Family Honour ... Killing Together

"I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed in front of a court."
"Either the family does not pursue such cases or police don't properly investigate. As a result, the courts either award light sentences to the attackers or they are acquitted."
Zia Awan, Pakistani lawyer, human rights activist

"We were in love. I simply took her to court and registered a marriage."
Mohammad Iqbal, Lahore, Pakistan

"I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it."
Mohammad Azeem

Farzana Parveen was was stoned to death by her family outside a court in Pakistan. (Mohammad 

Tahir/Reuters)

Mohammad Azeem filed an abduction case against Mohammad Iqbal, contending the man whom his daughter, Farzana Parveen 25, had married had taken her against her will and forced her into marriage. Mr. Azeem had his own settled idea about whom his daughter should marry and it was not Mr. Iqbal to whom she had been engaged for years, and finally married against her family's wishes.

The couple had gone to court to challenge the charge that her father had lodged against her husband. They had walked up to the main gate of the court located on a main downtown thoroughfare. As they reached the entrance, family members who had waited outside the court fired shots at random in the air, and attempted to snatch Farzana Parveen from her husband.

She resisted, leading her father, brothers and other relatives, some twenty family members in all, to beat her and begin pelting her with bricks they picked up from a nearby construction site. All this took place in broad daylight before a crowd of onlookers in front of the high court of Lahore. Farzana Parveen died of her wounds, three months pregnant.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group, reported last month that 869 women had been murdered in their country in 2013, resulting from honour killings. Among conservative Muslim Pakistanis, marriage for love is considered a cultural transgression, where arranged marriages are the accepted norm.

Mr. Iqbal, whose previous wife had died after delivering five children, had fallen in love, at age 43 with the woman 20 years his junior. He contended that his wife's family attempted to extort money from him, before they would agree to her marriage. The dismally unfortunate end to this cultural travesty is that Farzana Parveen is returning to her husband for burial.

Mohammad Iqbal, right, husband of Farzana Parveen, 25, sits in an ambulance next to the body of his pregnant wife who was stoned to death by her own family, in Lahore, Pakistan, Tuesday, May 27, 2014.
AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary