Sunday, May 18, 2008

When the old meets the new in Iraq

The result is one more "benefit" the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has brought to the Iraqi people, "honor killing".
Many are burnt to death by having petrol or paraffin poured over them and set ablaze. Others are shot or strangled. The United Nations estimates that at least 255 women died in honour-related killings in Kurdistan, home to one fifth of Iraqis, in the first six months of 2007 alone.

The murder of women who are deemed to have disobeyed traditional codes of morality is even more common in the rest of Iraq where government authority has broken down since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

A surprising reason explaining the massive increase in the number of honour killings is the availability of cheap mobile phones able to take pictures. Men photograph themselves making love to their girlfriends and pass the pictures to their friends. This often turns out to be a lethal act of bravado in a society where premarital or extra-marital sex justifies killing.

The first known case of sex recorded on a mobile leading to murder was in 2004. Film of a boy making love with a 17-year-old girl circulated in the Kurdish capital, Arbil. Two days later she was killed by her family and a week later he was murdered by his.

Since then there has been a sharp increase in the number of women suffering violence – it is almost always the women rather than the men who suffer retribution – as a result of some aspect of their love life being pictured on mobile phones.
One more brick in the legacy of Our Dear Embattled Leader.

// posted by montag @ 4:56 PM
Comments:
Montag, these crimes are on the increase globally, not only in Iraq. And they've been going on since pre-Islamic times.

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 6:28 PM
 

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