Killed for marrying the man she loved. Stoned and beaten to death outside of a Pakistani court in full view of the police Farzana Iqbal was murdered in the most brutal way because she had “insulted” her family.
How did she insult her family? Farzana committed the cardinal crime of falling in love. Her father had arranged for her to be married to her cousin, but she followed her heart and married the man she loved instead. In a brutal society where woman have no rights this is a death penalty.
This barbaric practice has no place in modern society. Yet over 1000 woman a year are killed in Pakistan for insulting their families. Honor killings have no place in the dark ages, never mind in the 21st century, yet perpetrators are protected by Pakistani law.
Pakistani law allows a victim's family to forgive their killer.
But in honors killings, most of the time the women's killers are her family and this law allows them to nominate someone to do the murder, then forgive him.
Men are free to carry out these merciless slayings with no fear of reprisal and accountability. They know that they are protected by outdated and antiquated laws that give them the power to murder. Usually for nothing more than revenge, or to fix their wounded pride.
Archaic, brutal, inhuman yet protected by Pakistani law. Does this make sense to you? Being able to kill your own daughter because she had the “audacity” to follow her own heart. There are a whole lot of issues here, and it is an entire mindset of an entire society that needs to change. And having the freedom to plan and carry out such a crime knowing that you will get away with it is one of the problems here. We can help stop this!
We can pressure the Pakistani government to rethink this outdated law, we can tell them that the world has seen this crime, and we do not approve. We can tell them that this law is unacceptable. “Forgiving” a murderer should not be enough to avoid jail time. And changing this law will take away the feeling of impunity that these cowards act with.
Pakistani law allows a victim's family to forgive their killer: No more, we demand real justice. Scrap this law and let justice prevail.
