Kuwaitis rally over violence against women after grisly attack

KUWAIT CITY: Scores of Kuwaitis staged a rally on Thursday to protest violence against women, after a young mother was kidnapped and murdered by a man who had stalked her relentlessly despite repeated complaints to authorities.

The brutal killing of Farah Hamzah Akbar, 32, whose body was dumped outside a hospital on Tuesday, caused shock waves in the oil-rich country.

She had been dragged from a car that she was travelling in, accompanied by her two daughters and her sister, in broad daylight.

A series of videos that went viral on social media showed the killer’s vehicle slammed against Akbar’s car, and the sound of her daughters crying while her sister screamed that she had been killed after authorities failed to act.

“We said that he is going to kill her, and now he killed my sister. Where is the government? We told the judge. I told you many times he would kill her,” she said.

Akbar had previously filed two harassment cases against the man, who had proposed to her although she was already married. He had been arrested but was released on bail.

The Kuwaiti interior ministry said in a statement that Akbar had been stabbed in the chest.

The attacker was quickly arrested and confessed to the crime, triggering calls for his execution.

At the rally, some 200 people including men, wore black clothes to mourn the victim and rallied under the slogan “Who is next?”

They demanded tougher penalties for those who assault women and raised banners reading “We will not be silent” and “Stop killing women”.

The outpouring of emotion comes after women in Kuwait defied conservative norms to speak out against harassment for the first time, in a social media campaign sparked by a popular fashion blogger.