Saudi sisters' suspicious "suicide"

Amidst all the fuss about pipe bombs and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the lamestream meeja seem to have pretty much ignored the strange case of Tala Farea and Rotana Farea, two sisters whose fully-clothed bodies were found on the bank of the Hudson River in New York on October 24th.

The girls, aged 16 and 22 respectively, had been bound together, face-to-face, with the handyman's secret weapon -- duct tape. The medical examiner's office is investigating the cause of death. The absence of any obvious signs of physical trauma cast doubt on the coppers' original theory that they jumped into the river from the George Washington Bridge in a suicide pact.

The Farea sisters moved to the USA from Saudi Arabia with their mother in 2015, settling in Fairfax VA, about 225 miles from where their bodies were found. Rotana was enrolled at George Mason University, but left in the spring. Police said the sisters left the family home and were placed in a shelter after an earlier disappearance, in December of 2017. They were reported missing again on August 24th.

New York police said their mother told detectives the day before the bodies were discovered, she received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian Embassy, ordering the family to leave the USA because her daughters had applied for political asylum. The Saudi Consul General said embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and "extended its support and aid in this trying time." It said the sisters were students "accompanying their brother in Washington."

The cops sent a detective to Virginia to learn more about the sisters. Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said they were particularly interested in finding out what happened since they were reported missing and what led them to New York City. "We are looking at all clues in their past life," Shea said.

Walt suggests that the police consider the girls' ethnicity and religion, and the sad fate of other Muslim girls who have come to western countries with their parents, and then been killed for wanting to adopt western customs, like wearing western clothes and (horrors!) dating. Three cases, reported here on WWW, come to mind.

In 2009 there was the murder, in Ontario, Canada, of Aqsa Parvez, aged 16, whose father and brother killed her because she dared to change out of Islamic garments into western clothes when she went to school. See "Honour killings, family values and 'accommodation'", WWW 23/7/09.

There was an echo from Britain in 2012, when a jury found the Pakistani parents of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed guilty of her murder. According her sister, her mother and father suffocated the girl with a plastic bag for "being too western". See "Parents kill rebellious teen to preserve family honour", WWW 3/8/12.

That same year saw the horrific Shafia case, in which three sisters and their mother were locked in a car which was pushed into a canal near Kingston ON by the girls' father, his second wife and their brother, all of whom were convicted of murder and are (suprisingly) still guests of Her Majesty in Canadian prisons. See "GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY in Shafia honour killings", WWW 29/1/12.

There's also [That's enough Islamic honour killings. We're running out of space! Ed.] OK then, let's just leave it at my suggestion that the police have a word with the Farea sisters' brother. Perhaps he can explain how it's possible for two people to duct-tape themselves together, face-to-face, while allowing sufficient freedom of movement to jump in a river. Stay tuned...

Parents kill rebellious teen to preserve family honour

One of the first topics Walt wrote about, in the first month of this blog's life, was honour killings. The case that prompted my comment -- "Honour killings, family values and 'accommodation'" -- was the murder, by her parents, of Aqsa Parvez, age 16, in the predominantly "south Asian" community of Mississauga, Ontario.

Aqsa was killed by her father, assisted by her brother. The family had immigrated from Pakistan some years previously, and Aqsa's heinous crime against the family honour was wanting to fit in with her Canadian schoolmates. She didn't want to wear the hijab. She wanted to hang out with the other kids, maybe even date a local boy, like the other kids. And she paid with her life.

The Parvez case was echoed last year in the now-infamous Shafia case, another example from officially multicultural Canada. You could say the Shafia case is four times worse than the Parvez case, in that three rebellious teenage daughters were murdered, along with their father's first wife. The perps were the father, his second wife -- it's OK for a Muslim to have up to four wives -- and their son.

This year we have another echo, this time from Britain. Earlier today, a jury in northwestern England found the Pakistani parents of a teenage girl guilty of her murder. According to the girl's sister, who gave evidence for the Crown, her mother and father suffocated Shafilea Ahmed, aged 17, with a plastic bag for "being too western".

Here, according to the Daily Mail, is what the judge said: "Your concern about being shamed in your community was greater than the love for your daughter." Like the Shafias, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed were sentenced to life in prison with no parole for a minimum of 25 years. The Ahmeds are expected to appeal... like the Shafias.

The Crown prosecutor told the court that Shafilea was only 10 when she began to rebel against her Muslim parents’ strict rules. Like Aqsa Parvez, she would change into western clothes at school, and change back before her parents picked her up. She often went to school crying, he classmates said. Her mother used to slap her and throw things at her, Shafilea told them.

It got worse. As she got older, Shafilea began seeing boys, which prompted her parents to keep her at home more. Between November 2002 and January 2003 the assaults increased in number and intensity. Then, in February 2003, she ran away with her boyfriend -- as did the eldest Shafia daughter -- and asked the town council for emergency accommodation as her parents were trying to force her into an arranged marriage with her cousin.

In the same month, her parents took her to Pakistan where she drank bleach in protest against the arranged marriage. When she returned to Britain in May 2003, she was admitted to a hospital because of damage done to her throat. Later that year, her parents beat her, stuffed a thin white plastic bag into her mouth and held their hands over her mouth and nose until, as her sister testified, "she was gone".

Did I mention... did I need to mention, that the Ahmeds are Muslims? The highest incidence of reported forced marriages in Britain is in Muslim communities. AP reports that British authorities investigated hundreds of cases of forced marriages last year. Some of the cases have ended up in so-called honour killings where relatives believe girls have brought shame on their families -- sometimes for refusing marriage, other times for being too westernized.

So we could say that the Ahmed case is not an isolated incident. Nor were the Parvez and Shafia cases. Honour killings are all too common in the "south Asian community". Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs immigrate to Britain, Canada and the USA, and are told that we value multiculturalism and diversity and they are entitled to keep their heathen religions and barbaric customs and cultures.

"Told" is the wrong word in that last sentence. I should say the "south Asians" are encouraged to bring to our countries the prejudices and problems of their homelands. Then we profess to be surprised when these "problems of cultural adjustment" manifest themselves.