Iraqis protest gender violence after YouTube star killed

Father accused of strangling daughter in ‘honour killing’

Dozens of Iraqi protesters gathered Sunday to decry the so-called “honour killing” of a 22-year-old YouTube star who was allegedly strangled by her father, adding fuel to calls for legal reforms protecting women.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Saad Maan on Friday announced that Tiba Ali was killed Jan. 31 in the central city of Diwaniyah by her father, who then turned himself in to the police.

Reports say the father strangled Ali at night while she was asleep.

The so-called “honour killing” was met with condemnation from women’s rights groups and residents, who sounded the alarm on violence against women in Iraq and the need to reform legislation to impose harsher punishments on perpetrators.

The protesters held banners condemning the killing and demanding legislative reforms.

“There is no honor in the crime of killing women,” one placard read.

“Anyone who wants to get rid of a woman accuses her of disgracing her dignity and kills her,” protester Israa al-Salman told The Associated Press, who also wanted Ali’s father executed.

Article 41 of the country’s penal code allows husbands to “discipline” their wives, which includes beatings. Meanwhile, Article 409 reduces murder sentences for men who kill or permanently impair their wives or female relatives because of adultery to up to three years in prison.

Rosa al-Hamid, an activist with civil society group the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq, urged the authorities to pass a long-stalled draft law against domestic violence that has been lingering in Iraqi Parliament since 2019.

“Tiba was killed by her father under tribal justifications that are unacceptable,” she told The Associated Press.

Tiba Ali had been living in Istanbul, Turkey, and had a YouTube channel with over 20,000 subscribers documenting life in the Turkish city alongside her Syrian-born boyfriend, a real estate investor.

In her first YouTube video in November 2021, Ali said she moved to Turkey to further her education, but chose to stay because she enjoyed life there.

Her father reportedly did not agree with the move, nor her plans to marry her partner.

‘‘ Tiba was killed by her father under tribal justifications that are unacceptable.

ROSA AL-HAMID ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN’S FREEDOM IN IRAQ