"Honour killing occurs all over the Islamic world on a daily basis."

Honour killings happen all over the world, including Western countries, it especially used to be a huge problem in Latin America (still a problem, but improving),where it is mostly confined to husbands killing wives. But it happens in significant enough numbers to be called endemic in a fairly small number of countries.

For example, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country. Honour killings are not endemic there (other nastiness is, to be sure). India is the country with the most Muslims in it. No endemic honour killings, just other awfulness (though it has lately been showing up among Sikhs). Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Egypt, & all the various wretched 'stans of the former USSR do not practise this in any significant numbers (well, the Kurds in Turkey, Iran & Iraq have an issue). It happens, but is not common in Algeria, Tunesia, & Morocco, though there is plenty of violence, oppression and injustice to go around. Is not endemic in Sudan and the rest of East Africa, even though genocide and female genital mutilation is. West Africa does not have a problem.

In Jordan and Palestine, it can be described as endemic; Christian families do it too. It is endemic to most of the Arabian peninsula as well, though more common in more tribal & poor places like Yemen than in more modernized countries like Kuwait.

Pakistan (& Afghanistan) do something similar, with rather large numbers (probably over 1000 a year), but mostly in the really primitive tribal areas, it is not wide spread throughout the country. And the stats are difficult, because an "honour killing" called a Karo Kari covers more things than a woman being killed by her family-- about a third or more of the victims are men.

It is a very serious problem, confined mostly to poor tribal peoples but, it is not "endemic throughout the Islamic world" (especially since the US, Canada, the UK, France, etc all have significant Muslim populations and very very rare occurrences). It is endemic a variety of poor, tribal societies, most of which are also Muslim.

As well, since Christians (both Arab and Latin American) and Sikhs are practising it, it really cannot be seen as Islamic per se. (In Italy and especially Sicily, it used to be endemic, and is still not unknown.)

It is not purely a women's issue either-- honour killings of gay family members is not unknown either, in Christian as well as Muslim countries.

If RyanAir's cabin crews look like that, and if they flew anywhere I was going, I would surely book with them to avoid the sour old frumps that staff Air Canada.

Here is a link to slightly more thorough coverage of the story:

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=c7412591-04d9-4d3b-9cdd-eac38e0b9faf&k=42397

Having quite a bit of familiarity with Calgary, and the case, let me give you a little bit of information. She was dressed in her pajamas only (planning to sleep on the bus), took our LRT system up to where it ends on the West end of downtown at about midnight, planning to walk from there to the bus (something between a half and full mile of very confusing streets away). Now that part of downtown isn't the Bronx, but it isn't really Calgary's best either. Wandering around in her pajamas, lost, she asks a stranger for help, and accepts a ride.

Maybe not stupid, just naive, but it doesn't end there.

He drives her about 15 blocks SOUTH (the depot is due West) and stops to buy gas. He then drives about 40 (yes 40) blocks north to a park, and stops again, and asks for sex, and she says no, but stays in the car. He then goes something like the same distance North West, and rapes her.

I dunno, naive is perhaps an understatement, or at least severely directionally challanged.

But the judge was not calling her stupid, she wasn't in court (her mom was). The judge was justifying the sentence, which is what Judges hereabouts are supposed to do, they don't just say "3 years" and bang the gavel, they explain why.

By the way, it was a bit on the light side, even by Canadian standards. Even lighter, when you find out this dude has a string of convictions for things like firearms violations (also serious things in Canada), and had gotten off with a slap on the wrist each time. A poster boy for anti judicial leniency types.

And yes, Canadian sentences by and large are shorter than US ones, though not always (cf firearms & drunk driving violations). But it is interesting to note that the Canadian penal system has the lowest recidivism rate in the developed world.

There had not been a court battle or the defence making any claims about the victim; it was a guilty plea, which perhaps explains (though doesn't justify) the lightness of the sentence.

Anyway, the main point is that the Judge wasn't in any sense blaming the victim, quite the contrary. He was talking to the rapist, and essentially was saying that the reason you are going to jail is that you can't rape someone even if they are stupid.

But do remember that despite my long residence up here, I actually am a dual-citizen.

On the matter at hand, yes she actually was very stupid, anybody male or female wandering around downtown in their pajamas only in any North American city at midnight and depending on the kindness of strangers kinda is pretty stupid.

The point is just that that has nothing to do with whether it is justifiable to rape her, which is what the judge was saying. Its why we have laws against that kind of thing, if everybody was smart and paranoid so that kind of thing could never happen, we wouldn't need the law so much.