AN Iraqi father, who was “congratulated by police” in Basra after he beat his 17-year-old daughter to death because she had become infatuated with a British soldier, said in an interview in today’s Observer that:
Death was the least she deserved. I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion.
Abdel-Qader Ali, who along with his two sons killed student Rand, said he was unrepentant about her death. His only regret is that he did not kill his daughter at birth.
If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her.
Abdel-Qader Ali was arrested after the killing, but released after just two hours in detention because this was an honour killing. Sgt Ali Jabbar of Basra police said:
Not much can be done when we have an ‘honour killing’. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.
Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, astonishingly said that the police actually congratulated him on what he had done.
They are men and know what honour is.
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.
According to the Observer:
It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand’s two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.
Said Abdel-Qader Ali:
I don’t have a daughter now, and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends. Speaking with a foreign soldier, she lost what is the most precious thing for any woman. People from western countries might be shocked, but our girls are not like their daughters that can sleep with any man they want and sometimes even get pregnant without marrying. Our girls should respect their religion, their family and their bodies.
I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did. My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.
This sort of murder is not a rare phenomenon in Iraq. Forty seven women in Basra fell victim to “honour killings” in Basra last year. This is proof – if proof were needed – that Islam is a vile, primitive religion that makes monsters of its adherents, and idiots of its apologists.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
