Hena Begum was a fourteen year old girl growing up in the Shariatpur region of Bangladesh until her forty year old cousin decided to rape her.
After she was raped, the rapist and his family then beat her until she was unconscious.
Next, the local Sharia (Islamic) courts ruled that yound Hena should receive 101 lashes for the crime of adultery — for the crime of being a child raped by an adult.
The Muslim clerics took the young girl, who still could not stand on her own, to a public square and proceeded to deliver the 101 lashes. After receiving 80 lashes, young Hena collapsed. Her family was allowed to take her to a hospital where she died from her wounds.
The child’s father, Dorbesh Khan, was also ordered to pay a fine equal to approximately $700 USD — quite a considerable sum in a nation which is suffering under the poverty which almost inevitably results from Islamic rule.
The rapist, Mahbub Khan, had been previously convicted of rape and sentenced to marry his rape victim. The rape victim from that encounter was one of the family members who helped beat young Hena unconscious before her “trial.” Mahbub has since disappeared in order to avoid punishment for this more recent rape.
What sort of people would beat a fourteen year old girl to death in a public square — and call it justice? This is not the sort of religious tolerance that I as a moral human being am willing to accept.
