Woman Stoned to Death

The Islamic State of Iraq swears vengeance on those Yazidis who killed a woman, Dua Khalil Aswad, who converted to Islam. In a brutal killing a crowd stoned her to death all the while filming or recording the event on cell phone cameras. The tape, which circulated on the Internet, provided graphic details of the violence but when the woman's garments reveal too much, the editors tactfully covered it up. Apparently graphic violence is acceptable to the Islamic avengers but a woman's skin is censored.

Yazidis [also Yezidi, Azidi, Zedi, or Izdi] are a syncretistic religious group (or a set of several groups), with ancient origins and comprising Gnostic core belief structure with other elements of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Manicheism, and Islam. Yazidi do not intermarry with outsiders or accept converts. Many Yazidi now consider themselves to be Kurds, while others define themselves as both religiously and ethnically distinct from Muslim Kurds. Most of the 700,000 Yazidi reside in the North of the country. The group remains secretive even today and its teachings are obscure and may not even be fully known even to its own adherents.