A Pakistani court charged a man on Saturday from murder for having shot an influencer of adolescent social media outside his house earlier this year after refusing his friendship.
Judge Mohammad Afzal Majoka in the capital, Islamabad, charged Umar Hayat for having killed Sana Yousuf, 17,. Hayat pleaded not guilty.
Hayat, a 22 -year -old Tiktok content creator, was arrested in June in the eastern city of Faisalabad. The death of Yousuf led to a general condemnation.
Judge Majoka asked Hayat if he had killed Yousuf. Hayat replied that he had not done it. He also rejected the allegation that he had stolen his mobile phone, a court official told the Associated Press. The manager spoke under the cover of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.
Images on the private Samaa television channel in Pakistan have shown that the police were putting a hayat handcuffed in court.
Farooq Naeem / AFP via Getty Images
Yousuf, originally from the picturesque Nordic region of Chitral, was known to promote the traditional music of Chitrali and dress on its Tiktok channel. She also pleaded for the education of girls. A few hours before her murder, she had published a photo of birthday celebration with friends.
Police described the murder as a “horrible and cold blood murder”, alleging that Hayat killed Yousuf after having repeatedly rejected his proposals.
Some comments in publications on social networks sharing the news of Yousuf’s murder have suggested that this was justified in a society where the codes of honor dictate how women should behave.
“You collect what you sow,” said a comment.
Tiktok has immense popularity in Pakistan because of its easy -to -use and visually -managed format, with tens of millions of users. Women have found both audience and application income, which is rare in a country where less than a quarter of women participate in the formal economy.
But he also faced temporary prohibitions. The government has suspended the platform several times, citing concerns that the application promotes immoral or illegal content.
In July, Pakistan police said a father Turned and killed his daughter After refusing to delete your Tiktok account.
Violence against women is omnipresent in Pakistan according to the country’s human rights committee, and the cases of women attacked after rejecting the marriage proposals are not uncommon.
In 2021, Noor Mukadam, 27, was beheaded by her American Pakistani boyfriendZahir Jaffer, after rejecting his marriage proposal in a case that aroused generalized anger. Jaffer was sentenced to death.
Agency France-Press contributed to this report.
