Honor killing in Canada: Aqsa Parvez was murdered for refusing to wear the Islamic hijab — not that this has anything to do with Islam, of course! An update on this story. “Father, son get life terms in Aqsa Parvez slaying,” from CBC News, June 16 (thanks to Michael):
Aqsa Parvez’s father and her brother have been sentenced to life in prison after pleading to killing the 16-year-old in their Mississauga, Ont., home.
The sentence was handed down Wednesday in court in Brampton, near the home where the teen was strangled by Muhammad Parvez and his son, Waqas, in December 2007.
On Tuesday, the pair pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
An agreed statement of facts released in court revealed that when Aqsa entered her teen years, she began rebelling against her father’s rules, including his insistence that she wear traditional Muslim clothing.
“She was experiencing conflict at home over cultural differences between living in Canada and back [in Pakistan],” the statement said.
Religious differences.
Aqsa was in almost constant disagreement with her father and her seven older siblings.
She told her father she did not wish to wear the hijab, wanting instead to dress in Western clothes with the same freedoms as the other girls in her high school.
‘Freedom restricted’
The statement revealed that Aqsa “did not have a door on her bedroom, her freedom to talk on the phone with friends was restricted, she was required to come straight home from school and expected to spend her evenings and weekends at home.”
In September 2007, Aqsa told a counsellor at Applewood Heights Secondary School in Mississauga “that she was afraid her father wanted to kill her.”
The school made arrangements for Aqsa to stay at a shelter, but she stayed only three days. Soon after, she was permitted to wear non-traditional clothes to school but the conflicts within the family continued.
Aqsa later spent time living with friends, but during that time her father and other members of her family asked her to return home.
On Dec. 10, 2007, Aqsa was taken from the school bus stop by her brother at approximately 7:20 a.m. Just 36 minutes later, her father called 911 and told police he had “killed his daughter.”…
Peel Regional Police took Muhammad Parvez into custody and charged him with murder. But it was Waqsa Parvez who actually killed Aqsa, according to the statement of facts.
Waqas Parvez, 26, was charged on June 26, 2008. His DNA was found beneath his sister’s fingernails.