On April 6, 1999, a Pakistani woman who wanted a divorce was murdered as she sat in her lawyer's office. Mrs. Samia Imran is one of thousands of women murdered every year in Pakistan in the name of honor. This BBC film investigates—and challenges—the horrific treatment meted out to women and the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators - all made possible through the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Pakistan's penal code was amended in 1990 to embrace Islamic principles and provides grotesque protections for such murderers.

No one has been accused of Mrs. Imran's murder. In August 1999, a resolution in the Pakistan Senate to condemn her murder and to outlaw all "honor killings" was defeated by the Sharif government. In effect, the state was endorsing murder and revealed itself as a true advocate of fundamentalist Islam. Licence to Kill questions her parents, her lawyer, the parents of her lover, the senator who presented the resolution and the investigating officer. The film examines how politics, feudalism and Islam conspire to rob women of their fundamental human right—life.

"Recommended….documents several disturbing facts that are hard for any viewer to ignore or dismiss." Educational Media Reviews Online

Association for Asian Studies, 2002