Four arrested in Iraq 'honor killing'
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/18/iraq.honorkilling/index.html• Four arrested in "honor killing" in northern Iraq
• Two suspects were members of girl's family
• The 17-year-old was dragged from home and stoned to death
• Cell phone video of killing broadcast worldwide
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (CNN) -- Authorities in northern Iraq have arrested four
people in connection with the "honor killing" last month of a Kurdish
teen -- a startling, morbid pummeling caught on a mobile phone video
camera and broadcast around the world.
The case portrays the tragedy and brutality of honor killings in the
Muslim world. Honor killings take place when family members kill
relatives, almost always female, because they feel the relatives'
actions have shamed the family.
In this case, Dua Khalil, a 17-year-old Kurdish girl whose religion is
Yazidi, was dragged into a crowd in a headlock with police looking on
and kicked, beaten and stoned to death last month. (Watch the attack,
and what authorities are doing about it Video)
Authorities believe she was killed for being seen with a Sunni Muslim
man. She had not married him or converted, but her attackers believed
she had, a top official in Nineveh province said. The Yazidis, who
observe an ancient Middle Eastern religion, look down on mixing with
people of another faith.
Each year, dozens of honor killings are reported in Iraq and thousands
are reported worldwide, said the United Nations. The practice has been
condemned around the world by governments and human rights groups. A
yearly vigil protesting honor killings is held in London, England.
Two of the four arrested are members of the victim's family, police in
Nineveh province said Thursday. Four others, including a cousin thought
to have instigated the killing, are being sought.
The killing is said to have spurred the killings of about two dozen
Yazidi men by Sunni Muslims in the Mosul area two weeks later. Attackers
affiliated with al Qaeda pulled 24 Yazidi men out of a bus and
slaughtered them, a provincial official said.
The violence ratcheted up tensions between Yazids and Muslims in
Bashiqa, the victim's hometown, a largely Yazidi city in Nineveh province.
Provincial officials don't think much could have been done to stop the
honor killing, but at least three officers are being investigated and
could be fired.
"The climate, the religious and social climate is such that people can
do that in daylight and that authorities do not intervene," said the
spokeswoman for the Organization of Womens' Freedom in Iraq, Houzan Mahmoud.
Also, the top police official in Bashiqa is being replaced.
Topic: Honor Killings In The Moslem World (Read 4451 times)