The Iraqi YouTube star killed by her father

In 2017, when she was 17 years old and had just relocated from her native Iraq to Turkey, she established a YouTube channel where she discussed her freedom, her fiancé, makeup, and other topics. Tiba acquired tens of thousands of subscribers and seemed content.

She returned to Iraq in January to see her family, but her father murdered her there. Her father was only given a six-month prison term because the killing was not deemed to have been "pre-meditated."

Tiba's passing spurred protests concerning Iraq's laws pertaining to so-called "honour killings" across the country, with the case illustrating how women are treated in a nation where conservative values are still overwhelmingly prevalent.

'Strangled in her sleep'

Tiba built an online following of more than 20,000 subscribers - a figure which has swelled since her death.

She posted videos daily and enjoyed the new lifestyle Turkey had opened up for her.

In her first video in November 2021, Tiba said she moved to improve her education, but chose to stay because she enjoyed life there.

Her father, Tayyip Ali, reportedly disapproved of her plan to move there and marry her Syrian fiancé, with whom she shared an apartment in Istanbul.

When Tiba visited her home in Diwaniya in January, it's thought that she became caught up in a family argument.

According to reports, Tayyip Ali choked her to death on January 31 while she slept. Later, he surrendered to the police.

A local official in the area where Tiba was killed claimed that her father received the brief prison term in April.

In the wake of Tiba's murder, hundreds of women took to the streets in Iraq to protest against legislation around "honour killings".

According to Home Office study, the Iraqi Penal Code accepts "honour" as a defense for violent crimes against family members.

According to the Code, "honour killings" are excused from penalty if they were provoked or the accused had "honorable motives."

Tiba al-Ali was involved in an accident, according to Gen Saad Maan, spokesman for the Iraqi interior ministry. From a legal standpoint, it is a criminal accident, but from other viewpoints, it is an accident related to honor killings.

According to Gen Maan, Tiba and her father got into a heated dispute while she was in Iraq.

He also explained that the day before her murder, police had attempted to intervene.

When asked about the response of authorities to the killing, Gen Maan said: "Security forces dealt with the case with the highest standards of professionalism and applied the law.

"They started a preliminary and judicial investigation, gathered all the evidence and referred the file to the judiciary to pass a sentence."

'Rooted in misogyny'

Tiba's killing, and the lenient sentence handed to her father, sparked outrage among Iraqi women and women's rights activists across the world about the lack of protection from domestic violence for women and girls under Iraqi law.

For instance, in Article 41 of Iraq's penal code the "punishment of a wife by her husband" and "the disciplining by parents... of children under their authority within certain limits" are considered legal rights.

Article 409 meanwhile states: "Any person who surprises his wife in the act of adultery or finds his girlfriend in bed with her lover and kills them immediately or one of them, or assaults one of them so that he or she dies or is left permanently disabled, is punishable by a period of detention not exceeding three years."

Female rights activist, Dr Leyla Hussein told the BBC: "These killings are often rooted in misogyny and a desire to control women's bodies and behaviour.

"Using the term "honour killing" can be harmful to the victims and their families," she said. "It reinforces the idea that they are somehow responsible for their own deaths, that they brought it upon themselves by doing something wrong or shameful."

The UN has estimated that 5,000 women and girls across the world are murdered by family members each year in "honour killings".