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Asia Pacific|Another Pakistani Woman Is Killed for ‘Honor,’ but She’s Not Forgotten
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/world/asia/pakistan-honor-killing-gender-violence.html
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Women in Pakistan die every day for supposedly dishonoring their families, and arrests are rare. But Bano Bibi’s defiant last words were caught on video.
By Elian Peltier and Zia ur-Rehman
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan
Aug. 6, 2025, 1:42 a.m. ET
The woman took her final steps on the open desert terrain in southern Pakistan and stopped, turning her back to her executioner as he raised his gun.
“You can shoot me,” said Bano Bibi, 35, her beige shawl fluttering in the wind. “But nothing more than that.”
The man shot Ms. Bibi three times, killing her on the spot over accusations that the mother of five was having an affair. Then he turned to the man accused of being her lover, Ehsanullah Samalani, a 50-year-old father of four, and shot him dead as well.
The double execution has shocked many Pakistanis, sparked protests and drawn widespread condemnation from politicians.
It caused outrage not just because it was another so-called honor killing in Pakistan — where, on average, more than one woman is slain every day for supposedly dishonoring her family — but because the authorities took action only after a video of the shootings went viral, more than six weeks later.
“Many communities and families insist that their misplaced sense of ‘honor’ is located in a woman’s body and actions,” said Sherry Rehman, a senator who introduced a resolution calling for the prosecution of those involved in the killings of Ms. Bibi and Mr. Samalani.
