Unwitting Martyr

[ARCHIVE: When I first saw this on the web, it really got me angry. It's one of the never ending line of examples of human worthlessness that makes me question if we really deserve to exist.]Du'a Khalil Aswad. Dead at the age of seventeen. The pictures, the video (playable in Real).

In brief, the teenage girl was stoned to death for going out with a boy of another religion. Accounts vary, but it was roughly about a thousand men from her hometown, possibly some of her own relatives, and a few local policemen. In addition, the mob had the audacity to record the execution with their camera phones. This will backfire for them, at least in the short term, since that's what happens when you record damming evidence of yourself committing heinous acts.

The mob justifies their actions as an "honor killing." Conflicting reports talk about a relationship to a Sunni boy (her family was Yazidi), possibly marriage or religious conversion. None of these reasons are justifiable for murder, especially not as gruesome, prolonged or cruel as this one. And yet basic human decency is superseded by religious dogma. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for religious freedom and different interpretations of the human spiritual experience. But when the cost is basic civility (no matter verbal, written or physical), there can be tolerance.

A brave man once said "Religion is supposed to comfort people, not scare them to death." Every single major religion Christianity/Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam (well, Sufism anyway) , emphasizes the love of God for man, and the compassionate expression of this love between each other. No boundary is placed upon the set of people that one is supposed to care for. Jesus didn't say "Love thy neighbor, unless he has a PS3; those guys suck."

Actually, the argument about the inclusiveness of compassion doesn't even enter into it. Du'a was stoned to death to people of her own religion, most likely her own family. Where does one come up with the rationality for that? How do you find justice in a region that condones this behavior? How do you try a system? How do you force these men to open their eyes to the crimes they have committed, so that they may fully realize their guilt and be burdened with the weight of their actions?