I have been haunted by something that happened, for the past few days. I felt like I had to talk about this here, but whenever I tried to, the enormous sadness of the event hindered me. And I couldn't post anything until I did this, hence the absence of blog entries. I tried to do a painting on the subject, but found that I couldn't. Am posting some initial sketches, but that will be all. If you read further, please be advised that the content is very sad and morbid and disturbing.
Dua Khalil Aswad was a 17-year old Yezidi Kurdish girl who fell in love with a Sunni Muslim boy. She converted to Islam because of this. Dua's family objected to this, and she sought refuge in the house of a village/tribal elder.
Around April 7th, 8 to 10 men stormed the house and dragged her out and threw stones at her until she died. It took half an hour for them to kill her. Her brothers and uncles were among the killers. A crowd was watching. The police was witness to this, but chose not to do anything. The boy is in hiding, trying to fend off a similar fate.
This incident was kept quiet until recently. The world knew about this when somebody made a cellphone video of the killing public.
One cannot imagine the kind of evil that lurks in these peoples' minds, that lets them justify the torture and killing of a girl who did nothing to them. The Kurdish government has made statements about this, but unless the killers are brought to justice, they don't mean anything (Amnesty International points out many such incidents in Kurdistan). Apparently, these 'honor killings' are common in some societies, and are even given some sort of legal/tacit sanction. That is sick and barbaric. ICAHK (International Campaign Against Honour Killings) is an organization that is trying to stop this. Here is a report on the incident on their site.
Dua Khalil Aswad was a 17-year old Yezidi Kurdish girl who fell in love with a Sunni Muslim boy. She converted to Islam because of this. Dua's family objected to this, and she sought refuge in the house of a village/tribal elder.
Around April 7th, 8 to 10 men stormed the house and dragged her out and threw stones at her until she died. It took half an hour for them to kill her. Her brothers and uncles were among the killers. A crowd was watching. The police was witness to this, but chose not to do anything. The boy is in hiding, trying to fend off a similar fate.
This incident was kept quiet until recently. The world knew about this when somebody made a cellphone video of the killing public.
One cannot imagine the kind of evil that lurks in these peoples' minds, that lets them justify the torture and killing of a girl who did nothing to them. The Kurdish government has made statements about this, but unless the killers are brought to justice, they don't mean anything (Amnesty International points out many such incidents in Kurdistan). Apparently, these 'honor killings' are common in some societies, and are even given some sort of legal/tacit sanction. That is sick and barbaric. ICAHK (International Campaign Against Honour Killings) is an organization that is trying to stop this. Here is a report on the incident on their site.
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