Du'a Khalil Aswad was only 17 years old.

She was killed on 7 April, 2007 in Iraq. This was an honour killing. She belonged to the Yazidi cult. She made the mistake of falling in love with a Sunni Arab boy. Nobody is sure if they got married or not.

Anyway there was a threat to her life and she went into hiding. Her own relatives or own people convinced her to come back, and when she was back, dragged her out and stoned her to death. Probably her own family did it.

People were recording the entire gory sequence using mobile cameras, there were police watching who did not do anything, and she tried to sit up in the middle of the stoning, and one man finally hit her on the face with a concrete block and finished her off.

The outside world came to know of the murder only when video clips surfaced on the internet.

Before we feel all superior about this, remember that honour killings happen here too, though obviously a lot fewer in numbers that an Iraq. Fathers and brothers kill women for similar crimes here too, and once in a while, we may notice a small news story in the newspapers.

Wherever people are not allowed individual freedoms, honour killings can happen and do happen.