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Canada: “Honor Killing” Investigated in Death of Three Montreal Sisters

“Family charged in possible honour killings of Montreal women in Kingston”
Montreal Gazette reports: “Kingston police have confirmed the parents of three young sisters from St. Leonard found dead last month inside a car submerged in the Rideau Canal are suspects in their murders.”
— “The parents and one of their sons will face four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder. The conspiracy charges allege the plot to kill the women dates back to May 1.”
— “Zainab Shafia, 19, and her two sisters Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, were found dead inside a car submerged in three feet of water northeast of Kingston on June 30. Rona Amir Mohammed, 52, was also found dead in the car.
— “Police confirmed that Rona Amir Mohammed was married to Mohammed Shafia, the girls’ father. Shafia is also married to Tooba Mohamad Yahya, one of the three murder suspects. Both marriages are believed to have taken place in Afghanistan.”
— “The Kingston police would not comment on the motive behind the four homicides and have refused to speculate on whether the women were killed as part of an honour killing.”

Kingston Whig Standard: “An honour killing?”
— “Ali Shafi, a 15-year-old brother of the dead girls, told the Whig-Standard in an interview July 8 that Rona Mohammed was his aunt.”
— “‘For some time, my sister, as well as the Shafi couple’s oldest daughter, Zainab, had been receiving death threats for social, cultural and family reasons,’ Masoomi’s e-mail to Kingston Police states.”
— “In an interview through translation, Masoomi, who does not speak English or French, explained that Rona Mohammed has stayed in regular contact with relatives in Europe, and has told them she feared for her life.”
— “‘She was really afraid,’ Masoomi told the Whig-Standard, through her daughter, Elaha Masoomi. ‘There were death threats.'”

Canwest News: “Parents, brother charged in Kingston canal car deaths”
Ottawa Citizen report

Phyllis Chesler: “Kingston Police Call It A ‘Muslim Honor Killing.'”
— “If the police are right, this is the fifth known honor killing in Canada since 1999 and it brings the death toll to nine victims”

IPT News: Honor Killing Suspected in Deaths of 3 Canadian Sisters

“‘Honour killings’ of females on rise in Canada: Expert”
— “Up to a dozen have died for the same reason in Canada in the last decade, and it’s happening more often, says Amin Muhammad, a psychiatrist who studies honour killings at Memorial University in Newfoundland.”
— “‘There are a number of organizations which don’t accept the idea of honour killing; they say it’s a Western-propagated myth by the media, but it’s not true,’ he says. ‘Honour killing is there, and we should acknowledge it, and Canada should take it seriously.'”
— also Ottawa Citizen report