Viral ‘honour’ killing in southwest Pakistan triggers national outrage
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Virus, a type of protein found in the human body, is a protein that is thought to have a negative effect on the body’s immune system. It is thought that the protein is responsible for the development of the human nervous system. The protein can also be found in humans, animals, plants and even the environment. This article is based on a report by The Wall Street Journal. For more information, go to: http://www.wsj.com/news/science/2013/01/02/12/science-news/virus-can-contribute-to-increase-the-human-risk-of-cancer-in-children-and-women-who-have-been-diagnosed-with-cancer.html. For confidential support call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. For support in the U.S., call the Samaritans on 08457 909090 or visit a local Samaritans branch.
KARACHI: A viral video of the “honor killing” of a woman and her lover in a remote part of Pakistan has ignited national outrage, prompting scrutiny of long-standing tribal codes and calls for justice in a country where such killings often pass in silence.
While hundreds of so-called honor killings are reported in Pakistan each year, often with little public or legal response, the video of a woman and man accused of adultery being taken to the desert by a group of men to be killed has struck a nerve.
The video shows the woman, Bano Bibi, being handed a Qur’an by a man identified by police as her brother. “Come walk seven steps with me, after that you can shoot me,” she says, and she walks forward a few feet and stops with her back to the men.
The brother, Jalal Satakzai, then shoots her three times and she collapses. Seconds later he shoots and kills the man, Ehsan Ullah Samalani, whom Bano was accused of having an affair with.
Once the video of the killings in Pakistan’s Balochistan province went viral, it brought swift government action and condemnation from politicians, rights groups and clerics.
Civil rights lawyer Jibran Nasir said, though, the government’s response was more about performance than justice.
“The crime occurred months ago, not in secrecy but near a provincial capital, yet no one acted until 240 million witnessed the killing on camera,” he said.
“This isn’t a response to a crime. It’s a response to a viral moment.”
Police have arrested 16 people in Balochistan’s Nasirabad district, including a tribal chief and the woman’s mother.
The mother, Gul Jan Bibi, said the killings were carried out by family and local elders based on “centuries-old Baloch traditions,” and not on the orders of the tribal chief.
“We did not commit any sin,” she said in a video statement that also went viral. “Bano and Ehsan were killed according to our customs.”
She said her daughter, who had three sons and two daughters, had run away with Ehsan and returned after 25 days.
Police said Bano’s younger brother, who shot the couple, remains at large.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said it was a “test” case and vowed to dismantle the illegal tribal courts operating outside the law.
Police had earlier said a jirga, an informal tribal council that issues extrajudicial rulings, had ordered the killings.
#JusticeForCouple
The video sparked online condemnation, with hashtags like #JusticeForCouple and #HonourKilling trending. The Pakistan Ulema Council, a body of religious scholars, called the killings “un-Islamic” and urged terrorism charges against those involved.
Dozens of civil society members and rights activists staged a protest on Saturday in the provincial capital Quetta, demanding justice and an end to parallel justice systems.
“Virality is a double-edged sword,” said Arsalan Khan, a cultural anthropologist and professor who studies gender and masculinity.
“It can pressure the state into action, but public spectacle can also serve as a strategy to restore ghairat, or perceived family honor, in the eyes of the community.”
Pakistan outlawed honor killings in 2016 after the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch, closing a loophole that allowed perpetrators to go free if they were pardoned by family members. Rights groups say enforcement remains weak, especially in rural areas where tribal councils still hold sway.
“In a country where conviction rates often fall to single digits, visibility – and the uproar it brings – has its advantages,” said constitutional lawyer Asad Rahim Khan.
“It jolts a complacent state that continues to tolerate jirgas in areas beyond its writ.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported at least 405 honor killings in 2024. Most victims are women, often killed by relatives claiming to defend family honor.
Khan said rather than enforcing the law, the government has spent the past year weakening the judiciary and even considering reviving jirgas in former tribal areas.
“It’s executive inaction, most shamefully toward women in Balochistan,” Khan said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in recent months has asked senior ministers to evaluate proposals to revive jirgas in Pakistan’s former tribal districts, including potential engagement with tribal elders and Afghan authorities.
The Prime Minister’s Office and Pakistan’s information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Viral and then forgotten?
The Balochistan killings were raised in Pakistan’s Senate, where the human rights committee condemned the murders and called for action against those who convened the jirga. Lawmakers also warned that impunity for parallel justice systems risked encouraging similar violence.
Activists and analysts, however, say the outrage is unlikely to be sustained.
“There’s noise now, but like every time, it will fade,” said Jalila Haider, a human rights lawyer in Quetta.
“In many areas, there is no writ of law, no enforcement. Only silence.”
Haider said the killings underscore the state’s failure to protect citizens in under-governed regions like Balochistan, where tribal power structures fill the vacuum left by absent courts and police.
“It’s not enough to just condemn jirgas,” Haider said.
“The real question is: why does the state allow them to exist in the first place?”
Colombian ex-president to learn fate in witness tampering case
Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe will learn his fate Monday in a witness tampering case. He is the South American country’s first-ever former head of state to be put on trial. The 73-year-old, who was president from 2002 to 2010, is charged with “bribery of witnesses” in a separate investigation against him. He risks a 12-year prison sentence in the highly politicized case, which dates back to 2012, when Uribe accused a senator of a plot to falsely link him to right-wing paramilitary groups. Uribe insists his trial is a product of “political vengeance” and that he only wanted to convince jailed ex-fighters to tell the truth.
The 73-year-old, who was president from 2002 to 2010, is charged with “bribery of witnesses” in a separate investigation against him, and risks a 12-year prison sentence in the highly politicized case.
The matter dates to 2012, when Uribe accused leftist senator Ivan Cepeda before the Supreme Court of hatching a plot to falsely link him to right-wing paramilitary groups involved in Colombia’s long-standing armed conflict.
The court decided against prosecuting Cepeda and turned its sights on his claims against Uribe instead.
Paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s in Colombia to fight Marxist guerrillas that had taken up arms against the state two decades earlier with the stated goal of combating poverty and political marginalization, especially in rural areas.
The plethora of armed groups adopted cocaine as their main source of income, the genesis of a rivalry for resources and trafficking that continues to pit them against each other and the state.
Uribe was a politician on the right of the political spectrum – like all Colombian presidents before current leader Gustavo Petro, who unseated Uribe’s Centro Democratico party in 2022 elections.
Uribe on Sunday gave an hourlong speech in his native Medellin in which he criticized the left-leaning Petro administration.
“We need an enormous victory in the coming year,” Uribe said, in reference to presidential elections that will be held in 2026.
During his tenure, Uribe led a relentless military campaign against drug cartels and the FARC guerrilla army that signed a peace deal with his successor Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.
After Cepeda accused him of having had ties to paramilitary groups responsible for human rights violations, Uribe is alleged to have contacted jailed ex-fighters to lie for him.
He claims he only wanted to convince them to tell the truth.
In 2019, thousands protested in Bogota and Medellin when Uribe – who remains a prominent voice on the right – was indicted in the case.
More than 90 witnesses testified in his trial, which opened in May 2024.
The investigation against Uribe began in 2018 and has had numerous twists and turns, with several attorneys general seeking to close the case.
It gained new impetus under Attorney General Luz Camargo, picked by Petro – himself a former guerrilla and a political arch-foe of Uribe.
Prosecutors claim to have evidence from at least one paramilitary ex-fighter who claims to have been contacted by Uribe to change his story.
The former president is also under investigation in other matters.
He has testified before prosecutors in a preliminary probe into a 1997 paramilitary massacre of small-scale farmers when he was governor of the western Antioquia department.
A complaint has also been filed against him in Argentina, where universal jurisdiction allows for the prosecution of crimes committed anywhere in the world.
That complaint stems from Uribe’s alleged involvement in the more than 6,000 executions and forced disappearances of civilians by the military when he was president.
Uribe insists his trial is a product of “political vengeance.”
Sarajevo street art marks out brighter future
Virus, a type of protein found in the human body, is a protein that is thought to have a negative effect on the body’s immune system. It is thought that the protein is responsible for the development of the human nervous system. The protein can also be found in humans, animals, plants and even the environment. This article is based on a report by The Wall Street Journal. For more information, go to: http://www.wsj.com/news/science/2013/01/02/12/science-news/virus-can-contribute-to-increase-the-human-risk-of-cancer-in-children-and-women-who-have-been-diagnosed-with-cancer.html. For confidential support call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. For support in the U.S., call the Samaritans on 08457 909090 or visit a local Samaritans branch.
KARACHI: A viral video of the “honor killing” of a woman and her lover in a remote part of Pakistan has ignited national outrage, prompting scrutiny of long-standing tribal codes and calls for justice in a country where such killings often pass in silence.
While hundreds of so-called honor killings are reported in Pakistan each year, often with little public or legal response, the video of a woman and man accused of adultery being taken to the desert by a group of men to be killed has struck a nerve.
The video shows the woman, Bano Bibi, being handed a Qur’an by a man identified by police as her brother. “Come walk seven steps with me, after that you can shoot me,” she says, and she walks forward a few feet and stops with her back to the men.
The brother, Jalal Satakzai, then shoots her three times and she collapses. Seconds later he shoots and kills the man, Ehsan Ullah Samalani, whom Bano was accused of having an affair with.
Once the video of the killings in Pakistan’s Balochistan province went viral, it brought swift government action and condemnation from politicians, rights groups and clerics.
Civil rights lawyer Jibran Nasir said, though, the government’s response was more about performance than justice.
“The crime occurred months ago, not in secrecy but near a provincial capital, yet no one acted until 240 million witnessed the killing on camera,” he said.
“This isn’t a response to a crime. It’s a response to a viral moment.”
Police have arrested 16 people in Balochistan’s Nasirabad district, including a tribal chief and the woman’s mother.
The mother, Gul Jan Bibi, said the killings were carried out by family and local elders based on “centuries-old Baloch traditions,” and not on the orders of the tribal chief.
“We did not commit any sin,” she said in a video statement that also went viral. “Bano and Ehsan were killed according to our customs.”
She said her daughter, who had three sons and two daughters, had run away with Ehsan and returned after 25 days.
Police said Bano’s younger brother, who shot the couple, remains at large.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said it was a “test” case and vowed to dismantle the illegal tribal courts operating outside the law.
Police had earlier said a jirga, an informal tribal council that issues extrajudicial rulings, had ordered the killings.
#JusticeForCouple
The video sparked online condemnation, with hashtags like #JusticeForCouple and #HonourKilling trending. The Pakistan Ulema Council, a body of religious scholars, called the killings “un-Islamic” and urged terrorism charges against those involved.
Dozens of civil society members and rights activists staged a protest on Saturday in the provincial capital Quetta, demanding justice and an end to parallel justice systems.
“Virality is a double-edged sword,” said Arsalan Khan, a cultural anthropologist and professor who studies gender and masculinity.
“It can pressure the state into action, but public spectacle can also serve as a strategy to restore ghairat, or perceived family honor, in the eyes of the community.”
Pakistan outlawed honor killings in 2016 after the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch, closing a loophole that allowed perpetrators to go free if they were pardoned by family members. Rights groups say enforcement remains weak, especially in rural areas where tribal councils still hold sway.
“In a country where conviction rates often fall to single digits, visibility – and the uproar it brings – has its advantages,” said constitutional lawyer Asad Rahim Khan.
“It jolts a complacent state that continues to tolerate jirgas in areas beyond its writ.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported at least 405 honor killings in 2024. Most victims are women, often killed by relatives claiming to defend family honor.
Khan said rather than enforcing the law, the government has spent the past year weakening the judiciary and even considering reviving jirgas in former tribal areas.
“It’s executive inaction, most shamefully toward women in Balochistan,” Khan said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in recent months has asked senior ministers to evaluate proposals to revive jirgas in Pakistan’s former tribal districts, including potential engagement with tribal elders and Afghan authorities.
The Prime Minister’s Office and Pakistan’s information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Viral and then forgotten?
The Balochistan killings were raised in Pakistan’s Senate, where the human rights committee condemned the murders and called for action against those who convened the jirga. Lawmakers also warned that impunity for parallel justice systems risked encouraging similar violence.
Activists and analysts, however, say the outrage is unlikely to be sustained.
“There’s noise now, but like every time, it will fade,” said Jalila Haider, a human rights lawyer in Quetta.
“In many areas, there is no writ of law, no enforcement. Only silence.”
Haider said the killings underscore the state’s failure to protect citizens in under-governed regions like Balochistan, where tribal power structures fill the vacuum left by absent courts and police.
“It’s not enough to just condemn jirgas,” Haider said.
“The real question is: why does the state allow them to exist in the first place?”
Trump pauses export controls to bolster China trade deal, FT says
The U.S. has paused curbs on tech exports to China to avoid disrupting trade talks with Beijing. The move is to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year. The industry and security bureau of the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, has been told in recent months to avoid tough moves on China. The White House and the department did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment outside business hours.
July 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. has paused curbs on tech exports to China to avoid disrupting trade talks with Beijing and support President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year, the Financial Times said on Monday.
The industry and security bureau of the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, has been told in recent months to avoid tough moves on China, the newspaper said, citing current and former officials.
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Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House and the department did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment outside business hours.
Top U.S. and Chinese economic officials are set to resume talks in Stockholm on Monday to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the centre of a trade war between the world’s top two economies.
Tech giant Nvidia (NVDA.O) , opens new tab said this month it would resume sales of its H20 graphics processing units (GPU) to China, reversing an export curb the Trump administration imposed in April to keep advanced AI chips out of Chinese hands over national security concerns.
The planned resumption was part of U.S. negotiations on rare earths and magnets, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said.
The paper said 20 security experts and former officials, including former deputy US national security adviser Matt Pottinger, will write on Monday to Lutnick to voice concern, however.
“This move represents a strategic misstep that endangers the United States’ economic and military edge in artificial intelligence,” they write in the letter, it added.
Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue and Clarence Fernandez
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Pakistan warns of ‘more intense’ monsoon rains from today as death toll rises to 279
Viral ‘honor’ killing in southwest Pakistan triggers national outrage. Video of a woman and man accused of adultery being taken to the desert by a group of men to be killed has struck a nerve. Hundreds of so-called honor killings are reported in Pakistan each year, often with little public or legal response. Police have arrested 16 people in Balochistan’s Nasirabad district, including a tribal chief and the woman’s mother. The Pakistan Ulema Council, a body of religious scholars, called the killings “un-Islamic” and urged terrorism charges against those involved. The video sparked online condemnation, with hashtags like #JusticeForCouple and #HonourKilling trending. The killings were carried out by family and local elders based on “centuries-old Baloch traditions,” said the woman’S mother, Gul Jan Bibi, in a video statement that also went viral. The woman was accused of having an affair with Ehsan Ullah Samalani.
KARACHI: A viral video of the “honor killing” of a woman and her lover in a remote part of Pakistan has ignited national outrage, prompting scrutiny of long-standing tribal codes and calls for justice in a country where such killings often pass in silence.
While hundreds of so-called honor killings are reported in Pakistan each year, often with little public or legal response, the video of a woman and man accused of adultery being taken to the desert by a group of men to be killed has struck a nerve.
The video shows the woman, Bano Bibi, being handed a Qur’an by a man identified by police as her brother. “Come walk seven steps with me, after that you can shoot me,” she says, and she walks forward a few feet and stops with her back to the men.
Policemen escort tribal chief Sher Baz Satakzai, accused of ordering deaths of a couple accused of having an affair, in a so-called honour killing after a video showing the couple being shot went viral on social media, at a local court in Quetta, Pakistan July 21, 2025. (Reuters)
The brother, Jalal Satakzai, then shoots her three times and she collapses. Seconds later he shoots and kills the man, Ehsan Ullah Samalani, whom Bano was accused of having an affair with.
Once the video of the killings in Pakistan’s Balochistan province went viral, it brought swift government action and condemnation from politicians, rights groups and clerics.
The screengrab taken from a video on July 20, 2025 shows a moment before a couple was shot by armed men in Balochistan for marrying by choice. (Screengrab/Social Media)
Civil rights lawyer Jibran Nasir said, though, the government’s response was more about performance than justice.
“The crime occurred months ago, not in secrecy but near a provincial capital, yet no one acted until 240 million witnessed the killing on camera,” he said.
“This isn’t a response to a crime. It’s a response to a viral moment.”
Police have arrested 16 people in Balochistan’s Nasirabad district, including a tribal chief and the woman’s mother.
The mother, Gul Jan Bibi, said the killings were carried out by family and local elders based on “centuries-old Baloch traditions,” and not on the orders of the tribal chief.
“We did not commit any sin,” she said in a video statement that also went viral. “Bano and Ehsan were killed according to our customs.”
She said her daughter, who had three sons and two daughters, had run away with Ehsan and returned after 25 days.
Police said Bano’s younger brother, who shot the couple, remains at large.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said it was a “test” case and vowed to dismantle the illegal tribal courts operating outside the law.
Police had earlier said a jirga, an informal tribal council that issues extrajudicial rulings, had ordered the killings.
#JusticeForCouple
The video sparked online condemnation, with hashtags like #JusticeForCouple and #HonourKilling trending. The Pakistan Ulema Council, a body of religious scholars, called the killings “un-Islamic” and urged terrorism charges against those involved.
Dozens of civil society members and rights activists staged a protest on Saturday in the provincial capital Quetta, demanding justice and an end to parallel justice systems.
Human rights activists shout slogans during a protest in Quetta on July 26, 2025, against the alleged honour killing of a couple last month in Margat near Quetta in Balochistan, after eloping. (AFP)
“Virality is a double-edged sword,” said Arsalan Khan, a cultural anthropologist and professor who studies gender and masculinity.
“It can pressure the state into action, but public spectacle can also serve as a strategy to restore ghairat, or perceived family honor, in the eyes of the community.”
Pakistan outlawed honor killings in 2016 after the murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch, closing a loophole that allowed perpetrators to go free if they were pardoned by family members. Rights groups say enforcement remains weak, especially in rural areas where tribal councils still hold sway.
“In a country where conviction rates often fall to single digits, visibility — and the uproar it brings — has its advantages,” said constitutional lawyer Asad Rahim Khan.
“It jolts a complacent state that continues to tolerate jirgas in areas beyond its writ.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported at least 405 honor killings in 2024. Most victims are women, often killed by relatives claiming to defend family honor.
Khan said rather than enforcing the law, the government has spent the past year weakening the judiciary and even considering reviving jirgas in former tribal areas.
“It’s executive inaction, most shamefully toward women in Balochistan,” Khan said.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in recent months has asked senior ministers to evaluate proposals to revive jirgas in Pakistan’s former tribal districts, including potential engagement with tribal elders and Afghan authorities.
The Prime Minister’s Office and Pakistan’s information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
VIRAL AND THEN FORGOTTEN?
The Balochistan killings were raised in Pakistan’s Senate, where the human rights committee condemned the murders and called for action against those who convened the jirga. Lawmakers also warned that impunity for parallel justice systems risked encouraging similar violence.
Activists and analysts, however, say the outrage is unlikely to be sustained.
“There’s noise now, but like every time, it will fade,” said Jalila Haider, a human rights lawyer in Quetta.
“In many areas, there is no writ of law, no enforcement. Only silence.”
Haider said the killings underscore the state’s failure to protect citizens in under-governed regions like Balochistan, where tribal power structures fill the vacuum left by absent courts and police.
“It’s not enough to just condemn jirgas,” Haider said.
“The real question is: why does the state allow them to exist in the first place?“