The Albanian Muslim Ali Pasha, on January 11, 1801, executed the Greek Christian woman Kyra Frosyni together with 17 other Greek women by drowning them in the lake of Ioannina. According to the Islamic customs of the period, women could only be executed at night. In the freezing midnight hours of January 11, the women were all led together into boats on Lake Pamvotida in Ioannina.
The executioners threw them into the water, tied up and not inside sacks, as was the Islamic custom. One version states that they were put into sacks, but Frosyni and her servant (possibly her elderly nurse) managed, before being placed in the sacks, to jump into the water tied up and drowned like the rest.
Some of the women submitted fatalistically, reciting their prayers, while others shouted "Help!"
One of the executioners later said that he had seen many tortures, but he would never forget the faces of the women in the water and that he would wake up many nights hearing their screams in his nightmares.
The bodies washed ashore and were buried amid general outrage, but Ali Pasha announced that the Greeks were wrong to protest, since he would have spared their lives if even one of their relatives had appeared in time.
For the 18 women, it was also decided to seal their houses at the same time and confiscate their properties.
These stories remind us why Islam is not compatible with our countries.
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- Homer Pavlos