The recent death by stoning of 17-year-old
Duaa Khalil Aswad in a Northern Iraqi town is yet another reminder of the
barbarism and savagery endemic to religious fanaticism.
On April 7, the girl was ambushed by a mob of men thirsty for her blood, after
they discovered she was in love with a Sunni boy from a neighboring village.
While affirming their faith in God, they hurled bricks and stones at her as she
lay pleading for her life.
Such self-righteous piety, often mindless of its own inhumanity is nonetheless
ever ready to condemn perceived moral infractions in the most vicious and brutal
manner. Regrettably, such hypocrisy pervades many fanatical societies today.
Being a Yazidi girl, in the eyes of the fanatics, Duaa committed not one but two
crimes, first by daring to love in the first place and second, to do so among
"enemies," thus incurring the wrath of her uncles and cousins who passed the
death sentence against her.
The world came to know about the tragedy when jeering bystanders took pictures
of the public humiliation and stoning of the ill-fortuned girl.
Yet such tragedies would not be confined to Iraq. Half a world away in France,
Muslim women of marriageable age stand to suffer a similar fate upon being
discovered to have engaged in premarital sex. Many are therefore demanding
doctors perform hymenoplasties on them, a surgical procedure to restore hymens,
lest they perish at the hands of their husbands, fathers or brothers. They would
not dare ask these men if they too had engaged in such activity prior to
marriage. This is blatant hypocrisy.
The incidence of honor killings of women has risen astronomically throughout the
Islamic world with the rise of fundamentalism and its male-centered morality
that often skews the sense of what is decent, compassionate and just. According
to a United Nations report, such incidents numbered 40 in January and February
of this year in Iraq alone.
There have been just four arrests in the stoning of this girl, which reportedly
took place while police stood by. We have yet to hear an uproar from moderate
segments of the Muslim world over such a brutal killing.
Moderate Muslims across the world must unite against the inhumanity that was
Duaa's public stoning. They must raise their voices loud and clear against the
atrocities committed in the name of their faith. No one should be able to kill
with impunity.
It is the lack of redress for such criminal actions in Muslim countries, coupled
with the deafening silence of moderate Muslims that tarnishes the image of Islam
beyond repair.
Also puzzling is the stance of western feminists and liberals who espouse equal
rights for all, but shy away from denouncing the oppression of Muslim women. In
support of pluralism and multiculturalism they are willing to allow subcultures
to flourish, often forgetting the marginalization and oppression that persists
within them.
It is only in the breaking of these silos that the cause of liberalism and
social justice can be truly advanced. Moderate Muslims and western liberals must
unite to obliterate the scourge of honor killings from Muslim countries, as well
as other Eastern cultures.
[Farzana Hassan-Shahid is President of the Muslim Canadian Congress, Freelance writer, public speaker and author of "Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest" and host of the radio program Islam: Faith and Culture.]