Du'a Khalil Aswad

Du’a Khalil Aswad
Du’a Khalil Aswad دعاء خليل أسود
Born	1990
Died	c. 7 April 2007 Bashika, Ninawa, Iraq
Nationality	Iraq

Du’a Khalil Aswad (دعاء خليل أسود)(c. 1989 – c. 7 April 2007) was a 17-year-old Iraqi of the Yazidi faith who was stoned to death in an honor killing. It is believed that she was killed around 7 April 2007, but the incident did not come to light until video of the stoning, apparently recorded on a mobile phone, appeared on the Internet. The rumor that the stoning was connected to her alleged conversion to Islam prompted reprisals against Yazidis by Sunnis, including the 2007 Mosul massacre.

Some reports claim that Aswad was murdered for having converted to Islam to marry an Iraqi Sunni Muslim boy. It is disputed whether or not she actually converted to Islam; some reports say the Sunni boyfriend has denied that she had. Other sources instead indicate that Aswad was killed in punishment for being absent from her home one night.

According to a reporter who interviewed Yazidi sources on site,

After Du'a's death, the international media widely repeated a claim made on a number of Islamic extremist websites that she had been killed because she converted to Islam, but local reports do not concur. Some people tell me she had run away with her Muslim boyfriend and they had been stopped at a checkpoint outside Mosul; others say she had been seen by her father and uncle just talking with the boy in public and, fearing her family's reaction, they had sought protection at the police station. Either way, the police handed Du'a into the custody of a local Yezidi sheikh.

Some news agencies reported that Aswad was being sheltered by a Yazidi tribal leader in Bashika in fear of her life until her family persuaded her that she had been forgiven and could return home. Other reports indicate that she was instead given asylum by a local Muslim Sheikh. It is not known whether the same members of her family that convinced her to return home were responsible for her death. It is not clear from the video whether she was ambushed while returning to her home, or if the mob stormed her home and dragged her into the street. Estimates of the number of attackers range from hundreds to one thousand to two thousand men.