A Murder in the Mountains
"Becoming too 'Westernized,' wanting to choose one's own spouse, refusing to marry a first cousin, daring to have infidel friends or allegedly engaging in sex outside of marriage - all are killing offenses," writes Phyllis Chesler in her introduction to A Family Conspiracy. But at present it certainly seems likely that she was the victim of an honor killing. Indeed, she appears to have done pretty much everything a Muslim woman can do to merit cold-blooded slaughter under sharia law: she left her husband, took her child with her, lived alone without a male guardian or chaperone, attended language classes (probably in the company of infidels), and aspired to an independent life and career in a free, secular country. And her ex-husband, by all indications, killed her for it.