A teenage Muslim girl was stoned to death under ´Sharia law´ after taking part in a beauty contest in Ukraine.

Katya Koren, 19, was found dead in a village in the Crimea region near her home.

Friends said she liked wearing fashionable clothes and had come seventh in a beauty contest.

Murdered: Katya Koren was attacked after taking part in a beauty contest which her friends said angered hardline Muslims

Her battered body was buried in a forest and was found a week after she disappeared.

Police have opened a murder investigation and are looking into claims that three Muslim youths killed her, claiming her death was justified under Islam. 

Source: here

What a tragedy for the poor girl and her family. And I´m waiting to people start posting saying Muslims get bad press because of media bias.

Daydreamer, some people people do go to the extremes when it comes to religion. Bigotry is not specific to a certain religion albeit it is more common among ignorant people. Presently, there are many ignorant people among Muslims. With some countries, they may even be forming the majority. Still, religion itself is not the only factor that causes these tragedies. When you look around you will see millions of peaceful people in Turkey. Their belief is Islam. Islam doesn´t cause them to be violent nor does it compel them to commit crime or to lose their sanity.

You are wrong if you imply, Islam receives bad publicity because Muslims kill their women in cold blood. That would be a pretty tall assumption.

In fact, stoning to death is an Jewish tradition which is openly mentioned in the Old Testament. There is no mention of such a thing in Quran. Jews and probably Arabs had this tradition since their pagan periods. If we are thinking in theological terms, we can hardly condemn Islam for this form of punishment. The claims mentioned in the bottom note of the original message concern the Jewish faith rather than the Muslim one. We must realize that religion is of secondary importance when it comes to patterns of social behaviour. Basic traditions and the general cultural outlook of society have greater influence in such things. After all, many people don´t have the first idea what their holy book actually says.

You can´t stop ignorant people from believing thing that do not exist even in their own religions. Even today, certain people go to fortune tellers; some people still have superstitions. Many people do mix everything together and come up with their own religion. Ultimately, what resurfaces here is the desert law of the Arabs who used bury their daughters alive since they would be of no use to them in harsh conditions. These people had a culture evolved to help them survive in the desert. You know some British secret service guy comes with stick in his hand famously draws the borders among them on sand in straight lines and these tribesmen are divided into easily managable nations. They did not have the culture to run a nation nor to form laws and order on a fair basis. The default order was sheria and the management culture came from a distorted interpretation of Islam.

I am against turning this into a duel between the white knight and the dark one. These traditions can be apalling and they may spread fear among non-muslims. Nevertheless, greater tragedies are regularly caused by the men of the white knight who achieves to remain impeccable despite all the blood in his hands. To understand this point just check out the web to find out which countries the US and the allies have intervened since the last century and how many innocent people have they killed so far.

Tragic...a sad testament to the endless abyss of human cruelty. To pick up stone after stone and throw it at another human being until he or she is dead...  What kind of sick twisted person does this to another human being?  It is the sort of thing that makes me pray that there IS a hell...because it would mean that there is a special place just for the animals that did this to her.  

Dear Vineyards, I believe you missed my point. Surely there are bad people among any religious group (or non-religious whatsoever), this goes without saying. But, in this particular case the poor girl had her life brutally taken away because of what the perpetrators thought religiously justified. So, in effect it wasn´t a crime committed by Muslims who knew they were breaking religious rules (like, say, eating pork) that the media picked up and turned it into a religious thing. It was a crime incited by religion, originating from the religious beliefs and committed due to what they thought was religiously necessary.

Of course we may give examples of Christians or atheists committing crimes. Well, I´m sure there are plenty of Muslims doing it also. But we must differenciate between crimes committed by people who know they´re doing wrong, and crimes committed by people who think their religions justifies them.

Quote:

Police have opened a murder investigation and are looking into claims that three Muslim youths killed her, claiming her death was justified under Islam.

Was Muslim girl ´stoned to death for taking part in beauty pageant´ actually murdered by a stalker?

At first it appeared that she had been stoned to death for disobeying Sharia law.

But glamorous Muslim beauty queen Katya Koren may actually have been battered with a rock by a crazed stalker after she spurned his advances.

The body of the 19-year-old was found dumped in a remote forest on the Crimean peninsula days after she went missing.

She had died in agony after suffering horrific blows to the head from stones or rocks.

Initial reports suggested that Ms Koren had been battered by three local men after flouting the strict Islamic law. Sharia law prohibits women from taking part in beauty contests.

But police have now said that Ms Koren may have been attacked by a deranged classmate who had been besotted with the teenager.

The man is believed to have given Ms Koren a ride on his moped before robbing her and possibly raping her. He may then have battered her to death with a rock.

´A student did it, killing his classmate. There is no other underlying reason, neither religious nor linked with inter-ethnic conflicts,´ Sergei Reznikov, a senior policeman involved in the case, told the Telegraph.

Experts said that around 250,000 Muslims live in the area between Crimea and the Ukraine but that there had never been any major examples of religious violence in the past.

Source: here

I wonder what Daydreamer and Barba_Mama have to say about this.

What kind of a stereotype might be causing these initial reports?

The Daily Mail or Daily Wail as it is sometimes called is well known in the UK and has a large circulation of loyal readers who believe everything they read in its columns. Whatever the truth is in this sad event The Mail would never let it spoil a good story.

Very true! The Mail loves to excite its right wing, nationalistic followers with its "misleading truths".