'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'-Gaurdian UK

[go west young man]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/11/iraq.humanrights


Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.

Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.

She died a virgin, according to her closest friend Zeinab. Indeed, her 'relationship' with Paul, which began when she worked as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water, appears to have consisted of snatched conversations over less than four months. But the young, impressionable Rand fell in love with him, confiding her feelings and daydreams to Zeinab, 19.



And to think that the guy is still receiving a salary from the US backed Iraqi government. Man this war has produced some unbelievably bad things. This poor girl is another victim of a tragic, screwed up scenario in this mad world we live in. I hope justice finds it way to her father and brothers who so mercilessly and needlessly executed her. The US government making sure these guys were imprisoned would be a good start to America becoming a beacon of hope again.

[baldguy]

1. French women who fell in love with German occupiers in WWII weren't treated any differently.

[ingac70]

2. Actually they waited to do that stuff in France after the war ended.

The same thing woulda happened to this girl if the guy had been a Sunni Arab.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Sadly, this is part of the patriarchal culture of the area

where marriages are still arranged, and youngsters aren't supposed to fall in love and date.

[Kitty Herder]

4. I hope there is a hell and that all those who have mistreated women and girls

in this world for reasons of honor or tradition, or whatever reason rot there.

I don't believe in heaven and hell, but I hope I'm wrong for that reason.

[uberllama42]

5. This is not a result of our invasion

Abdel-Qader would have done the same thing if his daughter had fallen in love with someone in her country. We probably wouldn't know about it if we hadn't invaded, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened slightly differently, with the daughter falling in love with an Iraqi man.

If she had gotten sick and died because of a water shortage, or been blown up by a suicide bomber, or died in one of a dozen other gruesome ways linked to the invasion, then it could be blamed on the invasion. This young woman died because her father is part of a misogynistic culture which clings to a 1400-year-old book written by a warlord to enforce conformity among his followers.