Shafia trial jurors find family guilty of 1st-degree murder

[laundry_queen]

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120129/shafia-family-trial-jury-delivers-verdicts-120129/

I know this is a Canadian case, but I think it's really important for the US to see too and it was all over CNN yesterday. I'm glad they were found guilty. I think it shows that honor killings can and do happen in North America and it's important that the religious fanatics who do this are prosecuted.

[graywarrior]

1. Wow!

Hope they live behind bars for a long long time.

[RandySF]

2. Some more detail.

KINGSTON, Ontario (AP) — A jury has found three members of an Afghan family from Montreal guilty of killing four female relatives in a so-called "honor" killing.

The jury on Sunday found Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya, and their son Hamid guilty of killing Shafia's three teenage daughters and his other wife in a polygamous relationship.

Their bodies were found in June 2009 in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home from Niagara Falls.

Prosecutors said the daughteres were killed because they dishonored the family by defying rules on dress, dating, socializing and going online.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiSGqOwpxvZAV2cU82QQWgksEdIw?docId=b953dc6f2bd2456e9367bd2c33b53ddb

[Deep13]

3. Misogyny, thy name is religion. nt

[msanthrope]

4. It's always a good thing when serial killers are locked up. nt

[obamanut2012]

5. Good -- this was a horrific crime

[MADem]

6. Wonder how those SOBs would feel about a little Eye For An Eye justice, since they're so into their

fundamental approach to jurisprudence?

When will they be sentenced? Will they get more than ten or twenty years, I wonder? I don't think this kind of world-view can be "cured" or "rehabilitated." I think they all should die behind bars. I know I wouldn't want to live next door to a one of 'em.

[JBoy]

7. First degree murder in Canada is mandatory life in prison

with no chance of parole for 25 years.

It's the stiffest sentence you can get up here.

Hope they rot behind bars, then rot in hell.

[MADem]

10. AS I said a bit downthread, the son will be in his mid forties when he's up for parole.

I think serial killers should never be paroled, myself. Even if they kill people they're related to...!

[auntAgonist]

8. They have been sentenced already.

Calling it a “heinous” crime, Justice Robert Maranger sentenced Mohammad Shafia, his second wife, Tooba Yahya, and their son, Hamed, to life in prison for no parole eligibility for 25 years after a jury found each of them guilty of four counts of first-degree murder.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2012/01/29/19309826.html

[MADem]

9. So, the son will be in his mid forties when he might be unleashed upon the unsuspecting public.

The parents will be a bit more decrepit.

I like NO PAROLE for this kind of thing.

[Mopar151]

13. Charlie Manson ain't made parole yet.

JUST SAYIN'

[MADem]

15. Well, he beat the chair thanks to a law change, and he's south of the Canadian border, too.

Completely different system of justice.

Just sayin'....

[Posteritatis]

21. "Might," and I'm pretty sure the public will not be "unsuspecting."

Not having a medium-level-insurgency homicide rate up here, we're usually made pretty aware when someone locked up on a first-degree murder charge is nearing even the possibility, which is not the certainty, of parole.

[iverglas]

29. there will be enormous publicity when he is up for parole

-- or when he is eligible for day parole or the like.

Think of Colin Thatcher ... the nice rich white powerful Canadian-born politician who had his wife murdered in the course of a long custody and divorce dispute.

She got in his way, and he had her killed. I guess his "honour" demanded it.

His parole applications have always been big news. Then there's Karla Homolka ...

[Posteritatis]

38. Yeah, Homolka's who came to mind for me. (nt)

[CHIMO]

31. His

Parole, as well as his father and mother, will not be in Canada. They are not Canadian citizens and as such will be returned to another country.

[MADem]

32. That would be Afghanistan, then, yes?

If things go badly there, and they probably will, the population there will regard those crimes as "rights." They'll be greeted as heroes, unfairly imprisoned by the mendacious Canadians. Ugh.

[iverglas]

33. removal from Canada

There would have to be a removal hearing, of course. It may well proceed in the near future, since the conviction makes them inadmissible and vitiates their permanent residence status, other considerations aside. The order would be executed when they were eligible for release.

The inadmissibility has to be proved (not difficult), any refugee protection claim disposed of, and the pre-removal risk assessment (risk if returned) completed -- that being the latest and current form of the process. By the time the issue arises, circumstances will have changed in countless ways.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/rich/news/story/2012/01/29/shafia-sunday.html

The Shafias moved to Canada in 2007. They fled their native Afghanistan more than 15 years earlier and had lived in Dubai and Australia before moving the family to Montreal and applied for citizenship.

Presumably they came here as economic migrants (presumably having had legal residence in at least one other country besides Canada), and not refugee protection claimants.

You may recall that I'd been unable to figure out how someone brought two wives to Canada:

At the time of the deaths, they were all permanent residents, except for Amir who had only a visitor's visa. They told authorities, and initially maintained after the deaths, that Amir was Mohammad Shafia’s cousin.

... Rona Amir was Shafia’s first wife. The couple wed in an arranged marriage in Kabul before civil war broke out in their homeland. Amir wasn’t able to conceive and encouraged Shafia to take another wife, which he did in 1989, marrying Tooba Yahya in another arranged marriage.

So first wife Rona Amir, one of the victims, was in a specially precarious position: in Canada without permanent status, leaving her at the mercy of the family. (The second marriage was wholly invalid for Canadian immigration purposes.) We might assume she'd been in that position for a long time.

Immigration authorities fell down on the job on that one -- she'd been in Canada how long as a "visitor", and how? -- along with child welfare authorities failing the youngest daughter.

I'd just mention that I've had the opposite experience. A client of mine turned out to be a very weird and abusive man (he got caught cashing his deceased mother's pension cheques, and I was concerned about the welfare of his two elderly aunts in his household). He brought me a young woman he and his Filipina wife claimed was her sister, who was in Canada as a family care worker but in violation of the terms of her visa. The whole situation just smelled so bad, and I was so concerned about the young woman, that I arranged for her to meet privately with RCMP (not an easy feat in the circumstances). They offered her protection to leave the household, and she would have had sympathetic treatment from immigration. Unfortunately, she didn't follow through.

But women like Rona Amir and her stepdaughters ... there is help available, but not enough and not easily accessible. Work is being done to help victims of forced marriages in Canada, for example. The job of getting those resources to the people who need them, and letting those people know what help they can get, is a very important one and it isn't yet being done adequately.

[CHIMO]

39. They

Came to Canada from Dubai.

The story in the Toronto Star has them kicked out of Australia as economic migrants at which point they returned to Dubai. If you download the history from the Star in the pdf format you can do quick searches.

http://media.thestar.topscms.com/acrobat/b0/9f/585a529e489d8a192f77f3f442e3.pdf

[iverglas]

42. yes, worth taking a look

It's comprehensive.

The following excerpt is fair/use dealing from a 67-page document (it's on the second last page; emphases mine):

The Crown’s last witness in making its case was an expert in honour killings. Shahrzad Mojab is a University of Toronto professor who co-edited a book called Violence in the Name of Honour.

Mojab acknowledged that honour killings are not restricted to Islam, though the UN report suggests it’s more prevalent in these societies.

“It doesn’t have any direct connection with religion at all,” Mojab testified. “It is not unique to any particular religion. We see it among Hindus. We see it among Jews and Christians in the (Middle East) region. It is also not limited to the Middle East or the Arab world.”

Mojab took pains to explain that underpinning the violence is, in fact, the idea of control of the female members of the family in a patriarchal society.

“If a man cannot control his own household, which is represented by the behaviour of the female members of the family, he cannot be trusted for any other public matters, including financial relationships,” Mojab explained.

“A woman’s body is considered to be the repository of family honour,” she said, mentioning that Arab adage, “A man’s honour lies between the legs of a woman.”

For some, an honour killing may even be seen as an act of mercy, she continued. “It is part of the continuum of love and care. Living as a dishonoured member of the family — the suffering of that is greater than death.”

So if a woman’s reputation is perceived to be tainted, through premarital sex or rape, taking an unauthorized boyfriend, asking for divorce, even exerting her independence, “Cleansing one’s honour of shame is typically handled by the shedding of blood,” Mojab said.

“It’s really about men’s need to control women’s sexuality and freedom.”

I still don't see any manifestation of this in the Shafia case. Shafia's ego, not his honour, was bruised.

Again, is a regular old native-born white Christian western man who kills his adulterous wife committing an honour killing? ... or, more importantly, would it occur to anyone to say he was?

[jzodda]

11. Such a disgusting crime...

I hope they spend the rest of their miserable lives thinking about what they did.....

The crime boggles the mind.

[Darth_Kitten]

12. Well, for now, they don't believe they did anything wrong.

It was the women's fault they were murdered. Their behaviour brought it on.

[iverglas]

18. actually, I think they still deny committing the murders

[Marnie]

14. When you move to somebody else's country you gotta live by their

laws.
There is always the choice of not moving to a country whose laws you don't agree to.

These religious based abuses need to be handled just like they would otherwise be handled.

[iverglas]

19. how about people who are born here

who kill their wives and children? There are quite a few of them. Maybe they had some other law in mind too and just didn't think the laws of their native land applied to them.

This was NOT a "religious-based abuse", but obviously I wasn't disappointed when that was what I expected to find being said at DU.

This was misogyny, patriarchy, woman-hating, and it exists in every culture among people of every religion or none. Religion did not come into it. The patriarchy and misogny of the husband/father's culture undoubtedly did play a role, but this was NOT "religious-based".

[CHIMO]

16. INSIDE THE SHAFIA MURDER TRIAL

The Toronto Star coverage of this case was quite thourough. They have put the whole coverage into a pdf document of 60 pages.
http://media.thestar.topscms.com/acrobat/e8/5b/3ad8232a4c81b5963839860ee768.pdf

http://www.thestar.com/special/article/1122764

The CBC coverage from today is:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/01/29/shafia-sunday.html
Jan 29, 2012 5:44 PM ET

[polly7]

25. Wow.

Thank you for this. http://media.thestar.topscms.com/acrobat/e8/5b/3ad8232a4c81b5963839860ee768.pdf

Those women and girls really went through hell in that home. What a horrible, sad loss.

[iverglas]

17. "I think it shows that honor killings can and do happen in North America"

Or put another way, it shows that misogyny and violence against women and familial violence and killing as a way of exerting patriarchal control happen in every culture and are perpetrated by people of every religion.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2011/04/21/calgary-louie-trial-verdict.html
On the night of Nov. 27, 2009, James Bing Jun Louie, 44, used a rope to strangle his son Jason, 13, and a pillow to smother his daughter Jane, 9.
Louie then tried to strangle his wife Ying Tang as she arrived at the couple's former home in the city's northwest.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20031002/jay_handel_verdict_031001/
A British Columbia father who killed his six children has been found guilty of first-degree murder.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20030929/handel_court_sane_20030929/
Jay Handel killed his six children as part of a dark plan to crush the soul of his wife Sonya, a B.C. Supreme Court jury heard Monday.

... on a quick google in Canada. Just for a start in the US:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/27/MN11348.DTL
A retired Santa Clara County sheriff's deputy, distraught over the breakup of his marriage, fatally shot his young daughter and three stepchildren yesterday in their Merced home before turning the gun on himself, authorities said.

"Distraught", my ass. Seriously pissed off, just like Mohammad Shafia.

"Honour killings" themselves, in their actual historical and cultural context, are a complex phenomenon.

This multiple homicide had nothing to do with honour killing, and everything to do with a power-hungry, woman-hating patriarch. You find them everywhere.

[laundry_queen]

20. Just because I said honour killing

does not automatically mean I discount all the other horrible things that happen in the world against women, nor does it mean I agree with the concept of honour as an excuse for this shit. Please show me where I said that. And I still do feel like in some parts of the world, it may be cultural, but their religion is part of their culture and the 2 are intertwined. There is plenty of evil in the world, I was commenting on THIS case, nothing more. I have 4 girls and am WELL aware of the uphill battle we have to climb HERE, in 2012 in Canada despite being born here. No need for the lecture.

[iverglas]

23. it isn't just you

The discourse in Canada, and I assume on CNN etc. (didn't have time to watch the segment on CNN this morning), is all about "honour killings".

Really. These murders had *nothing* to do with honour killings, any more than most such murders in the news do.

Honour killings, as I said, are a complex phenomenon. Put simply, if a family member in a culture where these rules apply brings "shame" on the family, the only way the family can counter the shame is to kill the family member. If they do not do that, they are doomed -- they could literally starve on the street, because they will be cast out by the community: an extreme form of shunning.

Mohammad Shafia's security, and the security of his family, were in no danger in Canada. This was no "honour killing". It was violence against women. The Canadian media are giving voice to people pressing this point, but unfortunately still tossing the term/concept "honour killing" around in relation to the deaths.

Just for a quick start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

Sharif Kanaana, professor of anthropology at Birzeit University, says that honor killing is:

A complicated issue that cuts deep into the history of Arab society. .. What the men of the family, clan, or tribe seek control of in a patrilineal society is reproductive power. Women for the tribe were considered a factory for making men. The honour killing is not a means to control sexual power or behavior. What's behind it is the issue of fertility, or reproductive power.

An Amnesty International statement adds:

The regime of honour is unforgiving: women on whom suspicion has fallen are not given an opportunity to defend themselves, and family members have no socially acceptable alternative but to remove the stain on their honour by attacking the woman.

That is, the family itself may feel compelled to kill the offending family member (who is not always a woman) in order to ensure its economic survival, which depends on social approval.

Yes, the term is now widely applied to pure hate crimes against women, and the people who commit those crimes do sometimes wrap themselves in the concept.

In our beloved western world, a man who kills a cheating wife "in the heat of passion" has long got a big break from the judicial system, let us not forget. Very little difference on the surface: a man's righteous rage at the woman daring to interfere in his right to control her reproductive activities. The difference between that and honour killings, historically, is that in the latter case it was historically not a case of righteous rage; the family itself may have been subject to extreme social pressure to kill the offender even against their own wishes, while in the west it's the offended man whose actions have been approved by society.

Obviously this derives from a very different concept of the nature and relationships of individual, family, community and society from ours in the modern west. But it really did not derive from the individual men's pride and ego or their personal hatred of or desire to oppress women.

What we see and term "honour killings" in these instances in the west today, and also in instances in the homelands where the practice exists historically, are pretty far removed from the origins of the practice, which is rooted deeply in cultures where the individual is far less of an independent agent and far more dependent on the community than in our own society. Everyone, not just women, was (and may still be) subject to social controls on their behaviours and sanctions for violating norms that we regard as intolerable, but that were survival mechanisms for those cultures, for whom extreme social cohesion was necessary. This operated in the interests of individuals in some regards, and against their interests in others. Just as some of our own norms do. This is not to apply "cultural relativism", it is to understand a phenomenon.

That phenomenon has been perverted and exploited by men like Shafia, who simply is not subject to the pressures that call for "honour killing". His daughters' behaviour did not cause him the kind of social shame that would have jeopardized his family; his community, both the broad Canadian community and his own cultural community, do not ostracize and marginalize him because of his daughters. He had no need to cleanse his and his family's name and reputation. (Remember, a true "honour killing" is done for the family.) He's simply a woman-hating, egotistical asshole.

[laundry_queen]

27. Actually if you were watching the news last night

I can't remember if it was CTVnewsnet/channel or CBCnews but they interviewed several muslim community leaders who said just that - this is a domestic violence problem and that using the excuse of 'honour' is never justified. And I haven't see anyone use it as an 'excuse' anyhow, they are just stating what the motive the prosecuters used. The crown lawyers used the concept of honour to explain the motive to the jurors. So it's only natural people are calling it the 'honour killing trial'. I don't think there is some nefarious undercurrent of propaganda trying to convince us that it is 'less bad' because it may have been motivated by some warped sense of honour that, as you said, doesn't need to exist here in Canada.

[iverglas]

28. I agree, that's what I was saying

I just think the whole "honour" thing should be left completely out of the discourse -- by the prosecution, the judge, the media ... The prosecution would better have said simply that we had here a man whose own contempt for women was so deep that he killed them for disobeying him, in my own opinion.

For sure, I don't think "there is some nefarious undercurrent of propaganda trying to convince us that it is 'less bad' because it may have been motivated by some warped sense of honour that, as you said, doesn't need to exist here in Canada".

I think exactly the opposite -- that hiving these and similar murders off and applying the label "honour killing" to them makes them seem qualitatively different from and more bad than all the other violence against daughters and wives, here and everywhere else.

I thought the judge's comments about having to abide by local standards were really out of place. They minimized the extent to which locals themselves don't abide by the standards.

A murderer may try to frame their actions as "honour" motivated, but that doesn't mean we have to buy it. --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_deaths

Mohammad Shafia can be heard saying, "God curse their generation, they were filthy and rotten children," and "To hell with them and their boyfriends, may the devil shit on their graves." Further wiretaps reveal Shafia saying, "Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows, nothing is more dear to me than my honour."

I'd read that as "nothing is more dear to me than my ego." He just was not under external pressure that required him to restore his / his family's honour in the sense in which the word actually applies in the concept of "honour killing".

It seems to me that it is the broader community applying the term/concept to the murders, rather than the murderers themselves, or the community in which honour killing, properly speaking, is an historical practice, doing that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. Killing himself is a fairly good sign he was distraught

In all the cases you cite, the children killed include boys as well as girls; and none of them were about the behaviour of the children. They are about a man thinking he has complete control over the lives of his children or step-children, and can thus kill them as well as killing himself, or use their deaths to hurt his wife; but this case had evidence of the father's hatred for the daughters because of their behaviour. It also has the involvement of the son. Mothers are also known to kill their children while trying to kill themselves.

This really is different from the cases you cite, and is more than just 'a patriarch' - the son at the scene, and the involvement of Yahya. It's one part of a family killing other family members, with the apparent motive their 'unacceptable' behaviour. It has everything to do with honour killings.

[iverglas]

24. like I said

It may have to do with "honour killings" as the west chooses to define that term, and as some men exploit it. It does not have to do with the true phenomenon of honour killings.

The distinction you assert between "a man thinking he has complete control over the lives of his children or step-children, and can thus kill them as well as killing himself" and cases like the Shafia murders is one without much difference, in my opinion. Men kill their wives and/or children in the west without killing themselves. And a "father's hatred for the daughters because of their behaviour" can hardly be characterized as anything but "a man thinking he has complete control over the lives of his children".

The west excuses misogynist violence against women in many ways. The man in the random case I cited was "distraught" over the breakdown of his marriage. A man who kills an adulterous wife does it "in the heat of passion". A man who goes to a public place and guns down random women, whether because they allegedly prevented him from becoming an engineer (Marc Lépine) or because women in general failed to provide him with the sexual relationships he deserved (George Sodini), etc., "snapped". Men do these things; socially agreed excuses are provided for them. Everywhere.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. What's the difference between quotes and italics?

It just seems to be you asserting that your personal definitions are superior to those of the English language (you know, western definitions), without you actually bothering to explain your personal definition.

You don't address the involvement of the son, or the wife, I see. They are a problem for your theory of it all being about the father's patriarchical control.

[iverglas]

30. whatever

If you want to understand the phenomenon of honour killing in the true sense, I guess google is there.

The number of participants in a murder does not define the nature of the act.

A few search terms like

"honour killing" shame ostracized

gets you information like this:


http://annique-daniel.suite101.com/are-honour-killings-a-socially-accepted-practice-in-jordan-a310763

Real-life examples of honour killing in Jordan

A Jordanian woman caused her family shame when she ran away with a man after divorcing her husband. As a result of her decision, the family was ostracized the community. Her eight sisters were deemed unfit for marriage, and her brothers were mocked in the streets.

Close relatives consulted with the family and they decided that the woman should be killed to cleanse the family’s honour and so that they could be reintegrated into the community. The woman’s brother was able to locate her and kill her. According to Fadia Faqir’s article “Intrafamily Femicide in Defence of Honour: The Case of Jordan,” after the killing, a female sibling announced to the community that “now we can walk with our heads held high.”

Now, if you don't think that having eight unmarriageable daughters would threaten the security of the family and each of the individuals in it, at least in a less-developed context ...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/30/honour-killing-west-bank-palestine

As Ibrahim Baradiya recounts the events surrounding the last moments of his daughter's life at the bottom of a dark well, the agony of grief is drawn across the face of his wife, Fatima. She says almost nothing. Her eyes are half-closed. ...

But the killing went far beyond a family affair. After the discovery of Aya's body more than a year after the 20-year-old university student went missing, her uncle confessed to Palestinian police, claiming it was an "honour" killing. ...

In the previous months, Aya had received a marriage proposal from a man 17 years her senior. At first, worried about the age difference, Ibrahim had refused permission. ...

The suggestion that Aya had brought shame to her family's reputation had a powerful impact within conservative Palestinian society. The family was ostracised by their neighbours; Fatima rarely left the house during the 13 months between her daughter's disappearance and the discovery of her body. ...

The family were the victims of the code of honour in that case, and the immediate family was not even involved in, did not approve of, were devastated by, the murder committed by a member of the extended family.

Those are honour killings. The west applies the term pretty much solely in order to marginalize and demonize certain cultural communities, where killings of women may indeed be associated with the extreme misogyny of some of the community members, but are in fact not honour killings.

I hope that explains my use of italics to set off the term as applied to the phenomenon it actually applies to, and of quotation marks to mean, as quotation marks commonly mean, so-called honour killings.

[riderinthestorm]

43. The judge who sat through all of the trial and testimony called it an honour killing.

I'm going with his definition. You appear to be trying your hardest to not label this as such. I understand that because it stigmatizes the Islamic community but unfortunately this case appears to be a fairly straightforward case and the judge who was there through the entire testimony and evidence is using that terminology.

[iverglas]

44. Canadian, are you?

Experienced the full flood of media attention to this event since it occurred, and listened carefully to all the analysts and commentators and members of the communities in question on this issue?

I don't happen to give a flying fuck what the prosecutors or judge said. They aren't experts in the field, and they aren't immune to ignorance or bigotry.

I'm going with the definition applied by people who know what they're talking about, including the expert who testified -- which happens to be the actual definition.

I could call you a pumpkin because you're round and thick-skinned, but you still wouldn't be a pumpkin.

If I happened to be wanting someone to jab you with a knife, though, it would sure be in my interests to do that.

By the "definition" being applied here, a white Christian western-born man who kills his adulterous wife is committing an honour killing.

If we all want to agree on that, that would be cool. We'd just have to find another term for actual honour killings then.


Oh, btw -- if you want to address anything I have actually posted, rather than flinging characterizations around (I "seeeeem to ...&quot , feel free.

[riderinthestorm]

48. I'm Irish.

And I did actually address what you wrote. Directly. You have one definition you are pushing of "honour killing" but this case appears to be what is most typically understood to fall under the definition of that kind of murder.


The judge called it an honour killing. I presume he also listened to the expert testimony....

"The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour...that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120129/shafia-family-trial-jury-delivers-verdicts-120129/#ixzz1kzYGuXDe

[CHIMO]

45. Would

You please provide the reference. I recollect that he said something to the effect that there was no honour in this.

[riderinthestorm]

46. Its a direct quote from the judge, and it's in the OP article

""The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour...that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120129/shafia-family-trial-jury-delivers-verdicts-120129/#ixzz1kzYGuXDe

[iverglas]

50. sadly for your case, he doesn't call the murders "honour killings"

And even if he had, he would have been wrong.

There really just isn't any point or need to doing this. Why do we need a special term for violence against women committed by men from a particular cultural community?

"Honour killing" for them, "crime of passion" for us.

Regular guys in the west kill their wives, and their children, all the time. Their sense of entitlement, their desire to control, is no less real, and no less ugly, than in the case of men like Shafia.

REAL honour killings are a social problem that calls for a range of approaches. Muddying the waters by tossing in murders committed by men enraged at their female family members' refusal to recognize their authority, whatever ethnic or religious group they belong to, emboldened as they may be by their culture's misogyny in all cases, doesn't actually help in that effort.

[riderinthestorm]

53. You can semantically parse the judges words all you like but the meaning is plain

I just happen to think it's important to recognize what the culture in question actually calls it. And address it honestly. You can call it a 'crime of passion" but in my experience as a rape crisis counselor and women's shelter volunteer for decades, it's fundamentally ignoring the root cause for a particular type of murder tied to a cultural concept of women carrying the "family honour". I think it does help the effort when speaking to the actual women who are articulating their particular abuse to use the terms they use and to understand and address the misogyny they experience without trying to put a PC spin on it because it makes us uncomfortable.

I agree with the rest of your post.

[iverglas]

57. I didn't call it a crime of passion

I, and others more learnèd than you, have drawn the analogy to "crimes of passion" -- the various excuses that various cultures offer to men who commit acts of violence against women.

That is not what honour killings are. Calling acts of violence committed against women in particular cultural communities "honour killings" when they are not does no one, including the women, any good.

The Shafia murders were NOT "tied to a cultural concept of women carrying the 'family honour'."

Shafia referred to HIS honour, NOT the family's honour. His choice of words does NOT define the nature of his acts.

This has nothing to do with "PC" and your very use of the noxious term is bizarre.

You have decades of experience at this and that, whatever. I actually have a professional background that includes study of various phenomena that are related to real honour killings: trafficking in women, forced marriage, rape as a weapon of war, and like that. Perhaps my concern for women who are the victims of such phenomena is the agenda/motive on my part that you asserted.

I will now look for edit/clarification of your previous post, which you have now had time for.

[CHIMO]

52. I Would

Sugest, nay recommend, that you study some Euclidian geometry.
What you have listed is something that would allow you to run for a position as a GOP candidate for POTUS. Or as a reporter for the Sun or for Harpers' Team.

Please understand what it means to state that they are his words and what he is rephrasing as the other persons words.

[riderinthestorm]

55. Uh huh, that's fine. I've no desire to run for anything and will continue to work with abused women

where semantic games are a luxury.

I'm not Canadian so I have no vested interest in glossing over the painful realities of this particular culture clash but feel free to persist in resisting looking at the situation honestly.

[CHIMO]

56. Well

Having a bias can be a benifit if applied in the right way.

It is not a question of citizenship. Nor a question of where one lives.

There is no culture clash other than those being created by our politicians.

The jury looked at the case and gave their decision.

[iverglas]

62. disgusting

I'm not Canadian so I have no vested interest in glossing over the painful realities of this particular culture clash but feel free to persist in resisting looking at the situation honestly.

Disgusting demagoguery, and worse.

[iverglas]

54. you can even try the entire passage from the judge's sentencing remarks

http://www.thestar.com/article/1123259--shafia-family-members-guilty-of-first-degree-murder

And Justice Robert Maranger, who presided over a trial that began last October, clearly concurred with the verdict.

Glaring at the defendants, now the convicted felons, the judge intoned: “It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous, more honourless crime.

“There is nothing more honourless than the deliberate murder of, in the case of Mohammad Shafia, three of his daughters and his wife; in the case of Tooba Yahya, three of her daughters and a stepmother to all her children; in the case of Hamed Shafia, three of his sisters and a mother.

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted concept of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.

“For these crimes, for these murders, the sentence is mandatory as set out in the Criminal Code of Canada — imprisonment without eligibility of parole for a period of 25 years — and that’s the sentence of the court for each of you.’’

No "honour killing there".

Just as easily interpreted as a rejection of the theory of honour killing ... since Shafia's "twisted concept of honour" / "sick notion of honour" actually is not the concept of honour inherent in honour killings.

The honour involved in honour killings is the honour of a family or a community, NOT of one ugly vicious man.

[iverglas]

47. exactly

and I was just about to edit my post again to point that out.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/story/2012/01/30/wdr-windsor-muslim-women-react-shafia.html

The judge called the crime cold-blooded and shameful. He said it is difficult to conceive of anything more heinous, more despicable or more honourless.

"It's really sad to hear that these thing exists during this day and time," said Issa, a Muslim woman from Somalia who moved to Canada 19 years ago. "My concern is that this is an act of violence against women, regardless of what you call it. Whether you call it an honour killing or a crime of passion, it's just wrong and it's unacceptable, and it's about time we put an end to this kind of practice."

... "I'm not saying that honour killing is a tradition, but I'm saying that patriarchal structure is definitely something that they hold on to," <Reema Khan from Pakistan> said. "In the case of this family, when they came to Canada, and the daughters were beginning to integrate into behaviour that was not acceptable <to their family>, it was a threat to the patriarchal structure of the family."

Khan said the term "honour killing" makes the killings more exotic or foreign.

"Essentially, honour killing is just violence against women. That's the core of what we need to address," she said.

html fixed


EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE REPLY BELOW:

THE PASSAGE OF THE JUDGE'S WORDS WERE THE ONLY REFERENCE TO THE JUDGMENT IN THIS ARTICLE. NOTHING ELSE WAS QUOTED IN IT.

I DID NOT LEAVE ANYTHING OUT, "PURPOSEFULLY" OR OTHERWISE, BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE THERE.

[riderinthestorm]

49. You have an agenda and purposefully left out the rest of the judge's quote.

That says more about you and your motive than anyone else.

[iverglas]

51. you're drifting seriously off course

You continue to assert that the judge called this an honour killing when he did not.

I was unable to find anything other than what I posted after checking a half-dozen news sites, trying to weed out the foreign and sensational and check useful sources. You are calling me dishonest.

You have also accused me of having an agenda. I have no clue what it supposedly is.

You will want to edit/clarify your remarks. At tihs point they look like a multipronged personal attack, and failing such edit/clarification I'll treat them as such.

[riderinthestorm]

59. Alert on it then. I stand by my words. It's not a personal attack

It's a commentary on your position.

[iverglas]

60. spit those mealies out of your mouth

1. What is my agenda, per you?

2. What is my motive, per you?

3. What was your basis for accusing me of dishonesty?

It's sad that the thread should be thus derailed, but you have made allegations and you need to substantiate them.

oh, and edit:

4. What do my alleged agenda and alleged motive say about me?

Should be a simple matter to answer such straightforward questions.

You're familiar with the concept of "straightforward"?

[iverglas]

34. Idea of Shafia deaths as 'honour killings' stirs debate

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120130/shafia-trial-reaction-120130/

... At issue is the Crown's argument that the deaths were "honour killings," murders intended to restore family dignity after the women's perceived rebellious behaviour.

... The weight of these words, however, has concerned many that this interpretation of the Shafia deaths will only further marginalize a community that is still enduring hateful sentiment related to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

... Shortly after the Shafia women were found dead, Canada's justice department commissioned a report on so-called "honour killings" across the country.

As well, the report said the idea of killing for honour provides lawyers with a specific legal argument. By definition, the phrase implies that the crime has been planned within a family (often with a meeting) and the perpetrators don't feel or receive any negative stigma for the actions within their own communities.

Such a detailed definition, the report noted, could help protect victims when crimes like these go to court. Still, the research found that several cultural communities are concerned that the phrase "honour killing" will stir anti-immigration sentiment.

And if you read the comments on any online article at any media site, you will find that it doesn't take much to stir those sentiments, and for the foul-mouthed bigots who hold them to smear them around cyberspace.

[Madyam]

35. Happy Madyam

Today, is one of the happiest days of my life. Twenty Five years to life! Way to go! I would wish for more, but am OK with 25. Frankly, I was worried that these demons would go free, like the ones in BC. That was another one of those ""honour killings"" which has been sugar coated with the word ""honour"". I fail to understand what honour there is in killing. Murder is murder any way you look at it or say it. Thank you Mr. Judge!

[iverglas]

36. welcome

and a tip:

When posting in a thread, it's always useful to read the entire thread and see whether what you are saying has been said and perhaps responded to in the conversation so far, and then maybe think about it, and consider responding to it rather than repeating things that have already been said and addressed.

Otherwise, the people already participating in the conversation may feel just a little bit like you've butted in and not paid any attention to them.

I, for one, would be most pleased if you considered what I had written and responded with your thoughts!

[iverglas]

37. the ones in BC?

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/murderedbride/timeline.html

It was a compelling documentary, aired almost simultaneously with the arrests. The crime was committed in India, people in Canada have now been charged with conspiring to commit it.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120109/jassi-sidhu-mother-extradition-120109/

On Friday, more than 11 years after the murder, the RCMP finally arrested Jaswinder's mother, Malkit Kaur Sidhu, 63, and her maternal uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, 67, after the British Columbia Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant on behalf of India.

... Dawson says it's not clear why it took almost 12 years for the arrests.

"That's the question that everyone's asking and the RCMP is not answering," Dawson told CTV's Canada AM Monday.

"But I do believe that much of the evidence that has been collected is in India and the RCMP needed to corroborate the Indian evidence to present to the B.C. Supreme Court."

In his book, Dawson alleges that Jassi's prosperous family was angry with her for marrying a lower-class husband, an Indian rickshaw driver. They had wanted her to marry a 60-year-old business colleague.

Once again, I see no "honour killing" in that case. The young woman had disobeyed her family and married below her status, rather than marry an old man to cement a business relationship. I see no dishonour to the family having affected their security. I see an attempt to use the young woman for the purpose young women are supposed to serve in some cultures (and not too very long ago in our own), and the thwarted parties taking revenge.

Was this an honour killing? --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/eric-gilford-sentenced-to_n_996303.html

A Navy recruiter from Downers Grove, Ill. who allegedly stabbed his estranged pregnant wife to death in 2010 was sentenced on two separate murder charges for the incident that took place in front of his stepdaughter on her fourth birthday.

Eric Gilford, 32, who pleaded guilty to the murders in June, was sentenced to 50 years for the first-degree murder of his wife Kristine Gilford, and another 50 years for intentional homicide of their unborn son, to be served consecutively, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Kristine was 20 weeks pregnant at the time of her death

Prosecutors say Kristine Gilford had left her husband and moved into a former boyfriend's apartment in Villa Park with her daughter, Gracie, who is not Eric Gilford's biological child, according to the Chicago Tribune. Police say Gilford, believing his wife had been unfaithful, burst into the apartment on May 26, 2010 and stabbed Kristine 16 times in front of her daughter, Gracie, who was turning four that day. A neighbor saw Gracie wandering the apartment hall soaked in her mother's blood, leading Villa Park police to Kristine, who identified her husband as her assailant.

[yardwork]

40. Welcome to DU!

[fishwax]

41. welcome to DU, Madyam

[Swede]

58. How can you kill for honor?

These honor killing cases are popping up alot in the west.

[iverglas]

61. nice to have you in the conversation

Want to check out anything that's been said here about the idea that "These honor killing cases are popping up alot in the west"?

[Swede]

63. nope