 1960s and 1970s would settle permanently in Germany rather than returning home, Deutsche Welle said. Posted by: tipper 2006-04-19 |
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