Via Taslima – in Pakistan, a cleric cut his wife into pieces because she refused to wear a niqab and she sent their children to school.

Ahmad Aziz, father of the deceased Farzana Bibi, 36, said that she married Muhammad Sharif, 42, a resident of Bakkhal Bhir in Mumtazabad Colony.

They had three children.

Aziz said that Sharif led prayers at the neighbourhood mosque and also gave Quran lessons at their home. He said Sharif was short-tempered and would often beat up Farzana Bibi. He had been telling her to cover her face when she left the house.

Aziz said Farzana Bibi wore an abaya (gown), but did not want to cover her face.

Probably because she wanted to be able to breathe and see and talk freely and just generally feel like a human being as opposed to a sack.

Police said in his note, Sharif had confessed to killing Farzana Bibi.

He wrote that he had deemed his action the best way to “punish his wife for rebelling against Allah’s orders”. He wrote that he wanted all women to learn from their example.

He said he had not wanted his children to study at a school. Instead they should have gone to a religious seminary. He said Farzana Bibi had enrolled their children into an English medium school against his will. He said he had wanted to punish her for that, too.

He said he had been telling her to cover her face with a veil when she stepping outside, but she had not listened. He also wrote that he did not want to be responsible for her sins and thus killed her.

He thinks a woman’s refusal to wear a bag over her head is a “sin” while a man’s murder of a woman is not a “sin.”

What a mindset.