An Iraqi father strangled his daughter, who is a Youtuber, to death after she decided to leave the country for Turkey, in what appears to be a case of ‘honour killing’. The incident took place on January 31 in the southern province of Diwaniya. The woman has been identified as Tiba al-Ali, 22.
It is said that her father, who has been unnamed, was unhappy with her decision to live alone in Turkey.
Interior ministry spokesperson Saad Maan said on Twitter on Friday that the police were trying to mediate between Ali, who was in Turkey and was visiting Iraq, and her family o “resolve the family dispute in a definitive manner”.
The police then arrested her father after he confessed to his crime.
Though the nature of the dispute wasn’t revealed by the ministry, local media reports stated that Ali fled her home in 2017 to start a new life in Turkey and had planned to wed her Syrian-born boyfriend.
When she returned to Iraq to support her country’s football team in the Arabian Gulf Cup in January, her family kidnapped her.
It was reported that she was drugged after she arrived in Iraq and taken back to the family home in Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate
Her father later turned himself into the police, telling them he had killed his own daughter to “wash away the shame”.
Meanwhile, social media erupted in an uproar over the death, with several netizens calling for protests in Baghdad on Sunday to demand justice in response to her death.
“Women in our societies are hostage to backward customs due to the absence of legal deterrents and government measures – which currently are not commensurate with the size of domestic violence crimes,” Ala Talabani, a veteran politician, said on Twitter.
Hanaa Edwar, a human rights activist, told AFP that, according to voice recordings attributed to Ali, “she left her family … because she was sexually assaulted by her brother”.
(With inputs from agencies)
