"...stop making such a fuss about it."

Traditional family values trump murder laws, right? Or maybe the latter just don't apply.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by northwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament to spare him their outrage.

"These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, told The Associated Press Saturday.

"Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch.

They were still breathing as mud was shoveled over their bodies, according to media reports, which said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing.

Zehri told a packed and stunned Parliament on Friday that Baluch tribal traditions helped stop obscenity and then asked fellow lawmakers to stop making such a fuss about it.

I guess choosing your own husband is an obscene and immoral act in some neighborhoods. And nontraditional. And, of course, a woman defying her parents brings shame upon the family, and the family in some Muslim countries does have the legal right to kill such a daughter, so we shouldn't call it murder: it isn't illegal. Right? I'd be interested to know if the Baluch justify this tradition as specifically Islamic, or just tradition.

At least some of the Parliament members were upset about it, and they are Muslim, too, so they seem not to consider it a Muslim must-do. How about the Taliban and Wahabis? Anybody know?

The AP had the story in the Saturday New York Daily News.