Muslim, second wife on trial for "honour killing" of 1st wife, 3 daughters

One of the first things I wrote about, on starting this blog back in July 2009, was "honour killings" -- Muslim men killing their wives, sisters and/or daughters to satisfy their extreme concept of family honour and Sharia law.

The first case I wrote about was the murder of Aqsa Parvez, a 16-year-old immigrant who was killed by her father and brother for wearing western clothing to school. Enter "honour killings" in the search tool [right under the "DONATE" panel! Ed.] and you'll find more stories and comments.

This week, Kingston (the Canadian one, not the dangerous one) saw the beginning of the trial of a trio of Muslim immigrants: Mohammad Shafia, 58, his second wife, 41-year-old Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son, Hamed, 21. They are accused of killing the couple’s three teenage daughters, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, and Mr. Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 53. Mohammad Shafia was still married to his first wife, by the way, which is OK under Sharia law and Islamic custom.

The crux of the case, according to the Toronto Star's Rosie DiManno, is that the parents and brother planned and executed the murders of the three sisters and their mother from outrage over the intolerable, the defiance of daughters and the alliance with them of a woman treated for years as a burden and a slave.

A disgrace and shame to their family, though, for behaviour unbecoming to Afghan females — the boyfriends and the disobedience, the brazen disrespect for traditions and refusal to wear the hijab — violations of decorum so grievous that they needed to be killed, eliminated, to purify family honour, their “treachery’’ insupportable.

What they did, according to the Crown, was load the women into a car which was then driven into the Rideau canal. Whether the women drowned or were already dead when the car went into the drink will come out during the trial. Anyway, the accused reported the "accident" to the police a few hours later, saying that the other car in their party hadn't arrived at the motel where they were staying (this was on a family outing, you see) so something evil must have happened to them!

The police saw through the ruse about 18 seconds after they pulled the car out of the canal. So they put a wiretap on the family phone and had a look inside their computer. They found these revealing tidbits:

A Google inquiry on Mr. Shafia’s home computer about “where to commit a murder.”

A wiretapped conversation with Tooba and Hamed, in which Shafia recalled finding revealing cellphone pictures of Zainab and Shahar: “Curse God on both of them. Is that what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore? May the devil shit on their graves.”

Another wiretap transcript: “Even if they hoist me up on to the gallows, nothing is more dear to me than my honour.”

To his second wife, Shafia allegedly assured that the right actions had been taken: “I say to myself, you did well. Were they to come back to life, I would do it again. No Tooba, they messed up. There was no other way. They were treacherous. They betrayed us immensely. There can be no betrayal worse than this. They committed treason on themselves. They betrayed humankind. They betrayed Islam. They betrayed our religion. They betrayed everything.”

Sounds a bit extreme, doesn't it, but that's Islam for you. Now here's the thing that bothers me. These people come to a nominally [very nominally. Ed.] Christian, [somewhat] civilized country, like Canada or the USA. You would think that they would leave their barbaric, medieval thinking, laws and codes of "honour" behind in the old country -- in this case, Afghanistan. But nooooo....

And yet -- this is the crazy part -- we go to war in places like Afghanistan and Iraq to bring to these benighted heathens the benefits of democracy and civilization, one of which is not killing your wife (or wives) and daughters! Hellooooo Obama! Hellooooo Harper! Hellooooo Cameron! They don't want to change!!! Let them go on cutting off each other's hands and heads and stoning each other to death. Just make them stay at home!

Click here for details of the first day of the trial, as reported by Tim Appleby in the Globe and Mail.