Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Honor Killing

A 25 year old woman was stoned to death by her father, brothers, and former fiancé.
She had arrived at court to defend her decision to marry the person of her choosing, and a dozen men attacked her with bricks.  She suffered severe head injuries and was later pronounced dead. 


All the suspects except her father escaped. He admitted killing his daughter and explained it was a matter of honor. Many Pakistani families think a woman marrying her own choice of man brings dishonor on the family.
Around 1,000 Pakistani women are killed every year by their families in honor killings, according to Pakistani rights group the Aurat Foundation.
In honor killings, most of the time the women's killers are her family
Law allows them to nominate someone to do the murder, then forgive him.  
reported here by Mubashar Bukhari 
additional article by Anup Kaphle here 



This law allows the family to nominate someone to kill the woman.   This same law allows the family to then forgive the person after the killing is done.  In this context, "forgive" means that there is no consequence and any possible conviction is overturned by said forgiveness.




This is not forgiveness.  This is a legal loophole.  It is not unlike ones that the United States has had, where some people were people and some people were 3/5ths of a person and some people were property.


Here is a link to Pakistani Women Human Rights Organization.
It states: We strive for HUMAN RIGHTS for Pakistani Women.
The right to live without fear of abduction, mutilation, honor crime, target killing, murder.



The woman who was beaten with bricks: her name was Farzana. 

2 comments:

  1. Absolute madness in any year, but all the more unbelievable in 2014.

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  2. Agreed. Makes my heart hurt.
    I read it and thought: this is still happening. Women are still being stoned to death---legally. Today.

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