According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the fifty-eighth session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in 2002, concerning cultural practices in the family that are violent towards women (E/CN.4/2002/83, linked below):
The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honour defence in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defence in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Peru, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and the West Bank.
Some of these (eg Turkey) have since been abrogated.
Countries where the law can be interpreted to allow men to kill female relatives in cold blood as well as in flagrante delicto (in the act of committing adultery) include:
*Jordan: part of article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code states that "he who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty" [5]. This has twice been put forward for cancellation by the government, but was retained by the Lower House of the Parliament[6].
Countries that allow men to kill female relatives in flagrante delicto (but not in cold blood) include:
*Syria: Article 548 states that "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants, descendants or sister committing adultery (flagrante delicto) or illegitimate sexual acts with another and he killed or injured one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty."
Countries that allow husbands to kill only their wives in flagrante delicto (based upon the Napoleonic Code) include:
*Morocco, where Article 418 of the Penal Code states "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery."
*Haiti, where Article 269 of the Penal Code states that "in the case of adultery as provided for in Article 284, the murder by a husband of his wife and/or her partner, immediately upon discovering them in flagrante delicto in the conjugal abode, is to be pardoned."
In Turkey, murder laws formerly contain a specific provision for reduction in sentence from an maximum of 24 years imprisonment to 8 years if the perpretrator was "provoked". The sentence was raised to 24 years in 2003. After European Union pressure, Turkey prohibited family members from being able to claim "provocation" and thereby receive lighter sentences. [7][8]
In two Latin American countries, similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery." [9]
Countries where honor killing is not legal but is frequently ignored in practice include:
*Pakistan: Honor killing are supposed to be prosecuted under ordinary murder, but in practice police and prosecutors often ignored it.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worl.../24/2003180222 Consequently, on October 26, 2004, Pakistan's lower house of Parliament passed a bill that would make honor killings punishable by a prison term of seven years and the death penalty in the most extreme cases. The bill must be approved by the upper house before becoming law. The bill was introduced by the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf due to the hundreds of honor killings that occur each year in Pakistan, government officials reported. Nilofer Baktiar, advisor to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, stated that in 2003, as many as 1,261 women were murdered in honor killings. [10]
