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| The dead woman's family with her body. |
This story really brought tears to my eyes..i can't just imagine it..being stoned to death by your own dad,brothers and family while pregnant..you watch this happen with your eyes?Gosh its unimaginable..poor thing..just terrible..really terrible.
A pregnant woman was stoned to death by members of her own family - for being in love with the wrong man.
Farzana Iqbal, 25, was attacked with bricks by gang of at least a dozen men, including her father, brother and former fiance, outside a Pakistani court.
She suffered severe head injuries and was pronounced dead in hospital.
Police in Lahore said all suspects escaped except her father.
He admitted killing his daughter, said senior officer Umer Cheema, and explained it was a
matter of honor.
Her family had arranged for her to marry her cousin, but she had married another man of her own free will and was pregnant with his child.
Many Pakistani families think a woman marrying her own choice of man brings dishonor on the family.
Farzana's family registered a kidnapping case against her husband but she had come to the High Court to argue that she had married of her own free will, he said.
Around 1,000 Pakistani women are killed every year by their families in honor killings, according to Pakistani rights group the Aurat Foundation.
The true figure is probably many times higher since the Aurat Foundation only compiles figures from newspaper reports. The government does not compile national statistics.
Campaigners say few cases come to court, and those that do can take years to be heard. No one tracks how many cases are successfully prosecuted.
Even those that do result in a conviction may end with the killers walking free. Pakistani law allows a victim's family to forgive their killer.
But in honor killings, most of the time the women's killers are her family, said Wasim Wagha of the Aurat Foundation. The law allows them to nominate someone to do the murder, then forgive him.
"This is a huge flaw in the law," he said. "We are really struggling on this issue."
Source Daily Mirror