It was only in February that the law was amended to make a man's action punishable. Before that, the law acquitted a man for such an action. One would think that with the second section canceled, men and women would be punished equally in cases of adultery,' said Kerechekian. The Penal Code punishes a woman who commits adultery with a prison sentence of between three months and two years. A man committing adultery has to be caught in the act in his own home or be known by others to be conducting an illicit affair to be sentenced to prison for one month to a year.
Murder is murder.
People in tribal or traditional families may not be deterred by a light sentence and would be willing to face punishment to clear the family's reputation,' she said. If the article were canceled, and the law dealt with so-called honor killings as it does other crimes, Kerechekian said that people would be more inclined to think twice if they risked being given the death sentence. A closer look at the ISF statistics indicates that people do take advantage of the law. An ISF official at the statistics department noted that many crimes that are initially thought to be 'honor' crimes and are registered as such in the police report turn out to be otherwise after further investigation. There's no such thing as an honor crime in the penal code, but there's justification for a crime if the motive was 'honest',' the ISF official said.