Educational Media Reviews Online

Licence to Kill follows the award-winning documentary, Murder in Purdah, another collaborative effort of editor Fiona Murch and reporter Olenka Frenkiel. Murder in Purdah sought to reveal how women are killed casually; its sequel Licence to Kill exposes the sanctioned homicides of hundreds of Pakistani women every year. Many fundamentalist Islamics believe that these so-called “honour killings” act as a deterrent to women’s sexual immorality and control women’s social interactions.

Much of the this powerful video focuses on the murder of Samia Sarwar, the daughter of a wealthy businessman and Head of the Peshawar Chamber of Commerce. Samia was gunned down in the office of her lawyer Hina Jilani. In this examination of the consequences of this specific fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, Frenkiel interviews Samia Sarwar’s lover, her parents, Hina Jilani - one of Pakistan's leading human rights attorneys, and several senators. Perhaps in an attempt to show that “honour killings” occur throughout Pakistan’s social strata, Frenkiel also reports on 19 year old Zarsheed who shot his mother, Asif who shot his sister, and Shamim, the mother of four, who was murdered by her husband’s brothers.

Licence to Kill’s treatment of this topic is not altogether evenhanded. Occasionally it may strike the viewer as sensationalist, akin in tone and approach to episodes of ABC’s Primetime or NBC’s Dateline. Interviews with one Pakistani senator, a supporter of Samia Sarwar’s father, always occur when he is playing golf. The setting immediately gives viewers the sensation that this government official may not take this controversial issue seriously. Frenkiel only interviews one leading Islamic/Koran scholar to confirm what basis this fundamentalist viewpoint might have in the religious texts. A more impartial look at “honour killings” might have explored the social, cultural, and historical aspects more thoroughly. For instance, other sources indicate that such violence against women pre-dates Islam. Likewise, several Muslim women’s groups stipulate that the Quran forbids this type of behavior, but there is inadequate exploration of this viewpoint.

Despite these weaknesses, Licence to Kill still documents several disturbing facts that are hard for any viewer to ignore or dismiss. In 1990, the Pakistan Penal Code was amended to embrace Islamic principles. One principle of forgiveness allows women to be killed with impunity. Because the heir of any murder victim can forgive the killer and stop a prosecution, family members may conspire to kill, to forgive, and to then walk free, even when the woman is innocent of adultery or other immoral behavior. While no one has been formally charged in the Samia Sarwar case, in each of the other three incidents portrayed, the killer was forgiven and never prosecuted. Following the Sarwar homicide, several senators attempted to pass a resolution condemning her murder. This resolution was tabled. When a broader resolution was proposed, to condemn killing women, only four of the 87 Senators in the upper house of Pakistan's parliament voted in its favor. According to activist attorney Jilani, this lack of support signals that a woman’s right to life, as guaranteed in this South Asian country’s constitution, is not meaningful.

Licence to Kill is appropriate for academic library collections. It should probably not be used without consulting additional resources within Islamic studies and from organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.