Are some Arab governments doing too little to end honour killings?
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Raven Ruma
- . February 5, 2023
- . Update: February 5, 2023 2:44 am
22-year-old YouTube star Tiba al-Ali was strangled to death on 31 January by her Iraqi father in a so-called ‘honour killing’ after she decided to leave the country and start a new life in Turkey. The incident has triggered major outrage in Iraq, where honour killings continue to take place.
Interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan took to Twitter on Friday to reveal the case, adding police had tried to mediate between the young woman and her relatives to resolve the family dispute.
According to an anonymous police source, the dispute dated back to 2015, AFP reported. Ali had travelled to Turkey with her family in 2017 but didn’t join them on their return, choosing instead to stay in the foreign country where she had been residing since, the source mentioned.
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“She left her family … because she was sexually assaulted by her brother,” rights activist Hanaa Edwar told the news agency, citing voice recordings attributed to Ali.
Unverified recordings of conversations between the young woman and her father seemingly indicated that he wasn’t pleased with his daughter’s decision to live alone in Turkey.
Ali’s shocking demise has sparked an uproar among Iraqis on social media, who are calling for demonstrations to demand justice. Amnesty International has blamed the continued lenient treatment of “honour crimes” by the “Iraqi penal code” for the incident.
In other news, Sajjad Heydari – who beheaded his 17-year-old wife Mona last year and carried her severed head through the streets – has been sentenced to just eight years in prison. A judiciary spokesman cited Mona’s parents having “pardoned” him for the murder rather than seeking retribution for the leniency of the sentence.
Under Iranian law, intentional murder is punishable by death unless the family of the victim forgives the killer.
According to local media, Mona had fled to Turkey after allegedly being subjected to domestic violence by Sajjad Heydari, who hadn’t accepted her requests for a divorce. She had returned to Iran just a few days before her murder in February last year because her family had reportedly made assurances that she would be safe.
