Farzana Iqbal - a victim of honour killing in Lahore, Pakistan

Farzana Iqbal, age 25, died on May 27, 2014, on the street outside of a courthouse in Lahore, Pakistan. 

There is no picture of Farzana.  Only this photo
of her body lying on the street.

Farzana was shot at by one of her brothers. He missed. She tried to flee but stumbled and fell. Her father and other members of her family got bricks from a nearby construction site and hit her repeatedly in the head until she died. Her husband was also beaten.

Twenty men from her home village stood by and let his barbaric assault happen.

In Pakistan, women die by way of bricks

The brother fled the scene and the Police arrested the father, Muhammad Azeem, over the killing.

Farzana was three months pregnant. She had married a man who her family did not want her to marry. She was supposed to marry a cousin that the family had picked out for her. She was going to court to testify that she was not coerced into the marriage, that she loved her husband and that she had married of her own choice.

Her father said that she was murdered to protect the family's honour.

Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, who view marriage for love as a transgression. Hundreds of women are killed every year in Muslim-majority Pakistan in so-called "honour killings" carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behavior.

In 2013, 869 Pakistani women were murdered in honour killings.

Farzana is survived by her husband, Mohammad Iqbal, and a few of her family members who did not participate in her murder. 

God save us from this barbarism. It is unspeakable. 

God save us from our loved ones, who kill us.

Pray that Farzana is in heaven. Pray that she is at peace and is with God. Amen.