Honour Killing in Pakistan

I read a report in an Irish newspaper about the terrible honour killing of a young woman who was set upon by her family in Pakistan. Her crime was to marry someone against her families' wishes. The ladies husband was understandably very vocal in bringing 20+ relatives, of the murdered lady, to justice. 

 

Then I read this in the Irish Times and I could not believe the way so many people believe they can acquire and then discard other human beings as though they were mere commodities - how hypocritical these people are. This whole thing is leaving the world's population shocked. All around the world, from Africa, where school girls have been kidnapped to Asia where this frightening thing has happened. It makes one realise that a United Nations needs to have an ability to be more robust upon countries that do little to thwart such crimes. I know it's easier said then done, but sometimes this is frustrating.

 

 

 

 

From The Irish Times  

 

A Pakistani man demanding justice after his pregnant wife was murdered outside Lahore’s high court this week admitted yesterday to strangling his first wife, a development likely to focus even more attention on the prevalence of so-called “honour” killings in the country.

Muhammad Iqbal, the 45-year-old husband of Farzana Parveen, who was beaten to death by 20 male relatives on Tuesday, said he strangled his first wife in order to marry Parveen.

He avoided a prison sentence after his family used Islamic provisions of Pakistan’s legal system to forgive him – precisely those he has insisted should not be available to his second wife’s killers.

“I was in love with Farzana and killed my first wife because of this love,” he told Agence France-Presse. Police confirmed the killing happened six years ago and he was released after a “compromise” with his family.

Iqbal has also claimed that Parveen’s family killed another of their daughters some years ago. Speaking to a researcher from the Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights organisation, he claimed Parveen’s father, Muhammad Azeem, had poisoned the other woman after falling out with her husband. The foundation has been unable to confirm Iqbal’s claim about a second killing.

Urgent investigation

The extraordinary twists to the affair came after Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, ordered an urgent investigation into the killing of Parveen, who had enraged her family after marrying without their consent.

In a statement, he said the crime was “totally unacceptable and must be dealt with in accordance with the law promptly”. He also ordered the chief minister of Punjab province, his brother Shahbaz Sharif, to open an investigation.

The attack on Parveen, which reportedly lasted for around 15 minutes, began soon after she and Iqbal arrived at the court, where she was due to testify against her father’s claim she had been kidnapped and coerced into marriage.

Her father, the only one of the group to be have been arrested, told police his daughter had been killed because she had dishonoured her family.

Demand for money

Iqbal has claimed Parveen’s father withdrew his support for their marriage after demanding more money than had initially been agreed at the start of a long engagement.

Mr Sharif’s intervention followed international uproar, including a lengthy and stinging condemnation from the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, who said Pakistan must take “urgent and strong measures to put an end to the continuous stream of so-called ‘honour killings’ and other forms of violence against women”. She said: “The fact she was killed on her way to court shows a serious failure by the state to provide security for someone who – given how common such killings are in Pakistan – was obviously at risk.”

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the media had reported that nearly 900 women had been killed in “honour” crimes in 2013 alone, but the actual figure was likely to be far higher.

Until yesterday there had been little comment on the case domestically, with newspapers and television stations focussing on other stories.

One journalist, an editor of an Urdu national paper who did not want to be named, said the country’s media reflected its audience. “Although we have some educated people, most are still living in semi-tribal societies in far-flung rural areas,” he said. “In a country where people are being killed every day by miscreants and militants it is not so important when one woman is killed by one husband.” – (Guardian service)