PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities have arrested four people who allegedly killed an 18-year-old woman in the purported name of honor after a picture of her sitting with a boyfriend went viral on social media, police said Thursday.
The woman’s father and three other men were detained days after the slaying in Kohistan, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Police said they told about the killing on Nov. 24 and officers were still investigating.
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According to the local police chief, Masood Khan, the four arrested men apparently killed the woman on orders from village elders, who thought she had brought shame to her family by posing for pictures with a boy.
Khan said the investigation decided that the photo of the couple that went viral was altered by someone before being shared on social media. He said investigators were looking to track down the user who had edited and posted the symbol since it led to his murder.
It was not immediately apparent whether the manipulation of the photograph gave the false impression that the 18-year-old had sat with her boyfriend.
Khan said the young man in the photo had been detained for questioning. He added that police were also making plans to arrest members of the council of elders who had ordered the woman’s murder.
So-called honor killings are a significant challenge in Pakistan, a conservative Muslim country where many women are killed annually by close relatives in moves that are perceived as violating conservative norms of love and marriage.
Many of these killings have been documented through national and human rights groups.
Amnesty International issued a statement Thursday expressing its concerns over the death of the 18-year-old in the Kohistan district. The human rights group asked Pakistan’s government to stop tribal councils from thinking they can order honor killings and escape legal consequences.
“The continued failure of the Government of Pakistan to restrict the extralegal force of jirgas or tribal councils to manage parallel legal systems that perpetuate patriarchal violence with impunity is incredibly worrying,” said Nadia Rahman, Deputy Regional Director for Pakistan. ‘Amnesty International for studies in the Sur. Asia, he said.
Rahman said authorities must do more than arrest the suspects accused of carrying out such slayings.
“The authorities will have to end impunity for violence and abolish so-called village and tribal councils that prescribe horrendous crimes such as so-called ‘honour killings’,” he said.
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