The borders of the Schengen Area are open to virtually anyone who has a passport and can afford a few dollars, and Muslim communities have emerged in every country of the European Union. This has brought new problems, along with new ways of dealing with them.
Consider the following situation. A girl grows up in a Muslim country, escapes to Europe, and adopts the lifestyle of European or American girls. Often, she embraces an even more liberated lifestyle than the average European or American girl, exuberantly making up for lost time. In a world connected by the internet, her relatives learn what is happening and travel to settle the matter according to the principles of their religion. The dishonor brought upon the family can be erased only by her death.
One of the best-known cases of this kind took place in Spain five years ago. The Abbas sisters had immigrated from Pakistan, and their relatives expected them to bring their husbands into the country, who would in turn help other family members immigrate. But the young women had grown so fond of life without their husbands that they not only showed no interest in helping them move to Spain, but actually filed for divorce. Their relatives lured them back to Pakistan with the story that their mother was dying and wanted to see them one last time. They returned, were murdered, and a Pakistani court acquitted the killers.
But how many such supposedly immoral girls have disappeared into Western Europe’s no-go zones, their bodies never to be found? We do not know.
A more recent case is of greater concern to us because the victim lived in Slovakia. Her father and brother, who had traveled there to murder her, were arrested and charged with preparing a murder, then acquitted by a Slovak court, and subsequently put on trial again. They are currently in custody in the United Kingdom. Yet even if they spend a few years behind bars, what will they do once they are released? Our judicial system is not designed to deal with a murderer who considers himself under a religious obligation to complete the killing as soon as he gets out of prison.
Let me remind readers that anyone can find themselves in the same predicament if they do something that certain Muslims regard as an insult, even inadvertently.
This is yet another example of how desperately unprepared we are to live alongside Muslim communities.