Guess What Word Was Left Out?

Here’s a story from CNN.com about a Pakistani man in Atlanta accused of killing his daughter because she wanted out of an arranged marriage.

Guess what word was left out of this story about the honor killing?

Chaudhry Rashid, 54, later said he was “very disturbed” and “not in a state of mind” to talk because of the death of his daughter, Sandeela Kanwal. He told the judge he’d done nothing wrong.

“My client is going through a difficult time. As you can imagine, he is distraught,” attorney Tammi Long said after the hearing.

Officers found Kanwal dead in an upstairs bedroom of the family’s suburban Atlanta home early Sunday, according to a Clayton County police report.

Police discovered possible ligature marks on her body and made note of an iron and a necklace as potential causes of the bruising. Authorities arrived at the home around 2 a.m., shortly after Rashid’s wife called police…Rashid’s wife told authorities that Kanwal recently had wed in Pakistan in an arranged marriage. The young woman’s husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father’s home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.

“The victim was not interested in marrying, nor remaining married to her husband,” the police report said, citing information authorities received from Rashid’s wife. “This was causing a great deal of friction between the victim and her father,” so much so that the two had not spoken in two months, the report said.

Police found a “distraught and possibly mournful” Rashid sitting behind a vehicle in the driveway. “My daughter is dead,” he told police. When asked how she died, police said Rashid did not answer. “He just dropped his head,” the report states.

“Apparently she and the father had argued over the marriage and the fact that it was arranged, and at some point during the altercation he did end up killing his daughter,” said Clayton County Police spokesman Tim Owens.

Hmmm. No mention of Islam there. Now surely they’re going to mention it when they generalize the issue in the ensuing paragraphs.

“Honor killings” — the slaying by family members of a woman or girl thought to be bringing them shame — are usually kept quiet, making it difficult to determine how frequently they occur.

The United Nations Population Fund estimated in September 2000 that as many as 5,000 women and girls fall victim to such killings each year.

Ajay Nair, associate dean of multicultural affairs at Columbia University, said many immigrant families struggle over cultural and generational gaps, but that most South Asian communities enjoy “wonderful” relationships within their families.

“My immediate reaction was that this is an anomaly in the South Asian community,” Nair said Tuesday. “This isn’t a rampant problem within South Asian communities. What is a problem, I think, is domestic violence, and that cuts across all communities.”

Any particular community? Don’t you think if this guy was a Christian who killed his child for religious reasons, it would’ve warranted a mention. Something tells me that if he were Catholic it would’ve warranted news specials, television movies starring Scott Baio, and a Greta Van Susteren marathon.

Why won’t news organizations report news. Why must they color facts to fit their worldview?