ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - A rights monitor on Thursday condemned the recent killing of a 30-year-old woman by her father in Sulaimani, urging the media to refrain from providing justification for cases of femicide by describing the incidents as results of “familial disputes.”

Kizhan Burhan was reportedly shot three times by her father on Monday night and succumbed to her wounds in the hospital on Tuesday morning. Sulaimani police told local media that the suspect was arrested after handing himself over to the authorities.

The New Region contacted Sulaimani police for comments on the case on Wednesday, though no reply has been received to date.

Varying accounts and speculations soon circulated across Kurdish social and mainstream media, with some citing relatives of the family as attributing the killing to a “social dispute” — an umbrella term often cited by authorities and media in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in cases of femicide by family members to evade providing precise information about such cases under the pretext of protecting the family from falling into disrepute.

The March 8 Network, a Sulaimani-based women’s rights organization, on Thursday released a statement strongly condemning Kizhan’s murder, stressing that: “No excuse, no tradition, or family dispute gives anyone the right to kill a woman.”

“We refuse to label murder of women as ‘familial problems’ or ‘personal disputes.’ The killing of women is a crime, not a mere dispute, and any attempt to minimize the scale of these crimes hides the fact and increases the risk of normalizing violence,” read the statement.

The rights monitor, which is currently undertaking a campaign against the murder and self-immolation of women in the Kurdistan Region, further criticized the media’s coverage of this case and other cases of femicide, stressing that “silence against the killing of women leads to continued crimes.”

“We call on the media to report these crimes responsibly and refrain from justification. Instead of hiding the facts, deal with such crimes responsibly,” the organization added, while also urging relevant institutions “to conduct a fair investigation and take serious measures to protect women from murder and violence.”

The Kurdistan Region parliament passed the Combating Domestic Violence Law in 2011 and launched a support hotline for victims of violence seven years later.

Despite the legislated law and ongoing measures from authorities, the Kurdistan Region continues to suffer from high rates of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual violence, and honor killings.

Cases of abuse against women are severely underreported in the Kurdistan Region, as publicizing such issues goes against the population’s conservative-majority mindset and risks damaging “family honor.”

At least 53 women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2025, according to data from the March 8 Network.