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Honor Killings Fuel Tensions in Iraqi
Kurdistan region
9.5.2007 |
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May 9, 2007 -
(Kurdish Northern Iraq-
Outside Kurdistan
region)
In Iraq's northern Kurdistan region, government
officials are trying to understand and stop a rise
in honor killings. The Kurdish government has
overturned Iraqi laws that allowed relatives to kill
women who were perceived to have dishonored their
families, but officials say women are still dying
nearly every day.
VOA's Barry Newhouse reports from Erbil that, in
recent weeks, a widely distributed video of one
brutal killing has fueled more deaths and inflamed
sectarian tensions.
In the grainy video, a dozen men surround a woman
curled into a fetal position on the ground, and they
kick and punch her. Hundreds of onlookers fill the
village square in Bashika, just outside Iraq's
northern city Mosul.
The beating continues as Do'a Khalil, 17, tries to
protect her head from the blows. After several
minutes, a cinderblock is passed through the crowd
and a man uses it to smash her head.
Khalil's death brings cheers from the crowd.
Do'a Khalil belonged to the Yazidis, a religious
minority concentrated in northern Iraq with a strict
caste system governing marriage. She was in love
with a Muslim boy. Members of her family
disapproved.
The video of her murder on April 7 quickly spread
from cell phone to cell phone across Kurdistan,
dominating news coverage and stoking tensions
between Yazidis and Muslims.
Ido Babasheikh, an advisor on Yazidi affairs for
Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, showed VOA
printouts from Islamist Web sites urging attacks
against Yazidis.
"The fundamentalists, the Muslimists, they have
taken this argument to kill the Yazidians," he said.
"They have written many articles and they said they
must kill the Yazidians because they killed a girl,
this girl who wanted to change her religion."
Kurdish officials insist that the girl did not want
to convert to Islam and that her family was merely
upset because she wanted to marry outside her
religion. |
Yousif Aziz, human rights minister. VOA
A protest march by women's rights groups calling on
government to take action on honor killings
following death of Doa. VOA
Dua Khalil Aswad, The teenager was dragged outside
by 8 or 9 men and stoned for half an hour until she
died. Her boyfriend is now in hiding in fear for his
life |
But days after her death, 23 Yazidi laborers
traveling together were shot dead in Mosul. An
Islamic militant group claimed responsibility and
vowed to kill more Yazidis to avenge her death.
Do'a Khalil's public honor killing was unusual
because hundreds of people witnessed it and the
video has been seen by thousands. But honor killings
are common in Kurdistan, where tribal, cultural and
religious traditions have long condoned the
practice.
Yousif Aziz is the minister of human rights in the
Kurdistan regional government.
"I think it takes place daily, some are killed, some
burn themselves, so there are many cases," said
Aziz.
Accurate figures on the number of women killed are
difficult to obtain because many deaths occur at
home and go unreported.
Some women are distraught over dishonoring their
families and set themselves on fire using fuel.
Their deaths are frequently ruled an accident.
Officials say hundreds of women are dying each year,
and the limited figures available show deaths are
increasing.
In the latest United Nations human-rights report on
Iraq, U.N. officials urged the Kurdistan government
to do more to address the problem.
Chilura Hardi, who runs a center for women's issues
in Erbil, says that as the cell phone video of Do'a
Khalil's killing spread, the number of honor
killings increased.
"Since the seventh of April, so many women have been
killed. So many women, it has just been packed,
packed with killing women," she said. "Because it
just made it okay. When people saw that, people who
have got this idea about killing a woman for
whatever the reason: whether she did not listen to
you, did not obey your orders, did not want to get
married to so and so. Well then, if that happens
then I can do the same thing."
She says she believes the government is sincere in
its effort to solve the problem. Kurdish officials
have enacted laws that punish the practice and they
are starting a community education program they say
reduced the number of honor killings in Pakistan.
But the killing of Do'a Khalil has brought renewed
attention to the issue. Last week, nearly a month
after Khalil was killed, the Kurdish government
released a statement condemning her murder and
urging calm. Hardi says women's groups have been
alarmed by her death.
"We have been working on the killings for a long
time. All of us, all of the women's organizations.
We have been writing articles in the papers, on
magazines. It just does not seem to get somewhere.
Now when this happened I think it woke us all up and
said, 'Look, if you do not do something, this is
going to continue and it is going to get worse,"
added Hardi.
In recent weeks, Kurdish officials have also focused
on reducing religious tensions sparked by Khalil's
death.
Human Rights Minister Yousif Aziz says officials
worry that Islamic militant groups are using her
honor killing to ignite the kind of sectarian
violence that plagues the rest of Iraq.
"These are one of the weak habits of the Kurdish
community, and we have to take care about these weak
points," said Aziz. "We should not allow our enemy
to take advantage of these weak points and to make
many problems for us."
Do'a Khalil has been buried in a Yazidi graveyard in
a village north of Mosul, but the struggle over the
legacy of her death continues.
voanews 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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