I looked up the story at news.bbc.co.uk about the so-called "honour killing" which is in the news today, and read a story that resembled in many ways the Fred/Rosemary West tale - it was this page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6718731.stm Interestingly, the sister who went into hiding feels safer wearing the full face veil: I've commented on this before and it was unpopular, but I do think that western (esp, male) commentators who want to deprive women of their veils by civic law have no sense of how much protection it can give a woman in unfavourable home and community circumstances. I'm not saying it's right that she should be scared into wearing one, but until we have resolved the problems causing it we have no right to make her show her full face for our own comfort. In an ideal society, I should be able to walk home at 3am on a Friday night wearing a bikini - the reality is that if I did I would probably be sexually assaulted, and at the very least severely verbally harrassed by drivers and pedestrians. Traditionally Muslim societies set the bar of what is "asking for it" (to quote the famous UK judge Pickles, commenting on a rape case) a bit higher, and unless that is addressed a woman's right to wear any item she feels protects her and saves her from unwanted attention must be guaranteed by our laws. Want some backup on that? http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=25210 I have met enough intelligent Muslim women - including converts - to know that is not the only possible Muslim interpretation of the issue of women's clothing, so it is not a religious issue as such. And, look at the differences in Christianity between a Catholic and a Methodist, or in atheism between western humanists, and the communist purges of the last century, and you'll see that 1. people in power interpret "the law" according to their whims and 2. people without power often have to agree to measures that exceed the requirements of their belief systems. /rant