Murder in the Name of Honour

Murder in the Name of Honour

The true story of one woman’s heroic fight against an unbelievable crime

In summer the temperature in Jordan soars to the unpleasantly high thirties. Across the sweltering capital, those of Amman’s citizens who were fortunate enough not to have to make their liv ing on the teeming streets hid away from the sun in the city’s many coffee shops. It was 31 May 1994, the day that Kifaya’s mother, uncles and brothers had decided she would die. In the built-up part of the conservative old city, Kifaya sat, tied to a chair in the kitchen of her family home. The sweets that her older brother, Khalid, had bought earlier to persuade her that everything was all right lay untouched on the counter. Kifaya’s crime was to have allowed herself to be raped by her other brother, Mohammad. She had then been forced by her family secretly to abort his child and had been made to marry a man thirty-four years her senior, whom she had divorced after six miserable months. She had shamed her family. There was only one solution. Khalid held a glass to Kifaya’s lips, and told her to drink some water. He asked her to recite verses from the Quran and picked up a knife. Kifaya begged for mercy. Outside, the neighbours listened but did nothing as she started to scream ...