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Death In The West Bank: The Story of an 'Honour' Killing
The brutal murder of a young Palestinian woman shocked a nation and helped change the law over so-called 'honour' killings.
The brutal murder of a young Palestinian woman shocked a nation and helped change the law over so-called 'honour' killings.
As Ibrahim Baradiya recounts the events surrounding the last moments of his daughter's life at the bottom of a dark well, the agony of grief is drawn across the face of his wife, Fatima. She says almost nothing. Her eyes are half-closed. She shakes her head with small, rapid movements. A deep frown furrows her forehead. When the story is finished, she fetches her daughter's trinkets – beads, bangles, a hair clasp, a key ring, a purple pom-pom – and spreads them over the table and she weeps.
The story of Aya Baradiya's murder is like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle whose full picture may never be known; a dark and disturbing tale of death, lies, rumour, ruptured family relations, shame, despair and anger.
But the killing went far beyond a family affair. After the discovery of Aya's body more than a year after the 20-year-old university student went missing, her uncle confessed to Palestinian police, claiming it was an "honour" killing. Widespread protests against such crimes, led by students and women's organisations, erupted. In response, the Palestinian president last month scrapped historic laws that permitted leniency for the perpetrators of so-called "honour" killings.
Then, last month, bones were discovered by chance in a well about four miles from the family home. Initially, it wasn't clear whether the remains were human or animal. "Even when the police in Hebron said it was a human body, I didn't think it was my daughter. I never thought she had been murdered."
But the police also found Aya's identity papers in a bag. Ibrahim and three of his sons were called to identify the remains. "We collapsed," he says.
Aya's murder was immediately branded an "honour" killing. Under a 1960 Jordanian penal code, part of which still applies in the West Bank, which Jordan ruled between 1948 and 1967, perpetrators of such crimes are treated with leniency as they are deemed to have mitigating circumstances. The maximum sentence is six months, according to police. A clause in a 1936 British Mandate law, still in effect in Gaza, also allows for leniency in the punishment of "honour" killings.
Reliable statistics are hard to come by, but it is thought there are around 20 such crimes in the West Bank and Gaza each year. Women who have been raped or molested, or are victims of incest, are considered to have stained a family's reputation. Such acts of violation are rarely admitted by the victim's family.
Cont'd: Death in the West Bank: the story of an 'honour' killing | World news | The Guardian