Honor Killing in Iraq – Update
June 8th, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Gender, Honor Killing, Human Rights, Iraq, Mass Violence, Patriarchy, Religious Fundamentalism, Sexism
About two weeks ago, I posted about this story of an honor killing in Iraq of a girl who had fallen in love with a British soldier. There is now an update from the Guardian, and it’s not good:
"Five weeks ago Leila Hussein told The Observer the chilling story of how her husband had killed their 17-year-old daughter over her friendship with a British soldier in Basra. Now Leila, who had been in hiding, has been murdered – gunned down in cold blood.
Leila Hussein lived her last few weeks in terror. Moving constantly from safe house to safe house, she dared to stay no longer than four days at each. It was the price she was forced to pay after denouncing and divorcing her husband – the man she witnessed suffocate, stamp on, then stab their young daughter Rand in a brutal ‘honour’ killing for which he has shown no remorse.
Though she feared reprisals for speaking out, she really believed that she would soon be safe. Arrangements were well under way to smuggle her to the Jordanian capital, Amman. In fact, she was on her way to meet the person who would help her escape when a car drew up alongside her and two other women who were walking her to a taxi. Five bullets were fired: three of them hit Leila, 41. She died in hospital after futile attempts to save her."
Leila’s own sons had disowned her. It is unknown who killed her. But this is the new Iraq, the democratic Iraq where mothers and daughters have become victims of systematic, religiously-based and sexist violence. I guess there is no war to wage against the terrorism exercised against women.
Posted in Human Rights, Mass Violence, Patriarchy, Religious Fundamentalism, Sexism, Social Exclusion, Structural Violence, Terrorism | 2 Comments »
June 10th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I was afraid of this in the beginning when we were threatening to go in. I knew the women had to be scared to death about what was going to happen.
I HATE that crap like this happens. Hate it.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
The STOP HONORCIDE! campaign was launched on Mother’s Day 2008. The goal of the campaign is to prosecute honorcides to the fullest extent of the law. We want honorcide to be classified as a hate crime and we advocate for every existing hate crime legislation to be amended to include honorcide.
http://www.reformislam.org/honorcide/