On the 7th of April 2007, Du'a Khalil was stoned & beaten to death in an honour killing precipitated by her relationship with a young shopkeeper. Some of her relatives were among those who participated in the killing, and the event was filmed on people's mobile phones resulting in world wide coverage of, and commentary on, her death.
Joss Whedon wrote an impassioned essay about this, and misogony in general, a month later. You can read it here
As a result, a group of volunteers decided that they would put together an anthology responding to Joss' essay and Du'a Khalil's death, with the proceeds for this going to the charity Equality Now. They called for contributions and got a significant response from people, myself included. (My piece is titled 'My Sister's Bones')
The anthology is called Nothing But Red, and it's available as an e-book or as a print book through Lulu as of today.
Links
NBR website here
Lulu link here
Equality Now link here
Times article about Du'a here
IWPR report about Du'a here
That was a really horrible event, and I hope that continued coverage of such disgusting acts will continue, especially by high profile people like Whedon.
ReplyDeleteWhat an honor for you to have your piece published in the anthology, Merry! I'm definitely going to look for it.
Thanks Elle!
ReplyDeleteDidn't see your comment earlier, or I would have posted before. It was great to be included, and the range of material is amazing: prose, poetry, artwork. It's a lovely anthology. (Not that I'm biased or anything!) ::big_grin::