In a continuation of the ancient practice of wa’d (a practice of pagan Arabs before Islam whereby they buried living newborn female babies in the desert to avoid future scandals stemming from these females’ dishonoring them when they’re adults), honor crimes still occur today in Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. The practice is thus still alive and well, because the aim of killing a female in both wa’d and honor crimes is to preserve family honor. A loose concept with burdens carried by women and privileges enjoyed by men.

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. ‘If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,’ he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British soldier in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city’s Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said.

‘Death was the least she deserved,’ said Abdel-Qader. ‘I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,’ he said.

He said his daughter’s ‘bad genes were passed on from her mother’. Rand’s mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. ‘They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin’s home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,’ she said.

‘She was killed by animals. Every night when go to bed I remember the face of Rand calling for help while her father and brothers ended her life,’ she said, tears streaming down her face.

- The Guardian:Read the full story here

Bad genes always seem to come from the mother’s side in this part of the world. A mother or a sister is automatically a partner in crime when a female family member is a suspect, she receives similar punishment and is condemned without question. Yet it is the men who rape and kill, the men who think they’re entitled not only to a woman’s body but also to her soul, the men who deny the right of life or grant the privilege of servitude in the name of tradition or religion. Doesn’t that make you wonder who really has the bad genes? By Allah!