When the concept of “multiculturalism” was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant “more pavilions at Folkfest”;
A 16-year-old girl is in critical condition after being choked by a man believed to be her father, apparently after a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women.
Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man yesterday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter. When police and paramedics arrived at the house they found a 16-year-old lying on the floor without any vital signs, police said.
[…]
Friends of the teenager, a Grade 11 student at nearby Applewood Heights high school, identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by the attack on the outgoing, likeable girl, but said she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.
“She got threatened by her father and her brother,” said Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, who had known Aqsa since they both started high school together. “He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.”
Ebonie Mitchell, 16, another friend of the victim, said the conflict with her father over wearing Islamic dress came to a head at the beginning of this school year. “She just wanted to dress like we do,” she said.
“Last year she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she’s all Western. She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that.”
Aqsa Parvez has now reportedly died. A commentor at the linked site has it right. In addition to murder charges, this case demands to be prosecuted as a hate crime.
And, remind me again, which province was it that actually seriously considered introducing Sharia law within its boundaries?
When is our society going to wake up and screen out the extremist murderous nutbars?
Imagine a Islamic Version of this little 80’s Gem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9J9rTZJBmw
Apparently it would have been slasher film.
Joe,
Dont blame the province….blame the party that was promoting it………..NDP……..
And it never got that close.
But I agree with you if it had, this might not even get prosecuted but shunted off to some ridiculous religous court.
There is no such thing as Islamophobia. After all, a phobia is an irrational fear and there is nothing irrational about fearing Islam.
I suspect the Canadian media will downplay this. Already the cowards at the Globe and Mail have disabled commenting on the story.
Update: I’ve just learned that the girl has died.
I’ve just heard that the girl died.
Will this be a story line on LMOP.
I just got back from a two month holiday. It’s so nice to be back in such a tolerant society.
Honour killings, manslaughter for the pig farmer,
Politicians wasting our time over Schrieber,O’brien and Bali. Humans rights complaints filed by questionable Canadians.
When the media reports are sort of academic and reflect a sort of stupid discussion one can laugh, but, not when school kids get beaten and strangled. When will this Nation of wimps wake up and demand change?
The CBC is already spinning the story: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/12/11/teen-attacked.html
Teen dead after alleged attack by father
Peel Regional Police on Tuesday released the name of a 16-year-old Mississauga teen who died after allegedly being attacked by her own father.
Aqsa Parvez was found in her Longhorn Trail home on Monday morning without any vital signs.
Paramedics managed to revive her and took her to Toronto’s Sick Children’s Hospital where she died late Monday night.
Police said they received a call from a man who said he’d just killed his daughter.
The victim’s father, Muhammad Parvez, 57, was arrested at the scene. He will appear in court on Tuesday and face murder charges.
Aqsa Parvez’s friends told CBC News that the teen had been having arguments with her father because he allegedly wanted her to wear a traditional hijab.
“She kinda wanted to go a different way from the way her family wanted her to go,” said one friend.
They also said that she wanted to escape the family conflict by running away.
On the family’s quiet street neighbours were dismayed calling the events “a tragedy.” One neighbour said she was “praying for the family.”
Waqas Parves, the victim’s 26-year-old brother, has also been arrested and charged with obstructing police.
“Alleged”, “Allegedly”, “nice quiet street”, “kind of wanted to go a different way”;
Apparently, this was an exceptional event.
And the comments are closed at the Globe and Mail story.
I don’t think we should form generalities on one case where a father and his daughter entered an altercation that led to violence. It’s no different than a Christian dad who chokes his kid because he goes to the pool room instead of attending church on Sunday morning. The dad is screwed in the head in either case, he needs to be dealt with in a court of law.
As for my being “Islamophobic,” I do beleive I have a constitutional right to fear whatever I see as a threat to my well being. After all, it is fear that tells me not to walk across the street when the red light is on, fear of being hit by a car. Am I autophobic?? You damned right I am.
Hey! You racist colonial oppressors!
It’s racist to judge people from other cultures. We need to be tolerant and sensitive to their needs!!
Heh.
JJ
“It’s no different than a Christian dad who chokes his kid because he goes to the pool room instead of attending church on Sunday morning”
If that happened then yes. Problem is there is no cultural or religous imperative to do this. You get some recent stuff on the girl that was blinded in an exorcism…so religous nuts all over.
Difference is the exorcism blinding was a mistake, whereas honor killings are intentional.
One hopes no excuse is made for religon or culture in this case. But I can hear the dfence argument now.
As for the spin in the story, I wouldnt get too worked up for it, they have to say alleged, because it is. As well, quiet street. You never know, it may well be. The most horrendous things sometimes occur in the nicest neighbourhoods.
But let the wheels of justice grind forward and prosecute this as any other crime. Culture and religon have nothing to do with the fact that a 16 year girl has been murdered. No amount of ululating relieves the perp of the crime.
Unfortunately it’s relatively unknown that when CNN showed the twin towers falling, many Muslims in Canada were cheering. (Some here in Alberta as a matter of fact). I’ve heard anecdotes of people shopping in a Muslim owned retail store where many of them were gathered around a tv set cheering “Look what WE just did”.
Anyone here remember those 3 Muslims arrested in Fort McMurray just after 9/11? They had blueprints of one of the tar sands plants and “allegedly” one of them was taking flying lessons as well. Where’s the MSM? Where are they now? I’ve spent hours on Google trying to find out waht happened to these men, but it’s one dead end link after another.
I also heard of 3 or 4 men being arrested in southern Alberta also with blueprints, hanging around a natural gas compressor station that were quickly and quietly whisked away. This story too never saw the light of day. Sorry folks, but the sleeper cells are already in place and a complacent media is all too willing to turn a blind eye.
Of course once West Edmonton Mall is a smouldering pile of rubble or there are mass line ups at the clinic from the after effects of a dirty suitcase nuke, the left-lib MSM talking heads will be calling for Harper’s head.
Leftism has again proven to be a serious brain disorder.
It will be indeed interesting to follow this case in the course of time and compare it to the Latimer case!
Sorry Kate, I’m slightly off topic.
We are seeing more and more of these incidents, a conflict between an older generation raised in a theistic society and yet, having moved to a secular society, is unable to adapt. The result is frequently violence. There have been quite a few incidents of death, usually of women, at the hands of male relatives in the past few years. Not only in Ontario but across Canada.
By ‘secular’ I don’t mean without religion; I mean the separation of church and state. That is, religion is deemed a private rather than public affair. Furthermore, it is deemed an individual decision rather than a kin or family decision.
But such a separation isn’t easy. You can have family situations where the children are born into orthodox Jewish families and decide to reject this way of life. Sometimes, the result is an absolute cutting of ties in families. What’s different among some Islam and other groups, such as Sikh, Hindu? The result of a rejection of the old way of life – can be violence against the individual.
It has to be made clear in our society that although the family is the basic component of society, the individual has the right to dissent.
And importantly, we have failed to allow the family to separate from their old culture and transform that old culture into a modern culture. Our multicultural policies, which insist on the newcomer adhering to the ‘old culture’ and their original identity (whether ethnic, national, religious or linguistic)means that we have trapped immigrants in an isolate cell.
Canada is sending mixed messages to immigrants. The multicultural sections of the Charter privilege group identities and diminish individual choices. The Liberal political policies and funding promote maintaining a homogeneous group identity and adherence to their ‘original identity’.
The Human Rights Act strongly and relentlessly promotes and privileges group identities and rejects dissent and individual analysis. So, we are fostering group isolation and group homogeneity, and even, fostering an unacceptance by the larger society, of immigrant adaptation and assimilation.
On the other hand, our Charter also insists on individual freedom of thought, expression and belief. This is a serious contradiction of rights in the Charter and with the Human Rights Act. Our social and economic mode of life promotes and encourages individual merit, work, choices.
So, we lock immigrants into cells, we don’t enable or encourage them to adapt to modern life, we even set up policies to assist them to ‘stay the same’. Yet, our modern culture doesn’t operate that way – and the result is families that can’t cope with the contradictions.
What to do? Deal with the Charter and the Human Rights Act and the HR Commission. End our multicultural policy of isolation and insisting that immigrants remain ‘pure’ in their original identity. And, start to promote and encourage How To Adapt and yet, Not Feel Guilty.
This occurs in a Liberal stronghold of Mississauga and yet what are the federal Liberal women’s caucus pushing for? Divorce Act amendments. Maybe a new Islamic friendly Pink Book?
Silence is deafening from the feministas on the Liberal and NDP side of the political spectrum. I guess violence against women is OK when it’s Islamic?
This is a non-story as there was no gun involved.
sarc off
This hits too close to home.
What I want to read next about this story is only that the FAMILY IS DEPORTED.
sorry johnny this kind of behavior and attitude in the muslim community is all to real because it is being taught by the extremist clerics.i had a foster girl over ten years that was a muslim. She was being fostered bacause of death threats by her father and brothers.
ALLA AKUBAR.ULULULUULULULU….
Sorry – posted this under reader tips instead of here….
Did anyone notice the Christmas lights above the door at the residence photo in the linked story?
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2007/12/11/150296.aspx
Very strange decorations for the home of a supposedly very devout follower of Islam.
Bravo ET, an excellent comment that deserves its own post.
Canadian Infidel, you have no idea what “allegedly” means.
i’d like to choke the shit out of anyone who would like to spout moral equivalency on this.
white guy spanks daughter = child abuse, UN Child rights violation, criminal assault.
Brown guy murders daughter in theocratic ritual killing = leading edge of cultural diversity tolerance
I know what I would like to say about this. But, I won’t. I have no desire to see Kate brought before a human rights tribunal.
So, I surrender and will hold it back. Which I guess is what they want anyway…right?
This makes me sick. How are we ever going to be a unified nation. We are coming apart with this idiotic Pierre Trudeau inspired Multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism = death by a thousand cuts.
Any society that loses it’s identity as a unified culture ceases to be a country.
But then … isn’t that what the new order the globalists are striving for. Not countries … just one big feudal state?
Close all mosques, deport that entire family and stop bringing these monsters into what’s left of our country.
Mr. Parvez named his daughter after the Dome of the Rock –> “al-Aqsa Mosque”.
Strange indeed that the house would have lights in celebration of “Eid of the Prophet Isa” –> “Festival of Jesus”
Aaron,
I want to read the father and brother have been convicted and sentenced to 25 years.
I also want to hear the Imman from their Mosque decrying this as an abomination of Islam.
The best thing that can happen is “Canadian Culture” in the form of arrest and prosecution. If the law, in terms of crimes and process, is the ultimate expression of our values,,,something I heard on CBC once, then we should express our culture, which includes abhorence at this.
As a father I cannot imagine how this could be done to a daughter, no matter the reason. But hey, thats my culture.
Throw the book at him and his son.
This is a cross post from the Macleans thread:
“Liz J asks, tongue in cheek, I presume;-) ‘We still have a backbone don’t we?’
“Canada seems to have lost its collective wit and cojones: we’re now, it seems, a nation of surrender monkeys. Our least responsible, least mature, and most intimidating inhabitants—though often styled as ‘victims’—are allowed to swagger around, boasting of their rights, while, both literally and figuratively, knocking the rest of us over. Of course, the rest of us are also supposed to take it meekly and keep our mouths shut.
“This has been building for the past 30 years: a few Canadians have had their finger on the pulse that whole time, e.g., people like the savvy lawyer, Gwen Landolt of REAL Women, who fought the Charter before it came into law. So, what’s happened to REAL Women? While still going strong, financially supported by its members, not government handouts, it’s been treated like a pariah. What’s happened re its predictions concerning our social, political, and judicial culture? REAL Women’s been 100% correct. (A voice crying in the wilderness.)
“Re the comments at the Globe and Mail being closed re the horrendous murder of the young Muslim girl: the comment sections of the MSM, like the CBC, Globe and Mail, Star, TVO, etc., have been almost permanently closed to REAL Women and any others who don’t toe the politically correct mentality of the gulag Canada’s fast becoming. Unless the direction we’re headed changes quite drastically and Canadians are allowed to exercise their rights to freedom of association and speech, I’m filled with dread.
“Kyrie eleison.”
One of the classmates of this poor girl comments on the barbarity:
“Sixteen-year-old girls worry about makeup and boys, not about surviving,” another classmate said. “It’s not right. She’s 16, damn it.”
Perhaps more people are waking up and will stop tolerating the intolerable?
On a past thread, zog commenting on the CIC complaint:
“Up to now, I’ve regarded the many suggestions on this site that Muslim immigration should be stopped as offensive bigotry. NO MORE. This crap is a clear warning of the growing Islamic threat to basic human rights in Canada.”
Indeed. Why should we import brutal, political barbarity masquerading as religion into our country? Is there a benefit, even just one?
The point is, yes, Muslims are or can be, more or less, people like anybody else. There are secularists and moderates, or the ‘nice’ muslims, who are nothing other than backsliders, or more appropriately verging on being apostates. And then there are the murderous, fascist 7th century savages, who are actually the good, pious muslims, according to their faith, texts and teachings.
There are various sects – sunni, shia, etc. And then sects within sects, ie Wahabiism, Khomeniism, etc.
But the thing that enjoins them all is the foundationally violent core of their ideology best expressed in their trilogy – the Quran, Hadiths (actions and sayings of Mo) and Sira (bio of Mo).
All Muslims, regardless of sect are commanded to and rewarded for perpetual violence against non-Muslims, until the world is for Allah, and Mo. They are also commanded to commit barbaric acts of violence in order to uphold the laws of shariah. Hence, stonings, honour killings, throwing gays off roofs, cutting off limbs and heads, lashings for victims of rape, etc.
I would like to know how the idiots in charge of immigration would have ever thought that simply by allowing muslims to immigrate here, that somehow they would adapt to our ways and give up their savagery and quest for world domination (in other words, political Islam)?
I don’t even think most of them still don’t have a clue.
When and where in history has that ever happened? Every country that has been conquered, or allowed muslims to immigrate is in the process of Islamic subjugation. Some more, some less – but it is progressive. Exactly like a virus. But then, Liberals somehow don’t believe that muslims are commanded to fight a perpetual war until their is no god but allah. Or, that they’ll carry out that command. Despite the fact they are doing exactly that, right in front of our faces. And yes, in Canada. The lawsuits, complaints, militant requests, rejection of western cultural standards, marches, protests, the endless number of official legal and cultural Islamic associations and entities popping up, all with ties to Wahabi Saudi money and terrorist groups – are more than enough proof.
The passive jihad is heating up.
As they feel more established and emboldened by their numbers, we’ll witness more, not less Islamic violence and intolerance.
Isn’t this swell?
Should this man be charged with a hate crime?
His actions seem much more in line with ‘hate’ than many of the ‘alleged’ (and confirmed as well!!) hate crimes I’ve read about in the past.
Johny Jesus,
Maybe there’s a violent reaction going on in North America. However, your implied contention that Christians are the victimizers is backwards.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/11/shooter.youth/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) — Matthew Murray wrote on an Internet message board of how he hated Christians between attacks on a mission center and church on Sunday, according to Denver-area media reports.
“You Christians brought this on yourselves,” Murray wrote at 11:03 a.m. on Sunday, CNN affiliate KUSA reported on its Web site.
“I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. …God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world,” the KUSA report quoted from the final posting.
The posting, under the user name “nghtmrchld26,” was made just a few hours after Murray killed two people at the Youth With a Mission Center in Arvada, Colorado, and a few hours before Murray killed two people at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. He later died in a shootout with a church security guard.
I don’t think it’s enough to charge and convict the father and/or brother. Yes, that should be done. [And by the way, the use of ‘alleged’ is legally required even when an individual himself acknowledges guilt; it has to remain until ‘proven’ in court.]
But focusing only on the individual father ignores the deeper situation where immigrant families are locked into their old identities and unable to reform and adapt to a modern culture.
Our multicultural policies, as operated by the Liberal governments, encourage group identities and encourage and enable homogeneity of these groups, isolation of these groups, and even, set these groups up as ‘mini-political entities’, with their own authoritarian leaders, who govern and rule that group relentlessly.
Why? Because the larger the group – the larger funding that mini-political entity receives from the govt. So, we’ve set up these immigrant groups to be locked into group identities. As I said, these groups then become political groups, with authoritarian leaders. These groups then become financial systems, who will help out new immigrants with loans, mortgages, etc where they can’t get them from the mainstream society. And, this transforms into group loyalty. It transforms into acceptance of the authority of these ethnic or religious leaders.
This group will fund its own schools, religious centres, loan and funding assistance.
So, we’ve set up a system where immigrants can’t get out of their old culture, can’t escape the strictures of the old regime, can’t integrate, can’t adapt.
Again, the leaders of these ethnic, religious groups will maintain tight control over their community. They want the numbers – to get the funding from the political govts (provincial).
And – they DO get funding. In return for bloc votes.
We must change how we deal with immigrants. Break the multicultural political mini-empires; end these isolate little ‘nations’ and their autocratic rulers. Focus on treating immigrants as families, not members of a group identity, and focus on enabling them to adapt.
Otherwise, we are doomed to more and more of these murders and violence, because we have set up a situation where the old culture is encouraged to be retained..and it will inevitably clash with the daily modern culture all around it.
No doubt–horrific for everyone involved and the father should face murder charges in the death of his daughter without bringing religion/culture into it.
However, I can’t help but think of those out there who have NO IDEA what a hijab is, what it means to Muslims and why many Muslim women CHOOSE to wear it. I would guess that this young girl was teased at school for wearing it and fell victim to “what looks cool” as stated by her peers/media.
Did she have the right to NOT wear the hijab? Under our laws, yes. Would she have CHOSEN to wear the hijab had peer pressure/media not played a part? We’ll never know because her father made that choice for her.
‘him’ – you have no proof that this girl didn’t want to wear the hijab because of peer pressure at school. In her school, the stronger possibility is that there were/are many girls who ARE wearing the hijab. And without peer pressure to take it off.
The problem is in the conflict within her family, and there is a deeper conflict within our multicultural policies that have set up immigrant groups within mini-political entities, with their own authoritarian leaders, financial assistance, loyalties etc. They are trapped within these ‘identity groups’ and their politics.
Canada has to end this multicultural policy and enable immigrants to integrate rather than be beholden to the authoritarian ‘rulers’ of their ethnic/religious groups.
Posted by: john at December 11, 2007 12:06 PM
I know what it means. The CBC just went out of it’s way to use it over and over again. Not to mention the soft quotes about the girl ‘kind of wanting’ to do her own thing. And how many of us here don’t live on normally quiet, peaceful streets.
Overall, it was a nice, short sweet story from the CBC that just happened to involve a Muslim father killing his daughter.
“Overall, it was a nice, short sweet story from the CBC that just happened to involve a Muslim father killing his daughter…”
…Allegedly. See? You don’t know how to use it. Most bloggers don’t.
From ET’s comment: “And by the way, the use of ‘alleged’ is legally required even when an individual himself acknowledges guilt; it has to remain until ‘proven’ in court.”
I still want them deported. It’s taquiya, dammit, whatever they say to the infidels is a lie.
How can you not get it: there is no negotiation with muslim, they are not talking to non-muslim in order to reach consensus – if they are talking, it is in order to achieve global caliphate.
Try them and if convicted – out they go!
Kate said, “In addition to murder charges, this case demands to be prosecuted as a hate crime.”
Kate, Kate, Kate, you should know that only WHITES can commit hate crimes. This victim of racist, WHITE, European oppression protected his daughter from succumbing further to the evil ways of WHITE European racism.
Even “him” can see that the daughter was a victim of WHITE European teasing and bullying; he can actually “guess” that she was teased into not wearing the blessed hijab. “him” obviously does not give her any credit for making up her own mind (as if her behavior did not express what she thought about wearing a hijab). But that is because she was a victim of evil WHITE teasing.
alledged that this will not be plot line for “little mosque on the prairie”
I don’t get it. I’m pretty sure that Little Mosque on the Prairie made it out that only non-Muslims are uptight about the hijab.
I heard this on CHUM FM this morning as I laid there trying not to get up. At 7:30 she was “not expected to recover”, so I guess they were right.
After throwing this child killer into the deepest, darkest hole available for the maximum time allowed under our present, idiot legislation, would it be too much to ask that if he still lives he be DEPORTED back to whatever crap-hole spawned him?
Incidentally for all you moral relativists out there, it is impossible to “leave Islam out of it” in this case. Islam is the motivation for the crime. It would be like leaving money out of a robbery.
The sob confessed to police that he did it, he should have been taken out to the street and given a lead injection behind one ear.
ET,
I guess where I am coming from is a similar place. Our laws shouldnt be adapted to accomodate religous or cultural practices that are against “the law”
To me, prosecuting him in the dispassionate manner that seperates all of the cultural and religous issues out is what finally puts the spike in this.
You mention religous lending institutions, on one level it is a different product, the danger comes in do you change your regulatory oversight to accomodate? Or do you say these are the boundries into which things must fit so that regulatory equality can be maintained.
I agree with you that if you can just setup all the comforts of the home country here, laws, lending, etc then why are you here? Unless it is to ultimately have your laws etc…..to be cheeky thats what the Europeans were up to 400 years ago 🙂
I think it is a triumph of our “culture” if they are prosecuted under existing laws in existing evidence and get an exosting punishment with no reference to cultural exceptions.
Related:
The Secretary General Addresses the Opening of the International Conference on Islamophobia, Istanbul, December 08, 2007
“Prof. Ihsanoglu mentioned that causes of Islamophobia are many and rooted in historical animosity, and currently it is the principle of freedom of expression that is being used as a cover to foment the phenomenon in the West, although many international and national legal instruments do not allow incitement to religious hatred. He also advocated the importance of moral and ethical responsibility in practicing democracy.”
So Prof. Ihsanoglu considers that freedom of expression is being used as a “cover” for Islamophobia.
“The Secretary General stressed that dialogue initiatives should propose a specific path and have a well-defined ultimate goal. He welcomed the dialogue calls from some Western countries but requested that those countries should undertake a preliminary internal or domestic dialogue among the different trends in their own societies to clarify their stands.”
Presumably Prof. Ihsanoglu means that the other countries of the West should emulate the EU in their approach to the principle formerly known as “freedom of speech”. The EU, as you may recall, has put together the framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia, which lines up nicely with what the OIC is calling for:
– – – – – – – – –
Racism and xenophobia will mean belief in race colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin as a factor determining aversion to individuals.
Certain forms of conduct outlined below committed for a racist or xenophobic purpose will be punishable as criminal offences:
public incitement to violence or hatred;
public insults or threats;
public condoning of genocide or crimes against humanity as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court;
public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material containing expressions of racism and xenophobia;
directing of a racist or xenophobic group (by “group” is meant a structured organisation consisting of at least two persons established for a specific period). [emphasis added]
“He expressed his firm conviction that what unites Islam and Christianity outweighs what keeps them apart based on their common beliefs and common ancestry and that it was on this premise that he had frequently called for a “Historic Reconciliation” between Islam and Christianity.”
Reconciliation? They deny the divinity of Christ, placing Mohammad above him as the ‘seal of the prophets’ (which is also ludicrous, given that he cannot be a prophet in the line of Judeo/Christian belief, he’s an arab). Their cobbled together abomination of a cult is based on the teachings and actions of Mohammad – a known pedophile, mass-murderer and thief. There is nothing even slightly similar between Christianity and Islam. They are diametrically opposed.
There are no common beliefs, or common ancestry between them. None. Christianity has at least one thing in common with most other religions – most of them observe the golden rule. Unlike Islam.
Say Matt, what are the chances this girl caught more grief from the other kids at school for NOT wearing the outfit? Half the kids in Mississauga schools are Muslim, aren’t they?
So the father and brother aren’t just allegedly murderers, they need to brush up on their Islam. From the Muslim Canadian Congress, 18 April 2007, an op-ed piece from the Globe and Mail:
Muslims are not required to cover up
All Canadian women have, at some time in their lives, chosen to wear a head cover. In blinding snow storms or freezing rain, the covering of the head, irrespective of what religion one practises, is crucial to one’s survival. Halfway across the world, in the deserts of Arabia, whether one was a Muslim or a pagan, the covering of one’s head and face was an absolute necessity — not just when facing a blistering sandstorm, but any time one stepped out of the home in the searing sun. What was essentially attire for a particular climate and weather has been turned into a modern symbol of defiance and, at best, a show of piety by Islamists and orthodox Muslims.
There is not a single reference in the Koran that obliges Muslim women to cover their hair or their face. The only verse that comes close to such a dress code (Sura 24, “The Light,” verse 31) directs believing women to let their head coverings obscure their bosoms.
Yet, in the past few decades, Islamists and orthodox Muslims have made the covering of a woman’s head the cornerstone of Muslim identity. The head cover been pushed as a symbol of piety and only the Egyptian and Saudi version of the head cover — the hijab — is considered worthy of respect. Coverings that originate in South Asia, the sari or the dupatta, have been relegated as less authentic under Islam….
Throw the guy in the clink and let him do maximum hard time. Muslims have to know that, in Canada, Canadian justice supersedes Islam. Which brings up the wider point I would make: if this poor girl’s father isn’t dealt with justly then we can expect to see more Islam-justifiable murder, particularly so if he gets off lightly due to religious considerations of some sort.