Shock in Pakistan after the torture and rape of a wealthy young woman before beheading

picture

The rape and murder of Noor Moghadam, by a member of a wealthy circle of friends to which she belonged, sparked widespread outrage in Pakistan, and highlighted a shocking level of violence faced by women in the country.

Days after Noor was killed, people demanded her legal right and reform of Pakistan's criminal justice system.

On July 20 last year, a phone rang in a police station in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The caller, without revealing his identity, reported a crime that was being committed in the area.

When the police arrived at the reported location, Noor Moghadam was already dead.

The victim was 27 years old.

According to the police, Noor was held hostage for two days by a person she knew called Zahir Jaafar, a descendant of a wealthy family in Pakistan.

Nour had tried to escape, according to police investigations, and video clips taken by surveillance cameras showed that Nour had tried to escape at least twice.

In the footage, Nour appears trying to jump out of a window on the first floor, but she was dragged into the house, where she was tortured, raped and killed, before beheading.

Jarira Nour was, in the eyes of her killer, who told the police that she had refused to marry him.

The heinous crime soon reverberated across Pakistan.

Activists defending women's rights took to the streets, candles were lit, prayers were held, and hashtags like #Justice_Lour were launched on social media platforms.

Many women came to the fore, sharing their stories of domestic and sexual violence.

Hundreds of kilometers away from Islamabad, specifically in the city of Lahore, the Nour-e-Noor Incident took the life of human rights defender Khadija Siddik.

According to the BBC's report, Khadija says, "The incident was an indication of a painful reality. It also referred me to a memory of my own incident.

Perhaps I was the victim in Noor’s place.”

In 2016, Khadija was stabbed 23 times by a friend after they broke up on a busy street in Lahore.

Her attacker was sentenced to seven years, but the sentence was subsequently reduced to only two years.

Then, in 2018, the Lahore Court of Appeal finally acquitted the attacker, basing its ruling on the fact that the victim’s statements alone could not be relied upon.

But then the Supreme Court of Pakistan restarted the proceedings again.

Finally, the attacker was released on 17 July, just three days before the horrific murder of Noor Moghadam.

Khadija was fortunate to have a family standing up for her rights, as well as the attention her case garnered in the media - which not many people do.

Although the court proceedings took place at a rapid pace, but, as Khadija says, justice has not been achieved as in most cases of violence against women in Pakistan.

Khadija says, “The lack of experience and the lack of competent investigators among the officers leads to a flawed investigation, and compelling evidence is not found to be presented to the court.”

There are no reliable statistics on crime rates against women in Pakistan.

The United Nations estimates that conviction rates in these cases are no more than 2.5 percent — so it is not surprising that victims prefer silence.

A month before Noor Moghadam's murder, Imran Khan, Pakistan's prime minister, faced accusations of blaming the victims and encouraging the degrading of women, for declaring that the increase in the number of sex crimes in the country was due in part to the dress chosen by women.

In a statement to a US television network, Khan said, "Every woman who wears a few clothes makes an impression on men unless they are robots."

These statements drew widespread anger from feminist activists, and caused demonstrations throughout Pakistan.

Female parliamentarians from Khan's PTI party stood up to his defense, saying that the prime minister's speech was taken out of context, pointing to steps taken by his government to empower and protect women in Pakistan.

And then, can the killing of Noor Moghaddam be a turning point for the women's movement in Pakistan, and protect other families from the tragedy that befell Noor's family?

"I don't wish anyone, or a family in Pakistan, would go through what we went through," says Noor's sister, who is campaigning for justice in her case.

However, human rights defender Khadija Siddiq doubts that the wishes of Nour Moghadam's sister will be fulfilled.

“We have mastered the art of silence,” Khadija says.

Women are forced to believe that what happens to them is a result of their actions.”

"Achieving justice in Noor's case is a step forward on a path that still has a long way to go," the Pakistani human rights defender adds.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news