When Love Costs Two Lives

There are some seriously disturbing issues on the planet. Not least of which is what we know as "honour killings".

I have known parents who are unable to accept their children falling for someone of another race or religion - and worse, marrying them.

Getting a tongue-lashing is bad. Being disowned is distressing. However, I find it very difficult to stomach that a father could stamp on, suffocate and stab his own daughter for falling in love with a British soldier.

Falling in love with a White, Christian man and being seen talking to him in public was what 17 year old Rand Abdel-Qader was guilty of.

Now I know a lot of you would say that the British are nothing but trouble. Heck, many would say the Americans are more than trouble itself. Our parents warn us against messing with that bunch, though not all of us heed their words like filial children.

But an innocent friendship, even if it has overtones of infatuation, shouldn't be the cause of such brutal violence. The Guardian observes rather pointedly that she died a virgin.

You'd think that young Rand's murder would be the end of this tragic saga.

But no.

Her traumatised mother, Leila Hussein, unable to live with a man who could kill his own daughter, decides to leave him and go into hiding. But just five weeks later, she is also hunted down and three bullets fatally fired into her.

Can anything associated with murder be honourable?

What in the name of religion inspires such violence and brutality? And such utter lack of conscience?

I pray that Malaysia never attains such levels of fanaticism.

From The Guardian:
Her crime was to fall in love. She paid with her life.
'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'
Mother who defied the killers is gunned down