Iranian Student Activist Shot to Death in Texas

[M.D. Holloway]

Me thinks they are here...

Iranian Student Activist Shot to Death in Texas
By CHRISTINA NG | ABC News

A Texas medical student well-known in her community as an Iranian activist was mysteriously shot and killed in her car, just yards from her home.
Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, was driving through her Houston townhouse complex around midnight on Monday when she was shot dead through her car window.

"When officers arrived, they found a vehicle had run into a garage door at that location with the engine running and tires spinning on the pavement. Ms. Bagherzadeh was found slumped over in the driver's seat," the Houston Police Department said in a statement.

Authorities said nothing appeared to have been stolen from her car. Her cell phone and purse were found inside.

"Homicide investigators responded to the scene and were told by witnesses that several gunshots were heard, a crash and then tires squealing," the statement said.

Police told ABC News' Houston affiliate KTRK that the last person to speak to Bagherzadeh was her close friend and ex-boyfriend who was on the phone with her when she was shot.

"[The boyfriend] heard a loud thud. He doesn't recall hearing any gunshots, but a loud thud and then a screeching noise," Richard Bolton of the Houston Police Department Homicide unit told KTRK.

Bagherzadeh was of Iranian descent and was outspoken in promoting Iranian women's rights and criticizing the Iranian government, according to interviews she had done with the Houston Chronicle.

Photos and video from the newspaper's website show Bagherzadeh participating in a 2010 protest calling for a regime change in Iran. At the time, she requested that her name not be used in the video because she was afraid of persecution, according to the Houston Chronicle.

"It's not believed that she was targeted because of her ethnicity or because she was an activist," Houston Police Department spokesman Victor Senties told ABCNews.com.

Police don't currently believe her death was related to her activism, but the death is mysterious. Bagherzadeh's cell phone and purse were still inside.

"They're still in the process of investigating," Senties said. "We're still trying to question anyone that might know her or might know if there was someone that wanted to harm her."

Bagherzadeh was studying molecular genetic technology at the Texas Medical Center.

At about 11:45 p.m. on Monday night, Houston police responded to a discharge of firearms call at 800 August Drive. When officers arrived, they found no evidence of any shooting and left. Forty-five minutes later, they responded to a call for a shooting from 894 August Drive. Paramedics responded to the scene and pronounced her dead, according to police.

Another unexplained element is the question of why Bagherzadeh had turned her car onto a dead-end drive, in the opposite direction from her home.

"We don't know why she ended up back there on the back end. Maybe they only lived here for a short time, maybe she's unfamiliar with the property, because from what we understand from friends and relatives is she always parks on the street in front of her townhome," Bolton said.

Investigators are looking into neighborhood surveillance footage to see "if there's anything that could possibly help," Senties said.

A neighbor who did not wish to be named told ABCNews.com that the shooting was "very unusual." He has surveillance cameras outside his home and said police came to his house to collect his tapes.

"I've been living her since 1976 and never heard of anything like this before," he said. "It's a terrible, terrible thing."

Bagherzadeh's family could not be reached for comment.

[HardDrive]

Its possible, but me thinks the ex-boyfriend will probably end up being the perp.

[M.D. Holloway]

Most likely...the car position is a tell tale. He is going to use the alibi that he was on the phone with her. That doesn't mean he wasn't right there with her.

I forget the stat but most murders are crimes of passion, robbery is a distant second.

[skunked]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

Most likely...the car position is a tell tale. He is going to use the alibi that he was on the phone with her. That doesn't mean he wasn't right there with her.

I forget the stat but most murders are crimes of passion, robbery is a distant second.

cell towers should shed some light on that.

[oldE]

Nothing but speculation, but since she is Iranian, don't rule out the idea her family may have had her killed if she had been seeing someone they did not approve.

There is a trial going on in Montreal concerning an Iranian fellow and his second wife who are alleged to have killed his first wife and three daughters.

A cultural concept of "honor killing" which goes back to tribal times.

Best
Les

[pwd72s]

"honor killing" was my thought as well...perfectly legit under their law, right?

[oldE]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

"honor killing" was my thought as well...perfectly legit under their law, right?

If you are referring to Islamic law: wrong. Many Muslim clerics are speaking out about this carry-over from ancient times. The Koran forbids it, I am told.

Best
Les

[Joeaksa]

This could get very interesting...

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by oldE

If you are referring to Islamic law: wrong. Many Muslim clerics are speaking out about this carry-over from ancient times. The Koran forbids it, I am told.

Best
Les

Oh, that must be why it happens so often.

[oldE]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Oh, that must be why it happens so often.

Yeah Sammy, imagine a society in which simple directives such as :"Thou shalt not kill" are ignored by a segment of the population.

Best
Les

[tevake]

There was a News story about an Iranian musician here in the US performing some protest song about the government at home. Then his parents were attacked and beaten by government enforcers at home in Iran. in response and were told to shut him up.
They seem to be playing hardball

Richard

[Pazuzu]

It wasn't Iranian terrorists who tracked her down and shot her in the street.

Wasn't her parents killing her.

You people need to step back from the edge and reassess reality a bit more often.

She was shot just like so many other people in this town, because she either pissed off a guy or she pissed off someone driving next to her. She was rich, her parents were rich, she was getting a high end education, she was well spoken and about as American as one gets.

[ZAMIRZ]

^Dude, you're ruining the xenophobes' circle jerk.

[tevake]

I don't feel xenophobic, Just sad for the Iranian people being ruled heavy handedly and repressed by their leadership.
And commenting about the reach of their government to be watching things that happening here and reacting to them there.

Cheers Richard

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by oldE

Yeah Sammy, imagine a society in which simple directives such as :"Thou shalt not kill" are ignored by a segment of the population.

Best
Les

No one here is fooled by that attempt at misdirection.

Islam supports honor killings. It is part of the muslim culture.
Not every muslim kills someone in the name of allah but many do.
The same can be said about acts of terrorism.
A segment of the muslim world supports murdering innocent people in the name of islam.
A segment of the muslim world supports honor killing in the name of islam.
The practice is not completely exclusive of islam, it happens in other cul;tures too but they have one thing in common, they regard women as property or lower class citizens. But it is more common in the muslim world that you suggest it is.

Ignoring the truth does not make it go away.

Thousands of Women Killed for Family "Honor"
Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News

Hundreds, if not thousands, of women are murdered by their families each year in the name of family "honor." It's difficult to get precise numbers on the phenomenon of honor killing; the murders frequently go unreported, the perpetrators unpunished, and the concept of family honor justifies the act in the eyes of some societies.


Most honor killings occur in countries where the concept of women as a vessel of the family reputation predominates, said Marsha Freemen, director of International Women's Rights Action Watch at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

Reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda. In countries not submitting reports to the UN, the practice was condoned under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, and has been reported in Iraq and Iran.


But while honor killings have elicited considerable attention and outrage, human rights activists argue that they should be regarded as part of a much larger problem of violence against women.

In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say.

"In countries where Islam is practiced, they're called honor killings, but dowry deaths and so-called crimes of passion have a similar dynamic in that the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable," said Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

The practice, she said, "goes across cultures and across religions."

Complicity by other women in the family and the community strengthens the concept of women as property and the perception that violence against family members is a family and not a judicial issue.

"Females in the family—mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, and cousins—frequently support the attacks. It's a community mentality," said Zaynab Nawaz, a program assistant for women's human rights at Amnesty International.

Women as Property

There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture, Tahira Shahid Khan, a professor specializing in women's issues at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, wrote in Chained to Custom, a review of honor killings published in 1999.

"Women are considered the property of the males in their family irrespective of their class, ethnic, or religious group. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. The concept of ownership has turned women into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold."

Honor killings are perpetrated for a wide range of offenses. Marital infidelity, pre-marital sex, flirting, or even failing to serve a meal on time can all be perceived as impugning the family honor.

Amnesty International has reported on one case in which a husband murdered his wife based on a dream that she had betrayed him. In Turkey, a young woman's throat was slit in the town square because a love ballad had been dedicated to her over the radio.

In a society where most marriages are arranged by fathers and money is often exchanged, a woman's desire to choose her own husband—or to seek a divorce—can be viewed as a major act of defiance that damages the honor of the man who negotiated the deal.

Even victims of rape are vulnerable. In a widely reported case in March of 1999, a 16-year-old mentally retarded girl who was raped in the Northwest Frontier province of Pakistan was turned over to her tribe's judicial council. Even though the crime was reported to the police and the perpetrator was arrested, the Pathan tribesmen decided that she had brought shame to her tribe and she was killed in front of a tribal gathering.

The teenage brothers of victims are frequently directed to commit the murder because, as minors, they would be subject to considerably lighter sentencing if there is legal action. Typically, they would serve only three months to a year.

In the Name of Family Honor
Officials often claim that nothing can be done to halt the practice because the concept of women's rights is not culturally relevant to deeply patriarchal societies.

"Politicians frequently argue that these things are occurring among uneducated, illiterate people whose attitudes can't be changed," said Brown. "We see it more as a matter of political will."

The story of Samia Imran is one of the most widely cited cases used to illustrate the vulnerability of women in a culture that turns a blind eye to such practices. The case's high profile no doubt arises from the fact that the murder took place in broad daylight, was abetted by the victim's mother, who was a doctor, and occurred in the office of Asma Jahangir, a prominent Pakistani lawyer and the UN reporter on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions.

In April 1999 Imran, a 28-year-old married woman seeking a divorce from her violent husband after 10 years of marriage, reluctantly agreed to meet her mother in a lawyers' office in Lahore, Pakistan. Imran's family opposed the divorce and considered her seeking a divorce to be shaming to the family's honor. Her mother arrived at the lawyer's office with a male companion, who immediately shot and killed Imran.


Imran's case received a great deal of publicity, but frequently honor killings are virtually ignored by community members. "In many cases, the women are buried in unmarked graves and all records of their existence are wiped out," said Brown.

Women accused by family members of bringing dishonor to their families are rarely given the opportunity to prove their innocence. In many countries where the practice is condoned or at least ignored, there are few shelters and very little legal protection.

"In Jordan, if a woman is afraid that her family wants to kill her, she can check herself into the local prison, but she can't check herself out, and the only person who can get her out is a male relative, who is frequently the person who poses the threat," said Brown.

"That this is their idea of how to protect women," Brown said, "is mind boggling."

Ending Violence Against Women
Violence against women is being tackled at the international level as a human rights issue. In 1994 the UN's Commission on Human Rights appointed a special rapporteur on violence against women, and both UNICEF and the UN Development Fund for Women have programs in place to address the issue.

But the politics of women's rights can be complex. Last year the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions was criticized by a coalition of member countries for including honor killings in her report, and a resolution condemning honor killings failed to pass.

Countries that don't recognize domestic violence as a crime at all need to bring their penal codes up to international standards, she said, adding that increased public awareness and greater education about human rights would also help.

In a National Geographic documentary (which airs beginning Wednesday, February 13), Michael Davie investigated honor killings in Pakistan, where it is estimated that every day at least three women—including victims of rape—are victims of the practice.

The case of one of the victims Davie examined is heartbreaking but also hopeful. Zahida Perveen, a 29-year-old mother of three, was brutally disfigured and underwent extensive facial reconstruction in the United States. She is one of the only survivors in Pakistan to successfully prosecute the attacker—her husband.

"The reason honor killings have emerged as a human rights issue is that it's the only way ultimately that it can be addressed," said Freeman. "Naming the problem and bringing international attention to it highlights the refusal of some of these governments to shine any kind of light on their failure to protect their own citizens.

"Change can't happen if it's just people working inside the system; they're overwhelmed. International campaigns and media attention give them some ballast and the ability to say 'Look, the world is watching what is going on here,' and provides support for making change in their own countries."

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Islam supports honor killings. It is part of the muslim culture.

You are wrong. There's just no other way to say it, but you are wrong.

You are ill informed, you are making assumptions, and you are failing to do your own research. It's just like when you say something about "infidels". You don't know what that word means, yet you make statements about it.

[David]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

It wasn't Iranian terrorists who tracked her down and shot her in the street.

Wasn't her parents killing her.

You people need to step back from the edge and reassess reality a bit more often.

She was shot just like so many other people in this town, because she either pissed off a guy or she pissed off someone driving next to her. She was rich, her parents were rich, she was getting a high end education, she was well spoken and about as American as one gets.

+1. Yep, it's sad and scary how bad the gun play is around here now. I keep my eyes open when driving since I'm a bit more aggressive than most. When in doubt, I have no issue with driving 100+mph and getting the heck out of there. My wife on the other hand sometimes doesn't keep as good an eye on folks she pisses off.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by David

+1. Yep, it's sad and scary how bad the gun play is around here now. I keep my eyes open when driving since I'm a bit more aggressive than most. When in doubt, I have no issue with driving 100+mph and getting the heck out of there. My wife on the other hand sometimes doesn't keep as good an eye on folks she pisses off.

Friend of mine got mugged Sunday night in a gated high end Apt complex in Grapevine.

He pulled in to visit a friend, as he was getting out of his car he saw two guys approach and he knew right away what was going down but had no chance to get back in the car or even run.

One stuck a gun to his face the other to the side of his head.

My friend had $4 on him, they were pissed, so they took his iPhone.

Next day about 10 miles away 2 guys pulled up to a woman pumping gas, broad daylight, people a few feet away at another island, pulled a gun and snatched her purse.

The local Police Chief was out getting lunch when the call came over the radio and as luck would have it he was right behind the perps car. He managed to catch one of them.

[azasadny]

This is why I carry concealed... whenever and wherever it's legal for me to do so...

[M.D. Holloway]

Flo Mo St Mo - Po Po caught a few kids mugging with a BB pistol that looked like a Glock.