According to this article, the murder of Du'a Khalil Aswad, a 17 year-old Kurdish girl in northern Iraq, took place last month but is now talked about by Amnesty International because of a video that has made it to the Internet (I was sent the video by two readers of this blog. It's graphic and very upsetting; it's murder in process. Other versions circulating are longer and even more graphic. In this version, you can see she's still alive: (update: this is really disturbing. I'm sorry I didn't emphasize this enough earlier)
http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=4pcvytt
Du'a, who is Yazidi, was stoned in public by 8 men from her family, who dragged her from the house of a tribal leader where she sought protection. Her crime was spending the night out of her house and having a relationship with a teenage Muslim boy. A crowd watched and some used their cell phones to record the video. The only word I could recognize on the video is "Uktulouha": "kill her."
Some blogs are using this video to bash Arabs and Muslims in general. They talk about "those people who are refusing to evolve and who can't even use cell phones probably." These racist diatribes should not obscure the fact that this young woman was murdered in public, that her murderers are still at large, and that we should all speak up for her.
The acts of those thugs who are ganging on a 17 year- old girl are dishonoring all human beings, no matter what culture, religion, gender, or race. They are criminals who should pay for their crime. In this life, not the next.
I apologize for the lack luster prose. But are any words adequate to mourn this girl?
19 comments:
I just saw the video now after I read the statement by Amnesty. I am very very disturbed: everyday more people are being killed, almost no one is paying the price. What price anyway would measure up to the horrendous nature of this crime? I can't imagine one, but I don't know what to do with my anger. Every time, I find myself asking the question, and every time I feel I have to cut short before it inspires me irrational fantasies of omnipotence!
IT was "ng"--not Anonymous--who posted the above...
This is retarded. I was able to get most of what they said because I'm from Mosul myself and was able to distinguish their accent. I never thought people actually stoned others there. Must be an 'evolution' of some sort *sigh*
Saned,
Can you tell us what they were saying I want to know?
Sand,
like ng, I want to know what they were saying aside from kill her and in some other versions, "cover her" but long after they stripped her naked!
ng,
I'm beyond anger. My anger is not healthy. It leaves me exhausted and helpless. I don't know what to do.
This is not just colonialism. It takes more than colonialism to make over a hundred men gang on a helpless girl, strip her naked, and bash her brains out with stones. All the time making their home movies. I have so many questions: why hasn't the video surface till now since the murder was committed in early April?
Now I'm thinking that I don't have anything to say at RAWI about Norma Khouri. Hers is a trivial story really. Good entertainment. Morally speaking, I should be talking about Du'a. Not that anything I will say will do her any good.
I was thinking about Khouri too. I think you can still speak of both!
This murder of this woman reminds me of the death penalty in the US. How is honor killings or public executions any different then state sponsored murder by the death penalty? This kind of killing is not exclusively an arab or muslim thing.
Well, you're right to a certain extent, Reema. I am confident you're not apologetic, but the graphic differential implied here is not however what makes up the whole difference; it is the reasons for public executions that make that difference: no one is put to death in the US for dishonoring his tribe. Correct me if I am wrong!
In the US you are put to death if you are black and poor. Many innocent people have been murdered by the death penalty because they could not afford good representation. Disporportionately, more blacks are on deathrow then whites, even if blacks only make up 11% of the nations.
We can not forget that only 50 years ago there were public executions of blacks, lynchings of men and women in the US. Today the deathpenalty is the modern day version of lynching that is supposed to be more humane.
For example,in Florida last December, Angel Diaz was executed by lethal injection. The three-drug cocktail that is used by 37 American states is supposed first to induce unconsciousness, then to paralyse muscles and block breathing, and finally to stop the heart. But after the first injection, Diaz continued to move, squint and grimace as he tried to mouth words. A second dose was administered; only after 34 minutes was he declared dead. A post mortem showed the first needle had plunged through the intended vein, injecting the deadly chemicals into soft tissue instead."
I am saying this not to take consern away from womens issues.
I don't have an account on this blog so I must post annoymous. However, I will identify myself as a US citizen living in California.
With that being said, I see a huge difference between capital punishment in the US and taking an innocent girl and beating her to death. In the US, anyone caught doing this would be excected for this crime. However, they would get the luxory of 3 meals a day, a roof over their head, and an unlimited supply of appeals before finally lead to the gas chamber.
The families of the victim would have to relive the horrific violence bestowed upon their loved one who was taken away from them by someones senseless act.
Please don't imply that the murders in the US Soceity is equal to this poor victim, Dua Khalil Aswad.
Oh really anonymous? Have you ever spent time in jail here in the U.S.? Did you know that women are repeatedly raped and abused by prison guards in jails and prisons here in the U.S.? Did you know that the racial disparity among female prisoners is higher than among male prisoners (a huge majority of female prisoners are African American and minority, while only several are white). Most of the people in jails are serving time for petty theft, drug abuse, prostitution, etc. Not for violent crimes. An incredibly miniscule percentage of all reported rapists actually go to jail in America. Please don't sit there and say screwed up things don't happen in this country.
First of all I am not debating whether US jails and the American justice system is fairly levied against minorities. That simply is not the issue.
The issue is about this poor girl beaten to death in a crowd of angry family members and single minded men in her home land. The previous blogger "R" was comparing her awful brutality to a convicted murder, Angel Diaz.
Angel Diaz lived from 1986 to 2006 in a cell waiting to be excuted for a CRIME he committed. He shot and killed someone in 1984. He lived for over 20 yrs after his crime which was longer then the short 17 years of Du'a Khalil Aswad. Her only crime was falling in love with a boy who didn't share her same religion.
Du'a Khalil Aswad is a victim. It is a disgrace to compare her death to Angel Diaz who deserved his punishment.
With respect to your diatribe over women in prisons, I don’t see how that relates at all to this discussion.
E from California.
It relates to this discussion, E from California, because of the long tradition of orientalist hypocrisy, to which your comments on this thread have earned you admission.
You might want to think about what makes you feel entitled...
I was going to say "entitled to declare what counts as barbarity, or what counts as a crime, or who deserves what punishment," but perhaps I'll just leave it at that.
One guy was telling "someone" that he is a dog and a son of a dog. Now the thing is, he was talking to a male. So it might be someone who is blocking him/defending the girl? Also, someone said '6ay7et 7ath" [someone who abused their luck] and that was definitely to the girl...
Thanks Saned. Ya, he's right that guy--that girl definitely ran out of luck! And those spectators ran out of so many other things.
As another heartsick reader from CA, who watched a short version of the video, I wanted to spend this moment mourning a lovely young lady, who made an attempt to live a genuine life amid a "family" of stunning moral and spiritual void. What courage and hope it must have taken for one raised in such a wasteland to even try. Du'a, my thoughts are with you. Go in peace.
The snide comments about comparing Dua's death to the death penalty in the US is absurd. Get real.
How can anyone compare the brutal barbarian killing of this innocent teen - to the death penalty in the US Judicial System??
I'm certainly not saying our courts aren't screwed up... good heavens, there are problems. But you can not compare someone who who received the death penalty after committing acts like MURDER....... and compare that to an INNOCENT teenage girl who is publically stripped by a mob of men and brutally beaten senseless with blocks of concrete for at least a half hour! And this done by her own family! She did nothing wrong! She was a beautiful, innocent young girl who fell in love with the "wrong" guy.
There's a moral difference between cold-hearted murder of the innocent.... and "removing" a dangerous, destructive being of society. I can't believe I actually have to explain that.
And one other point, that obviously has been overlooked. Anyone sentenced to the death penalty in the US was GIVEN A TRIAL beforehand.
Unfortunately for Dua and thousands of women around the world - they were'nt as lucky to have that luxury.
JB
This is horrible. What human rights group should intervene? The men should definitely be brought to court. I was unable to watch the video, but simply hearing other comments left by other readers makes me squirm! I would agree though that the acts these men took part in have no correlation to the executions that the US Supreme Court issue.
Hi, I am a muslim and have read everyones' comments in here! First of all! this barbaric act can in no way represent the "MUSLIMS" and I mean in "NO WAY"!
A bad driver, driving a Lexus is always blamed for the bad driving, just like that, a group of deviated muslims can not in any way represent ISLAM just as the driver cant represt the LEXUS!
Coming to this horrific video; Words wont do justice to that! I wonder, if they had the nerves to live the day after this execution!
I dont really need to "mention" how horriffic it was!
The reason I am posting is to question those in thread, who didnt seem to me appologetic and instead inflamed a debate, or to be more precise, compared it to "US" death penalty! My dear muslim brothers and sisters: Death penalty is prevailent not only in "US" but in almost every single country in this world. In my point of view, it's inevitable. Keeping that in view, I humbly request you people to kindly make your facts clear as to what you people are trying to proove? this act was purely horrendous and those supporting it, seems to me dont really possess a heart! DEATH PENALTY is to deter crimes! If this girl instead would have been executed "LAWFULLY" and in somewhat a "HUMANE" demeanor, for breaking a law that the COUNTRY declares as death-deserving, then this might have been justified. Not to mention, with a fair chance given to her to atleast justifty herself! Islam nowhere tells to demean women and strip them in public! As for the mistreatment of women or minorities in the US prisons, it is something to be condemned if not more then equally as well! but there have been measures taken in the past and the suspects detained as per my knowledge! THERE IS A WAY, FOR EVERYTHING, A PROCEDURE, THAT DISTINGUISHES US HUMANS FROM "ANIMALS" and in my perspectives, these people arent any better than animals; infact worse!
Further when people pass comments with no legitimate proof like one of the sister mentioned that people in US are death-penalized for being poor?!@#$%!@$ Can someone support it with some legitimate statements,bills,laws, or any substantiate matter to proove it????
I am in no way advocation US, nor it's policies. Neither am I talking politics! All I can talk
"as" after this video, is as a human! and what right on earth does her family members have to drag her out of the "RELIGIOUS LEADER'S house and treat her that way!
ATTENTION TO ALL NONMUSLIMS IF YOU DONT KNOW THAT: In Islam, we are commanded, that even a slaughter-animal be slaughtered in a way that it causes least possible suffering to the animal and the nerve of the animal that is ordered to be cut, puts him out of life in the least possible time so as to reduce the suffering to the animal in every way! Even Science has prooved that, animals slaughtered in Islamic ways, are more healtheir and way much free from diseases! SO HOW ON THIS EARTH OF ALLAH (SUBHANATALA) CAN THIS BE PERMITTED??????? I only pray that these men be brought to justice here and in the hereafter!
Allah(swt) knows the best!
In the end MY HUMBLE REQUEST PLEASE DONT PINPOINT ANYONE's RELIGION!! IT HURTS AND CAN CREATE DIFFERENCE AND ENCOURAGE HATRED! Dont abusive anyone's religion just to pose your-own-self and your-religion as malicious! because Islam, in my knowleged doesnt order us to abuse others!
THANX! AND MAY ALLAH (SUBHANATALA) PARDON ME FOR MY MISTAKES!
ALLAH (SUBHANATALA) knows the best!
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