Murder In the Name of Family Honor

As many as 5,000 women and girls lose their lives -- most at the hands of family members -- in "honour killings" around the world each year, according to the United Nations. Up to a dozen have died for the same reason in Canada in the last decade, and it's happening more often.


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. Honour killing is there, and we should acknowledge it, and Canada should take it seriously.


Kingston, Ont., police are now investigating that as a motive in the deaths of three teenage sisters and an older female relative who were found in a car submerged in the Rideau Canal in Kingston on June 30. The girls' mother, father and brother were arrested on Wednesday and charged with first-degree murder.


The suspicious circumstances that led to a car, carrying the bodies of three sisters and their father's first wife, being submerged in the Rideau Canal began to unravel on Thursday, amid allegations of an unfathomable scenario where the girls' parents and brother conspired in a premeditated murder. The small detail in the indictment added yet another twist in a tragic story that appears to border on the bizarre -- including tearful displays of mourning by those who are now accused of murder, allegations from relatives that it may all have been over honour, and a revelation that the adult initially described as a cousin was actually a first wife.


In our Canadian society, we value the cultural values of everyone that makes up this great country, and some of us have different core beliefs, different family values, different sets of rules. Certainly, these individuals -- in particular, the three teenagers -- were Canadian teenagers who have all the freedom and rights of expression of all Canadians.


Honour killings can be sparked by a woman talking to a man, having a boyfriend, wearing makeup or revealing clothing. Children of immigrants who grow up inwestern nations take those freedoms for granted, which can throw them into conflict with their parents' rigid standards.


When people are moving to another country, they leave everything they have, all their possessions, behind. But what they can bring with them is what they believe, their culture, their traditions, their religion. Unfortunately, they are choosing to show the worst part of that, and the worst and criminal part of that is controlling women.


One of the earliest honour killings involving a Canadian occurred in 2000, when Maple Ridge, B.C., resident Jaswinder Sidhu was murdered in India in what police called a contract killing, after she married a man she met while travelling.


In 2003, Amandeep Atwal, 17, died after her father stabbed her 17 times. The Kitimat, B.C., teen had been secretly seeing a boyfriend.


Sixteen-year-old Aqsa Parvez's father and brother are currently awaiting trial for her strangulation death in 2007, and friends said the Brampton, Ont., teen had been clashing with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab.


In May, an Ottawa man was sentenced to life in prison for killing his sister, Khatera Sadiqi, 20, and her fiance.


There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture.

Men occasionally die in honour killings, but young women are almost always the victims in western countries. Honour killing is most prevalent in nations with large Muslim populations. Some perpetrators use religion as a "cloak," but honour killing is about patriarchy, not religion. A few women are really sacrificed to terrorize all women, to push them into submission, where they are not in the position to defend themselves or even their daughters or sisters.


It's wrong-headed to blame particular cultures or further stereotype the Middle East, but Canada cannot overlook the motivation for these heinous crimes. In Canada, we have been extremely culturally sensitive, and that's a good thing, but in this particular case, we may have pushed the pendulum a little to the other side, in the sense that there are cultural components in these types of crimes which we cannot ignore.




Til later

Ah Houston?...we have a BIG PROBLEM!

Is it just me or is travel on the space shuttle loosing it's appeal. I really believe it is time to retire those cigar tubes on steroids. With all the O rings, and broken tiles, bad foam jobs etc. I wouldn't be caught dead riding around in that old thing.

Even as the shuttle Endeavour lifted off into orbit Wednesday evening, several pieces of debris fell off the external fuel tank, and at least one hit the orbiter. Astronauts in space and engineers on the ground will spend the next few days examining and analyzing the damage to see if it might pose a danger to the shuttle on re-entry.

The launching had been delayed five times by hydrogen leaks, schedule conflicts, lightning strikes and rain. That was one short of NASA's record for the number of delays. Two previous missions, in 1986 and 1995, were delayed six times before launching on the seventh try. “Persistence pays off,” Peter Nickolenko, the launching director, said to crew members a few minutes before launching. “Good luck and Godspeed.” Or...good luck everyone, you're gonna need it!

A camera on the external tank captured about a dozen pieces of debris falling off the external tank. At least one, coming off about 1 minute 46 seconds after liftoff, hit the orbiter, leaving three marks on the heat-resistant tiles on the underside.

“We don’t consider those an issue for us,” William H. Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for space operations, said. Maybe not for him....he's not in the tin can!! “The issues will be in the back of the vehicle.” O.k. make sure you ride upfront another words....yikes!


Now every woman's nightmare - The bathroom lines at the already crowded space shuttle and space station complex got a lot longer Sunday because of a flooded toilet. I don't even want to imagine what that looks like in a weightless atmosphere.


One of two commodes aboard the international space station malfunctioned, right in the middle of complicated robotic work being conducted by the two crews. The pump separator apparently flooded. Mission Control advised the astronauts to hang an "out of service" sign on the toilet until it could be fixed. In the meantime, the six space station residents had to get in line to use their one good toilet. And Endeavour's seven astronauts were restricted to the shuttle bathroom. There have never been so many people -- 13 -- together in space. The toilet repair work fell to Belgian Frank De Winne, who had to don goggles, gloves and a mask. O.K.....YUK.


Flight director Brian Smith declined to speculate whether overuse caused the toilet trouble. "We don't yet know the extent of the problem," Smith told reporters. "It may turn out to be of no consequence at all. It could turn out to be significant. It's too early to tell right now."

Easy for him to say, he's down on earth with approximately 5 trillion john's to choose from.

How can you tell that these things were designed by men. If women had any say in the matter, there would be one men's toilet - consisting of one stall and some sort of "sucky kind of urinal thingy" -or maybe a hose of some type, and 6 stalls for the women with dim lighting, potpourri, candles and lots of soft tissue.

NASA said there is no urgency to the bathroom situation, at least for now. But he said if the toilet remains out of action for several days, "then we'll readdress the situation and see what we have to do." Typical male attitude. What man ever wants to work on the bathroom and we women really want it done! Two bathrooms ultimately are needed for a full station crew of six. Smith said he did not know how long six occupants could rely on a single toilet. Both the shuttle and station are equipped with other ways for the astronauts to relieve themselves, Smith said, including Apollo-era urine collection bags. O.K.....enough! Getting bad mental images here.

Time to go back to the drawing board and re-group thinks me....never EVER - saw these problems afflicting Captain Kathryn Janeway. She's got her own on-suite. Call me when I can look that good in space.




Til later