2008

Khalidiya (Syria)
May 1, 2008

In Aleppo, Khalidiya, 23 years old and a mother of two was strangled to death by her brother Khaled who suspected her of having a relationship with another man.

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ZN(Syria)
April 29, 2008

A 20 year old gir, ZN, was shot and killed by her 15 year old brother in the village of Jubania, Qaseer, west Humms. She had been in a relationship with MH and had become pregnant, so the killer is unlikely to face any severe penalty.

Translated from:

Rekha Govaki (India)
April 22, 2008

An 22 year old girl was beaten and burnt alive by her father and uncle for having fallen in love with someone her family did not approve of.

Rekha was in love with Narasanagowda Patil (22). The families were opposed to the match. Both belonged to the Reddy community. Rekha's parents had sent her to a relative's house, in another village, to keep her away from Patil. On April 22, she returned to her village to meet Patil but told her family she had come to participate in the Ugra Narasimhaswamy Jatra Mahotsava, a village festival.

According to the FIR, Patil's mother, Gangamma, saw them together in his house and informed Rekha's father, Narasa Reddy. Narasa Reddy and his elder brother, Bhooma Reddy, rushed to the place, dragged Rekha out and beat her black and blue. Villagers said Rekha's father and uncle set her on fire at their farmhouse.

Cases under the IPC's Section 302 (murder) and Section 201 (destroying evidence) have been registered. Narasa Reddy and his brother are under arrest

For more information:

Unnamed Girl (Syria)
April 2008

Four members of the same family have been arrested for forcing their son to kill his sister because she had married a man from the city of Adlb through an 'urfi marriage.

Translated from:

Ravinder Kaur (India)
April 12, 2008

An 18 year old Saina girl was either killed or forced to commi suicide for having developed a relationship with a man belonging to a scheduled caste.

On Wednesday, when her family left home to attend a neighbour's wedding, she sneaked out and went to meet her 25-year-old lover.
But someone spotted her with Amritpal and the word spread like wildfire in Darga Haeri village, 35 km away from Hoshiarpur. Soon, seething at seeing their Saini girl with a scheduled caste man, Ravinder was dragged home by her relatives and beaten unconscious.

SSP, Hoshiarpur, Sukhchain Singh Gill told the Times of India on Friday that "the body of the deceased had been cremated before the matter came to the notice of the police". He added, "There were only ashes from the pyre."

A case has been registered under sections 302 (murder), 201 and 120B of IPC at the Tanda police station and police said they were verifying if Ravinder was beaten to death or forced to commit suicide.

The girl's parents, Baljit Kaur and Manohar Singh, are behind bars.

For more information: Times of India

Nasim Boota (Pakistan)
April 8, 2008

A 35-year-old woman was strangled by her husband over honour in the Ichhra police precinct on Tuesday. The police said Muhammad Boota, a resident of servant quarters in GOR-III, had a grudge against his wife, Nasim, for developing illicit relations with a man in their neighbourhood.

For more information: The Daily Times

Matma Singh (India)
April 2008

A 12 year old girl was beaten to death by her father and uncles. The victim’s grandmother, Natho (60), said that her sons killed Mamta after they found a boy, Pintu (14), her schoolmate, in her room late on Friday night. They beat her to death, and the father Jagdish Singh and his brother Soni Singh then allegedly burnt her body and dumped it in a well. The body has yet to be found.

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Rand Abdel-Qader (Iraq)
March 2008

A 17 year old girl was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by her father for having developed a relationship with a 22-year old British soldier. The father was initially arrested but released two hours later because it was an 'honour killing'.

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Yasmeen (Pakistan)
February 17, 2008

A 33 year old mother of six was shot dead by her brother on suspicion that she had developed 'illicit relations' with other men.

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Unnamed Girl (Jordan)
January 28, 2008

A 17 year old girl died after being strangled to death by her brother in a Palestinian refugee camp near the Jordanian town of Jerash, who was apparently angered by her absence from home.

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2007

Hoda Salem (Egypt)
December 14, 2007

Ibrahim Ali and Hoda Salem were married in the village of Al-Quba in the Nile Delta. On their wedding night, residents heard Salem screaming and found her on the floor, al-Arabiya reported. Salem said that her husband had stabbed her. She died at the hospital. Ali, after his arrest, said that he was unable to break his wife's hymen on the wedding night, leading him to conclude that she was sexually experienced, the report said.

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Aqsa Parvez (Canada)
December 12, 2007

A 16-year-old Mississauga girl was strangled and beaten by her father in a dispute over her refusal to wear the hijab to school. She died of injuries in the hospital.

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Unnamed Girl (Pakistan)
November 29, 2007

A young Pakistani girl was axed to death by her father who was suspicious that she was having an affair with Amjad, a youngster in Jhang tehsil in Punjab province.

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Sadia Sheikh (Belgium)
October 2007

Une jeune Pakistanaise de 20 ans succombe à ses blessures à l'hôpital en Belgique. L'auteur présumé n'est autre que Moussadar, 24 ans et frère de la victime. Il a tiré deux de ses soeurs. Sadia était en conflit avec sa famille, qui voulait la forcer à contracter un mariage arrangé. Sadia avait fait appel au Centre Prévention des Violences Conjugales.

Plus d'information: et

A 20 year old Pakistani woman succumbed to her wounds in hospital in Belgium. The person is none other than Moussadar, 24 years old and the victim’s brother. He shot two of his sisters. Sadia was in conflict with her family, who wanted to force her to contract an arranged marriage. Sadia had made an appeal to the Centre for the Prevention of Conjugal Violence.

More information here: and

Zahra al-Azzo (Syria)
September 2007

Zahra al-Azzo, 16 years-old, was brutally stabbed to death by her own brother, in a plan that had been arranged by her family months before. Zahra`s ordeal started in spring of 2006, when she was blackmailed by a man who threatened to reveal details of her father’s extra-marital affair to the family. Fearing that her father and his mistress would be killed if discovered, Zahra, then only 15, was forced to flee to Damascus with her abductor, who then subsequently raped her. The police, alerted to the situation by the family, found the couple and convicted Zahraès abductor to 15 years’ imprisonment, for kidnapping and rape. Fearing that Zahra would be blamed for the rape and killed by her relatives, the police placed Zahra in a prison for girls. Her family tried to regain custody of her 3 times during that period, but were refused as it was determined they could not guarantee her safety. In December 2006, Zahra’s 27-year-old cousin Fawaz, agreed to marry her, as this would by ‘tradition’ restore her honour, and secure her safety. Zahra was released into Fawaz’s custody, after her father signed a sworn statement guaranteeing that neither he nor anyone in the family would harm Zahra. Yet a month after their wedding, after Fawaz had left for work one morning, Zahra’s brother, Fayez, entered the apartment using a stolen key, and stabbed her five times in the head and back: brutal, tearing thrusts that shattered the base of her skull and nearly severed her spinal column.

Fayez turned himself in to the police. Zahra died the following morning in hospital.
Zahra’s relatives held celebrations in their village after receiving word that she had been killed and their honour restored.

For more information see: and

Saroj (India)
August 16, 2007

Saroj (27), who had eloped with her lover seven years ago, was killed on Thursday, a day after she returned home in Barota village of Sonepat district. Saroj's brother and cousin allegedly threw her in the Jawahar Lal Nehru canal.

Babli (F) and Manoj (M) (India)
June 15, 2007.

This is the story of Manoj and Babli, but could well be the story of the many couples in Haryana who have lost their lives for the sake of `honour' - family honour or community honour. In this case it is Jat honour, at Karoda village in Kaithal district.The duo who were in their early twenties eloped on April 6 as village elders would not allow them to marry because both belonged to the Banwala gotra. Marrying a person of the same gotra is taboo in most parts of Haryana.

On the run, they were forcibly taken out of a bus near village Rampur-Rodan by certain relatives of Babli, and on June 23 their bodies were recovered by Kheri Chowki police from Barwala Link Canal. After postmortem, the bodies were cremated as unclaimed.

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Samina (Pakistan)

September 2007

Samina, mother of two, was shot dead by her brother in law, after relocating to her father`s house to escape marital differences with her drug-addicted husband, Mithal Korkani. Her two sons were kidnapped, and Samina’s mother, Nazan, and two other relatives, Imam Bakhsh and Wahid Bakhsh, were injured during the incident.

Her brother in law alleged that Samina had had sexual relations with one of his relatives.

Reported in The Dawn

For more information see:

En’am Jaber Deifallah (Gaza Strip)

August 2007

En’am Jaber Deifallah was beaten to death in the head with a sharp object by her brother, her family reported. She was murdered in the name of ‘honour’ though no specific reason was given. Deifallah is the 11th victim of such crimes in the Gaza strip this year. The last victim was Nisreen Mohammad Abu Bureik (26) from El-Bureij refugee camp, who was killed by her brother on 28 July 2007.

Reported by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Two Unnamed Women (Turkey)

August 9, 2007

A woman (47) deserted her husband in Kars, in eastern Turkey, and moved in with her divorced daughter (27), mother of three sons. They were located by the husband/father and his son who came to the women’s home in Kocaeli, where the 19 year old son brutally killed his mother and his sister by beating them on the head with a bat, with his three young nephews watching.

Upon his arrest the 19 year old said that he had killed the women to clean the honour of his family.

Reported in Hurriet, Turkey.

For more information see:

Baljit Kaur (F) and Ashwini Kumar (M) (India)
July 14, 2007:

After Haryana, Punjab was today rocked by a couple’s elimination by the girl’s relatives in spite of police protection by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Baljit Kaur, a Jat Sikh girl from Rauli village and her husband Ashwini Kumar, alias Sonu, had to pay with their lives for getting married against the wishes of the girl’s parents. Baljit’s relatives allegedly abducted the couple, killed them and then threw their bodies into the Beas.

Sumaira Bibi and her daughter Sama (Pakistan)
July 2007

Sumaira Bibi, 35, was a widow, formerly married to Ashraf and had four children by him. Ashraf was murdered almost six years ago. After his death, Sumaira and her children relocated to the house of her parents, and she started working in a local garments factory to support her family. She allegedly developed relations with Javed, a father of two, from a lesser caste, who also worked in the factory. The two decided to contract a love-marriage, and had the support of Sumaira’s two brothers, sister and children. Her nephew, Zaigham Abbas, however, was enraged, by the fact that she had married a man from a lesser caste. Carrying a 30-bore pistol, he went to the newly-weds apartment, and shot Sumaira twice, in the face and the chest. She died instantly. Her 9 year old daughter, Sama, rushed forward to help her mother after hearing shots and was also shot in the chest. She died in hospital the next day.

A case was registered, but the police did not arrest Zaigham Abbas, until the report was actually filed.

Reported in the News International.

For more information, see:

Jamila (Pakistan)
July 2007

Jamila, aged 40, divorced her husband some years ago. She was living with her five daughters and two sons in the village of Maral. Her eldest son, Rafaqat, suspecting her of having ‘illicit’ relations with one of their neighbours, shot her in the head.

Reported in the Pakistan Daily Times,

Najma (Pakistan)
July 2007

Najma Ali Kaheri was strangled by her husband in Ali Murad Kaheri village, on the suspicion that she had developed ‘illicit’ relations with someone.

Reported in the Daily Dawn,

Naseem Khatoon (Pakistan)
July 2007

Naseem Khatoon, married to Mohammad Hashim, was hacked to death with a hatchet by her brother, Mumtaz Ali, because he suspected her of having an extra-marrital affair. Mumtaz Ali surrendered himself to police. No case was registered.

Reported in The News International

For more information see:

Nahed Hija, Suha Hija and Lina Hija (Gaza Strip)
July 2007

The three sisters, 16-year-old Nahed Hija, 19-year-old Suha and 22-year-old Lina, were found dead from multiple stab wounds, buried in a shallow grave in the central Gaza Strip. The police force are conducting an investigation into their deaths, but they are believed to be victims of ‘honour’ killings.

Reported in the Jerusalem Post,

For more information see:

Yasemin (Turkey)
July 2007

Yasemin refused a marriage arranged by her family and ran away with her boyfriend. When she returned to her family’s home, one and a half months pregnant, her father took her to an empty piece of land and killed her with a single bullet.

For more information see:

Sahar (Syria)
May 2007

Sahar was 14 years old when she was married to a man, who was suffering from an illness which was believed to have rendered him infertile. He decided to undergo treatment and a surgical intervention, during which time Sahar became pregnant. Such a miracle would seem cause for celebration, yet Sahar’s relatives reacted only with suspicion. After persuading her husband that the child could not be his, and must have been conceived as the result of an extra-marital affair, Sahar was tried before the courts for “illicit relations”.

Medical experts testified that in the end Sahar’s husband was indeed fertile and DNA tests confirmed the child was his. The judge, however, believing that Sahar’s relatives would not be convinced even with this scientific evidence, placed her under the guard of an Alip - women`s shelter.

While in the shelter, Sahar received a visit from her brother-in-law, who convinced her that his family had been persuaded and truly believed her innocent. He asked her to come and live with him, offering guarantees that neither he nor anyone else would harm her. On May 24, this same brother-in-law fired three shots into her chest, killing her.

Translated from French.

For more information see:

Shwbo Rauf Ali (Iraqi Kurdistan)
May 2007

Shwbo Rauf Ali lived in Kurdistan while her husband was in Birmingham, UK on an exceptional leave visa. They had been married for two years, and Shwbo was just 19 years old when her in-laws began to be suspicious about her fidelity, based on the discovery of an unknown number in the memory of her mobile phone. The family summoned her husband back: not for the sake of discussion or to save the relationship, but to commit bloody murder and so cleanse family honour. On the twelfth of May, Shwbo was lured to a local beauty spot, Lake Dokan, where she was murdered in the presence of her husband, three of his brothers, his parents, his sister and her husband. She was beaten by her assailants, who broke her hands to remove her bracelets and ripped her earrings from her earlobes. Shwbo was mother to a nine month old baby girl who went missing at the same time; it is suspected that the helpless infant was drowned in the lake.

For more information, see

Rasheeda, Akbar Pitafi (Pakistan)
May 2007

Two persons were shot dead by armed men over Karo-Kari in the village of Gullo Pitafi near Khanpur Mahar in the Ghotki district on Saturday. Reports said Muneer Pitafi suspected that his wife Rasheeda, 20, was having illicit relations with one Akbar Pitafi. On this, he shot both of them dead and fled.

No case was registered.

Reported in News International.

For more information see:

Nejat 22 (Iran)
April 2007

Iran's Ham-Mihn newspaper reported the case of an Ahwazi woman who was buried alive by her father in April (both pictured above). Villagers had accused her of having an extra-marital affair after she divorced her husband, prompting her father to kill her for the sake of family honour. He admitted killing his 22 year old daughter Nejat, but claimed she agreed to be buried alive and even helped to dig her own grave. After Nejat's mother learnt of the killing, her husband threatened to bury her alive if she reported the murder to the authorities. Nejat's two year old daughter has since been taken to an orphanage in Ahwaz City.

Khateeja and Waris Khan (Pakistan)
March 2007

Khateeja, after the death of her first husband, moved with her four children to live with her parents in Dera Ismail Khan. Some time later, she married Waris Khan, a move that her sons and other relatives did not support. Just three days after the couple moved to Karachi to begin their new independent lives, three men, who she alleged were her younger son Sufi Khan and two of her nephews, attacked her and Waris in their home. Waris died on the spot, while Khateeja died in hospital two days later.

Reported by the Daily Times.

For more information see:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\14\story_14-3-2007_pg12_9

Unnamed Girl (Jordan)
January 2007

A father shot dead his 17-year-old daughter, having suspected her of having sex. The girl had run away from home many times, though the reasons were unknown. She ended up in a family protection clinic in Amman. Only weeks before her murder the doctors had tested her and vouched for her virginity. She was released into the custody of her father only after he signed a pledge not to harm her. Despite this pledge, the father still continued to doubt her chastity, and on January 23rd, shot her 4 times in the head. He surrendered to police, saying he had done it for family honour. Autopsy tests proved that she was a virgin at death.

For more information see:

Unnamed woman (Morocco)
January 2007

An unnamed Moroccan woman was strangled to death by her son, who could not live with the shame of his mother living with a man to whom she was not married. According to reports, Mohammed`s parents had divorced years ago. His father had remarried shortly, and conceived a son from his second marriage. His mother also entered a commited consensual relationship with a man, and begot a child with him. Yet her son would not accept the relationship, because technically it was not a marriage. He asked her repeatedly to break it off. When she refused, he decided to kill her. He plotted for two weeks and eventually came to stay with his mother. One morning, when his half sister was already at school, he strangled his mother to death with an electric cable, and fled the scene, later confessing to the crime.

For more information see: (French)

2006

Hina Saleem (Italy)
August 2006

Hina Saleem was found by police Aug. 11, 2006, wrapped in bags and buried in a shallow grave in her family's backyard in Brescia, a city in the northern Italian region of Lombardy, with a gash in her throat inflicted by a meat knife. Hina's family chose to murder her after careful deliberations over her Western-style behavior and refusal to submit to an arranged marriage. Hina Saleem lived with Giuseppe Tampini, a local carpenter, and secretly worked as a waitress in a bar. Her mother, in Pakistan at the time of the murder, acknowledged to police that her husband had killed Saleem who "did not behave like a good Muslim girl." Hina’s father--a legal resident of Italy since 1989, was arrested Aug. 14, 2006. Unrepentant, he told police: "My daughter was a prostitute, living with that Italian. I killed her out of rage."

For more information see:

Sazan Bajuez Abdullah (Germany)
October 2006

Sazan Bajuez Abdullah came to Germany from Kurdistan after being forced into an arranged marriage with Kazim Mahmud. She bore one child by him, but after years of an abusive relationship, and an attempt to kill her by strangulation, Sazan obtained a restraining order against Kazim and filed for divorce. On October 25, 2006, the settlement was finalized at 2:30pm. She told a friend it was “the happiest day of her life”. Three hours later she was dead; stabbed 13 times by her ex-husband, doused in gasoline and lit on fire – all in broad daylight in the middle of the street.

Kazim Mahmud admitted to the murder, claiming religion and culture and honour as the reasons for his actions. He is facing a life sentence.

For more information see:

Banaz Mahmoud Bakabir Agha (England)
January 2006

Banaz Mahmoud Bakabir Agha, a 20 year old woman of Kurdish origin was brutally murdered on 23 January 2006 in a so called 'honour' killing; she was murdered by her own relatives, because she wished to remarry after ending her forced marriage by divorce. Her body was found stuffed inside a suitcase buried in a garden in April. Banaz had contacted London Metropolitan Police many times to express her fear of murder, but was sent back into the arms of the family that harmed her. There is even a video recording of Banaz a few weeks before her death in which Banaz states she feared for her life after being harassed by her father.

Through the case hearing, the horrific details of her ordeal have come to light; her parents left her alone in the apartment and gave the go-ahead to a hired thug, her uncle and ex-husband to brutally murder her. She was beaten, raped, stamped on, and strangled with a wire for 4 hours before she finally died.

For more information, see