Family Stones Pregnant Pakistani Woman to Death In Broad Daylight

A 25-year-old Pakistani woman is dead after relatives, upset she had married the man she loved, beat and stoned her to death in broad daylight outside of a courthouse in Lahore.

According to the Associated Press, “honor killings” aren’t uncommon in Pakistan, but the public nature of Farzana Parveen’s murder was.

Parveen married Mohammad Iqbal after being engaged to him for several years, but because her family didn’t approve of the union, they filed an abduction case against Iqubal. Parveen and her husband were contesting those charges.

From the AP,

Nearly 20 members of Parveen’s extended family, including her father and brothers, had waited outside the building that houses the high court of Lahore. As the couple walked up to the main gate, the relatives fired shots in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal, her lawyer said.

When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby construction site, according to [lawyer] Mujahid and Iqbal, the slain woman’s husband.

A gathered crowd watched Parveen’s father and brothers beat her to death. She was three months pregnant, according to her lawyer.