Honour killings, IV

Ayaan Hirsi Ali weighs in on the Shafia case:

Horrific details of an alleged mass honour killing emerged in a crowded Ontario courtroom last week: Three young sisters and their polygamous father's first wife were murdered in the name of religious purity, according to the Crown prosecutor: A staged car accident, plotted and executed, allegedly by the father, mother and brother of 19-year-old Zainab, 17-year-old Sahar, and 13-year-old Gheeti Shafia, whose reportedly brazen refusal to comply with the traditions imposed on Afghan females so polluted the family's honour that only death could remove its taint. In the chilling words of the girls' father, Mohammad Shafia, "They betrayed Islam" by consorting with boys, posing seductively for cell phone photographs, and refusing to wear the hijab. "God's curse on them for generations. May the devil (expletive) on their graves. Is that what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?"....

If anything can be taken from the untimely death of the four Shafia women, it is this: honour violence is happening in North America and our institutions need to quickly educate themselves to be able to properly respond to save lives. These girls embrace our culture and expect that we will protect them from the savagery they left behind in their homes countries -- we owe it to them to do no less.