Du’a Khalil Aswad, a 17 year old Kurdish girl, was hideously and viciously stoned to death by a mob of men because she had a relationship with a Muslim boy. There is a video. I’m not going to watch it because everyone who has says it’s beyond horrific.
Anmesty International has confirmed it happened. Yesterday, Kurdish men and women came together to protest this sickening murder. This is important. When blood-drenched violence spirals into insanity (and there’s already been a retribution killing of 23 Kurds by Muslims) let’s all take a deep breath and remember that many people there oppose what happened too.
It wasn’t that long ago that African-Americans in this country were lynched by mobs, sometimes after being tortured and castrated, so it’s not like any one country or religion has an exclusive on acting like deranged psychopaths.
Sign a petition by Kurdish activists, artists, and writers to demand Kurdish officials bring the murderers to justice and outlaw public stonings and “honor” killings.
Small point, Bob: most Kurds ARE Muslims. Muslim indicates religion; Kurd indicates ethnicity and linguistic differences (Kurdish is a member of the satem branch of the Indo-European language family [along with Aremnian Farsi and Armenian], whereas Arabic is a Semetic language and Turkish and its cousins are Ural-Altaic (linked structurally, ironically, with Korean and Japanese.))
To make matter somewhat more complicated, most Kurds are Sunni Muslims. Most of the area surrounding the Kurds is populated either by Arab Sunni or by Turks (also Sunni). The Arab Shi’a are more to the south and east, and, of course, the Iranians to the east tend to be Shi’a (about 60%, notwithstanding the theocracy in Iran).
It’s complicated, but no more so than American politics!
Honor killings persist in various places throughout the Islamic world where certain traditional and extremist interpretations of Islamic law hold sway, including India and our buddies Pakistan. Would that this were an isolated incident, but alas it is not.
I would also add that not all interpretations of the Koran are this severe– just as not all interpretations of the Bible call for Crusades. (The War in Iraq is seen by some as a Holy War.)
Joe, did you think our esteemed and learned Polizeros readers would not know Kurds are an ethnic group and Islam is a religion?
The girl was Yezidi, not Muslim, something which was reported as being part of the reason for the atrocity. Some thought she’d converted.
http://altreligion.about.com/library/faqs/bl_yezidism.htm
The boy is in hiding, fearing for his life.
My comment was prompted by the second sentence in paragraph 2:
“This is important. When blood-drenched violence spirals into insanity (and there’s already been a retribution killing of 23 Kurds by Muslims) let’s all take a deep breath and remember that many people there oppose what happened too”
“Killing of 23 Kurds by Muslims” to me suggests a distinction between Kurds and Muslims, which was why I wrote the original post.
(Note: I wish blogging software gave some ability to format text in responses!)
She was Kurdish and not Muslim. That 23 Muslims were killed in retaliation suggests that others see a distinction too…
These people are barbaric, if it is their culture, it is barbaric and inferior…
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
fathers may kill their daughters
if they feel dishonored
like when she dates the wrong boy
.