oh. my. God.
(Don’t click that link if you have a weak stomach.)

“Holding her captive, Iqbal accused Parveen of having an affair. Parveen insisted that she had never been unfaithful to him, but Iqbal didn’t listen. Instead, he gagged her, bound her feet and hands and hung her upside down from the ceiling. As he beat her with a wooden ax handle, blood began to drip from her arms and legs….”

“Then Iqbal, a barber by profession, traded his ax for a razor. He cut off the lower lobes of her ears, then sliced her nose at the base. ‘He next used a metal rod to poke out my eyes,’ she continues, ‘and then put his finger inside each socket to make sure nothing was left.’… “

She had her eyes gouged out, the base of her nose and her earlobes cut off… all because her husband accused her of having an affair, to which he did he never provided a shred of evidence.

It’s called “Honor Killings” or “Honor Violence”. An all too common practice in places like Pakistan. It mainly goes unreported, and the offenders are rarely punished.

In the case of what Mehmood Iqbal did to his wife, he was given 14 years… which is considered a “life sentence”. Amnesty International was surprised he was even convicted.

“Though Parveen [the wife who was mutilated] rarely ventured outside, when she did, she often overheard people wondering aloud what she had done to deserve the way she looked.”

As always, it’s “what did the victim do to deserve this”… right?
Somebody tell me what century are we living in again?
(Via Rachel Lucas)