Friday, May 25, 2007

Iraqi Girl's Horrific Death

Chicago Herald Tribune

BAGHDAD — The video is shaky, but the brutality is clear. A slender, black-haired girl is dragged in a headlock through a braying mob of men. Within seconds, she is on the ground in a fetal position, covering her head in her arms in a futile attempt to fend off a shower of stones.

Someone slams a concrete block onto the back of her head. A river of blood oozes from beneath her long, tangled hair. The girl stops moving, but the kicks and the rocks keep coming, as do the victorious shouts of the men delivering them.

In the eyes of many in her community in northern Iraq, 17-year-old Duaa Khalil Aswad's crime was to love a boy from another religion. She was a Yazidi, an insular religious sect. He was a Sunni Muslim. To Aswad's uncle and cousins, that was reason enough to put her to death last month in the village of Bashiqa.

To see the full article please click on the title

1 comment:

William said...

We know the Yezidis - had admired them - and we know the own of Bashiqa. We have twice conducted electoral monitoring there. This is profoundly dissapointing. Very sad.