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Kurdistan Government KRG Asks Baghdad to
Investigate Honor Killing Dua Khalil
5.5.2007 |
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May 5, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq),-- The Kurdish
Regional Government is calling on the Iraqi federal
system of justice to aggressively investigate the "honor
killing" in early April
of a 17-year-old Yazidi girl in Bashika, near
Mosul in
Nineveh province. The girl's death reportedly led to
the reprisal massacre of more than 20 Yazidi factory
workers a couple of weeks later.
Doaa Aswad Dekhil (also reported as Dua Khalil Aswad),
a 17-year-old Yazidi girl, had converted to Islam to
marry a Sunni man.
On April 7, Doaa went to the home of a Sunni sheikh,
but was told that her relatives had contacted him
and that she must return home, VOI has reported .
Instead, she was stoned in the street by nearly
two-thousand people, as confirmed by eyewitnesses,
while police and army forces cordoned off the area
and denied access to journalists.
The KRG government issued
a statement this week calling on the central
government to pursue the killers, and condemning the
acts:
"The murder of Dua in a so-called honour killing is
a tragedy for her family and the entire community in
Kurdistan. There is no justification whatsoever for
this crime.
Dua’s death and the subsequent retaliation against
the Yezidi community are a reminder to all of us, as
individuals and as a society, that we have to
continue to fight against the violent and archaic
mindset that sadly persists today."
Bashika, in Nineveh governorate, is not a part of
the Kurdistan Region and therefore does not fall
under the jurisdiction of the Kurdistan Regional
Government.
The Kurdistan National Assembly (parliament) in 2002
repealed articles in Iraqi law which allowed for
“honour” killings to go unpunished. Since then,
there have been at least 40 convictions for such
crimes in the Kurdistan Region, and at least 24
cases are awaiting trial, illustrating both the
extent of the problem and the steps that the KRG is
taking to address it.
iraqslogger com
Religious significance
The Yazidis consider Melek Taus to be a benevolent
angel that has redeemed himself from his fall, and
has become a demiurge who created the cosmos from
the Cosmic Egg. After he repented, he cried for 7000
years, his tears filling 7 jars, which then quenched
the fires of hell.
Melek Taus is sometimes transliterated Malak Ta'us
or Malik Taws. In Semitic languages, malik variably
means "king" or "angel". Taus is
uncontroversially translated "peacock"; however, it
is important to note that peacocks are not, at least
currently, native to the lands where Melek Taus is
worshipped.
This has lead some to speculate that the worship of
Melek Taus was imported from India, though it is
more likely the peacock iconography is a development
from earlier representations depicting the god as a
native fowl, such as a bustard.
The Yazidi believe
that the founder of their religion, Sheikh Adi Ibn
Mustafa, was an avatar of Melek Taus. In art and
sculpture Melek Taus is depicted as peacock. The
Yazidi are thought to be unique in their depiction
of their primary god as a bird.
More About Yazidi From Wikipedia
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