A court in Kingston, Ontario has convicted an Afghan immigrant, his wife, and son of first degree murder for the deaths of his first wife (it was a polygamous marriage) and his three daughters (aged 19, 17, and 13), apparently because they disapproved of the behavior of the daughters and felt that his first wife was secretly condoning their actions. All three were sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years.
What were the daughters doing that merited them being called ‘whores’ by their father and resulted in them being the victims of the barbarous practice known as ‘honor killing’? The accused “admitted on the stand that they were upset with Zainab for running off to marry a Pakistani man they hated, that Sahar wore revealing clothes and had secret boyfriends, and Geeti was failing in school and calling social workers to get her out of a home in turmoil.”
It is a horrible story. The most ugly versions of religions seem to be tightly correlated with the degree of oppression of women.
Just 25 years? I would lock them forever in a dark, damp dungeon cell and throw the key to the sea. Freakin’ monsters.
Nightmare, isn’t it.
I think it is time for the freethought community to start talking about these atrocities and not be deterred by accusations of “islamophobia”. We need more people like Maryam Namazie.
Upright Ape, the freethought community does talk about these things. Quite regularly. Various blogs talked about this incident when it happened (which was before FtB), and all sorts of other horrific things.
Mr.Kosta, that’s 25 years before they could possibly have a chance at parole, not certain release after 25 years. Still, the sentence could certainly have been stiffer.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1123259--guilty-jury-finds-shafia-family-members-guilty-of-first-degree-murder?bn=1
For a quick recap of the case. Sadly, the defense also used the ‘culture’ card, saying that the horrifying statements of the accused shouldn’t be taken at face value, since their culture was ‘different’. Murder is murder, and statements expressing such hatred should never be excused by anything as malleable as differences in culture.
Further to comment #4, and just so you know, 25 years with no possibility of parole is the toughest sentence you can get under the Criminal Code of Canada. I doubt that any of these three will ever walk free again. Short of hanging (which we don’t do anymore) I can’t see how a stiffer sentence could have been given.
It is well deserved, in any case.
No. The sentence is life, as in “for the rest of your”. Twenty five years is the point at which there is a possibility of parole.
If these were sufficient for court evidence, isn’t this case also a failure on some level of the Canadian authorities to prevent the murders of the women?
Mr.Kosta and F… In the Canadian justice system, life imprisonment = 25 years.
Under our system, AFAIR, a “life” inmate may request parole or a reduction of sentence after about 15 yrs. but recall that saying about a snowball in hell.
So… it is pretty likely that the father and wife won’t get to see the outside ever again. The son…. long shot.
It’s a little confusing. The wiretaps were put in place *after* the murder (after initial questioning, police let the remaining family members go and tapped their car). The conversations referred to plotting and events that occurred before.
But yes, unfortunately, there was more that could have been done. At least two of the girls had requested help from school staff and social workers, and Zainab, the eldest, had run away to a women’s shelter and gotten married in attempts to escape from her family home. There hasn’t been a lot of focus on that aspect of the tragedy.
The faint hope clause was repealed by the HarperCons last year (though because these murders took place in 2009, it still applies in this particular case).