Why are Muslim women living ‘in fear’ in this Canadian city?

 

Dunia Nur was out buying paint when it happened. The community organiser in Edmonton, Alberta was speaking Somali to her aunt on the phone when a man at the shop aggressively told her to “speak English”. When she tried to get out of the situation, he blocked her path.

“He was offended at the fact that I was speaking my language,” Nur, a Somali Canadian and the president and co-founder of the African Canadian Civil Engagement Council, told Al Jazeera. “I tried to move and then he blocked me.”

While the recent incident did not escalate further, Nur said it left her feeling unsafe, especially as it took place shortly after a Muslim family was run down by a driver in London, Ontario in a deadly attack that police said was spurred by anti-Muslim hate.

It also came amid a string of verbal and physical attacks against predominantly Black Muslim women in and around Edmonton since late last year – a reality that Nur said has left many members of the community feeling afraid to leave their homes.

In late June, two sisters, Muslim women who wear hijabs, were attacked by a knife-wielding man who hurled racial slurs at them on a path just outside the city. In other instances, Muslim women have been knocked to the ground while out on a walk or threatened while waiting for public transit.


The city says Edmonton police have received reports of five incidents involving Black women wearing hijabs since December 8, 2020, and the police force’s hate crime unit arrested and laid charges against a suspect in each case.

But Muslim community advocates say incidents often go unreported. “We had a town hall meeting where many women came out and actually stated that they have previously been attacked with knives, they have been told to go back to their homes, they have experienced a lot of gender-based violence and hate-motivated crimes – it just went unreported,” Nur said.

“Muslim Black women are being attacked and they are being attacked because of anti-Black racism and they’re being attacked because of Islamophobi[c] rhetoric and they are being attacked because they are women… I feel like right now we’re at a point that we’re not sure what’s going to happen to us when we go outside.”


The capital of the western Canadian province of Alberta, Edmonton was home to just more than 972,000 residents in 2019, according to a municipal household survey.

In an email to Al Jazeera, Mayor Don Iveson’s office said some Edmontonians “have not gotten the message that racist and bigoted behavior is not welcomed in our city”.

“There are systemic and long-term contributing factors to that, there are also issues of specific prejudice in the hearts and minds of [Edmontonians] who ought to know better – and there are far too many of those people that have been given license, in a variety of different ways, to spew their hatred in this community. And I, like most Edmontonians, want it to stop. Now,” the statement said.

Iveson said Edmonton city council supports calls to strengthen hate laws in Canada and has provided financial assistance to bolster initiatives to address hate and violence, including a task force to provide advice on how to make the community feel safe.

“The City, the Edmonton Police Service, and the Edmonton Police Commission have responded with a work plan outlining 70 different actions that are responding to the issues identified. A more comprehensive strategy will be coming forward in early 2022,” the statement said.

The city council also passed a motion earlier this month directing Edmonton to further engage with Black, Indigenous and other communities of colour to address harassment and violence.

The motion also orders the mayor to write to the federal government “requesting a review and potentially update the current definition of hate crime” for any racial, gender or cultural gaps or biases, the city said.

But despite these measures, activist Wati Rahmat told Al Jazeera that “Muslim women are in fear” in Edmonton.

“I have had friends who have conversations about whether they should be changing the way they wear the hijab, or take off the hijab, or go out with a friend, or not go out,” said Rahmat, who founded Sisters Dialogue, a Muslim women-led initiative, in response to the attacks. The group is currently working on a safe-walk service to offer accompaniment to Muslim women who do not feel safe going out by themselves.

The demands for more support in Edmonton come amid growing, Canada-wide calls for the federal government to implement an action plan to stem Islamophobia, as advocates say systemic racism and far-right bigotry increase the risks of violence.

For many, the June attack in London, Ontario – as well as a deadly 2017 shooting at a Quebec City mosque and a fatal stabbing last year outside a mosque in Toronto’s west end – show just how deadly the problem can be.

Members of the Muslim community and supporters gather for a vigil after a deadly attack in London, Ontario, killed four members of a Muslim family in June [File: Ian Willms/Getty Images via AFP]
“I don’t think it’s right for women to have to fear going out,” Rahmat said.

Some Muslim advocacy groups, including the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), have also called for street harassment laws to be bolstered, as most of the recent attacks on Muslim women in Alberta have taken place in public.

Fatema Abdalla, NCCM’s communications coordinator, said at least 15 attacks on Muslim women were reported in the cities of Edmonton and Calgary over the past six months.

“These women were either on their daily walks or they were at a park or an LRT [light-rail transit] station or some form of a transit station,” Abdalla told Al Jazeera, adding that NCCM receives calls nearly every week about verbal abuse targeting Muslim community members across the country.

“It’s instances like these that we need to prevent from happening so that they no longer lead to such devastating attacks as the one that we have seen in London, Ontario,” she said.


In the meantime, Muslim community leaders are taking steps to try to stem the violence on their own. Noor al-Henedy is director of communications at Edmonton’s Al Rashid Mosque, which organised self-defence courses for Muslim women this year.

While the community felt it was necessary to provide women with concrete tools to get out of a bad situation – and the courses drew overwhelming interest – al-Henedy said they also reflect an upsetting reality.

“It’s very sad and disappointing to be honest with you and I think it makes some people a little bit angry that we do have to do this, that we have to resort to these measures,” al-Henedy told Al Jazeera in an interview in March.

“We worry about the future generation; we worry about our daughters,” she added. “When a 15-year-old comes and tells you that she’s too afraid to cross the street, walking from school to home, that’s extremely concerning. It’s heartbreaking.”


Nur at the African Canadian Civil Engagement Council said the organisation is also working on offering psychological support, as well as information for Muslim women to know what to do if they are attacked, including how and to whom to report an incident of violence.

She called for international organisations such as the United Nations to push Canada to take action to urgently respond to the situation in Edmonton.

“We need international attention and solidarity because we can’t do this on our own and our public officials are failing us. We need international help and intervention,” Nur said. “We’re not okay. We really are not okay.”

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From India, Islamophobia Goes Global

In the West, the BJP’s brand of Islamophobia has found an eager partner among the far-right, as recent developments in famously multicultural Canada demonstrateIn the West, the BJP’s brand of Islamophobia has found an eager partner among the far-right, as recent developments in famously multicultural Canada demonstrate. In April, city councils across Canada voted to allow the Islamic call to prayer, the azan, to be broadcasted for a few minutes a day during the holy month of Ramadan. The government hoped to foster a sense of inclusion as mosques and other places of worship were closed for the COVID-19 lockdown. The decision elicited a major backlash, including mass petitions and online hate, with the far-right suggesting “Islamism” had infiltrated Canadian society and politics.

Some members of Canada’s Indian diaspora echoed such sentiments, tweeting comments about how the prayer call broadcasts are part of an Islamist “strategical campaign through out the world” or that “blaring loudspeakers” can never be “peaceful.” Several of the tweeters have quietly lost their jobs since then, amid pressure from anti-hate groups.

But few cases have garnered much attention. The exception is that of Ravi Hooda, who sat on a regional school board in the Toronto area and tweeted that allowing the prayer calls to be broadcast opens the door for “Separate lanes for camel & goat riders” or laws “requiring all women to cover themselves from head to toe in tents.” When Hooda’s tweet was called out by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a Twitter war ensued. Dozens of pro-Indian accounts, often with usernames containing an eight-digit string of numbers—a common indicator of a bot account—came to Hooda’s defense. A local controversy instantly took on an international character.

Hooda, for his part, is a volunteer for the local branch of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, which represents the overseas interests of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization that promotes the Hindutva (literally, “Hindu-ness”) ideology that India is a purely Hindu nation at its core. Modi himself is a lifelong RSS member, and a majority of his ministers have a background in the organization. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh opened its first chapter in 1947, in Kenya, and today has more than 500 branches in 39 countries. The group’s chapters are called shakhas (branches) and, in addition to offering community services, help organize the diaspora through lectures, camps, and other organizational sessions that are aligned with the RSS’s ideological outlook.

The spread of right-wing Hindu nationalism in Canada has allegedly dovetailed with efforts by Indian intelligence agencies to “covertly influence” Canadian politicians to support Indian government positions through disinformation and money, according to documents obtained by Global News. There’s no proof of how successful this lobbying has been, but it’s clear that New Delhi is stretching its global reach at the same time that the BJP’s rhetoric and actions have politicized a new generation of Indian expats.

A glimpse of this global reach was provided by the EU DisinfoLab last fall in a report detailing a network of over 260 pro-India “fake local media outlets” spanning 65 countries, including throughout the West. The media organizations bear the names of local towns and cities, but none of them has any real connection with the localities they purport to represent, and all feature pro-India and anti-Pakistan content. Every news site was registered by the Srivastava Group, an Indian corporation that last year took right-wing European politicians on a trip to Kashmir, where they met with Modi.

Such reach can also be seen in the efforts of Indian expats and Indian Americans in the United States who organized last fall’s “Howdy, Modi!” event in Houston attended by 50,000 people, including U.S. President Donald Trump and other Republican and Democratic politicians. Indian American volunteers did the heavy lifting and funded the event, which turned a meeting between heads of state into a public spectacle. The event was meant to cement Trump-Modi relations as well as to rally the U.S.-based diaspora around the BJP, thus bolstering the prime minister’s popularity back home.

An organized, RSS-minded, pro-BJP diaspora in the West and beyond would obviously be a great asset for Modi’s government.An organized, RSS-minded, pro-BJP diaspora in the West and beyond would obviously be a great asset for Modi’s government. Elected officials would think twice before criticizing India, already a rising and influential power, for fear of angering their constituents. There are already hints that such calculations are being made by leaders. After an anti-Muslim pogrom broke out in Delhi in February, resulting in more than 50 deaths—the worst sectarian violence India has seen in years—Canada kept almost silent. While speaking to his Indian counterpart after the riots, the Canadian foreign minister offered a note of vague concern, roundly criticized in Canadian media. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made no statement, and the four Indian Canadian members of Trudeau’s Liberal caucus showed a similar reluctance to comment, drawing criticism from community organizations.

Similarly, foreign governments remained largely silent last summer when Modi stripped Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and placed it under a brutal military lockdown. This had observers wondering whether “Hindutva-inspired lobbies in the West,” as the researcher Fareeha Shamim labeled them, succeeded in their goals of building global influence from the ground up. Liberal politicians now hold an uncomfortable position, reluctant to criticize Modi lest they be attacked by his supporters in the diaspora.

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‘It shut all my doors’: how a Quebec law banning religious symbols derails women’s careers

Nour Farhat always dreamed of becoming a Crown prosecutor.

At 28, she is a newly minted lawyer with a master’s specialization in criminal law.

As a young woman of colour, her presence in Quebec courtrooms caught the attention of judges, other attorneys, even defendants – all of whom, she said, were happy to catch a glimpse of a rare non-white lawyer.

“In Montreal, they say that a third of people come from somewhere else, and you really see it in court. There’s a lot of black people, Arab people, Hispanics, and they were so happy to see me,” she said. After a year articling with the Quebec vehicle licensing bureau Farhat was hopeful for the future.

But the Quebec government dashed those dreams in June when it passed Bill 21, a controversial secularism law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols by certain public-sector employees. Farhat wears a hijab, a non-negotiable item of clothing and expression of her Muslim faith.

“It really shut all my doors,” Farhat said of the law. “Five months ago I would have told you ‘I’m a future Crown attorney.’ I was so sure of my path. And now I’m like, OK maybe I’ll become an expert in insurance law?”

Farhat is just one of thousands of people whose careers have been derailed by Bill 21, which was rammed into law at 4am on a Sunday in June, after 16 hours of debate. She is watching closely as mounting legal challenges take on the discriminatory and possibly unconstitutional law.

The latest was filed last month by one of the province’s biggest school boards. Another challenge, also launched on a teacher’s behalf, is due back in court at the end of November. The law disproportionately affects the province’s education sector, where 74.5% of teachers are women.

 The law doesn’t touch [most Quebecers] one bit, but for me, it has disastrous consequences on my whole life

Bill 21 came after a protracted debate in Quebec over minorities’ rights to religious accommodations. The law prohibits people in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols at work, including police officers, lawyers, judges and teachers. Other public workers such as bus drivers, doctors and social workers must only keep their faces uncovered.

To further complicate matters, some established workers have been grandfathered into an exception clause that allows them to keep their religious garments and their jobs – as long as they don’t get promoted, switch to a different employer or move to another city.

The legislation doesn’t name specific religious symbols, and theoretically all symbols – kippahs, turbans, crosses – are equally prohibited. However, because the law specifically mentions face coverings, and because of longstanding and effervescent anti-Islam sentiment in the province, many Québécois agree the main targets are Muslim women.

The bill was passed against a backdrop of growing anti-Muslim violence in the province. In 2017, six Muslims were killed and 19 were injured in a Quebec City mosque shooting. In Montreal, police figures show 58% of hate crimes in 2018 involved Muslim victims. Muslims represent about 3% of the province’s population.

Since publishing an open letter against Bill 21 last April, Farhat routinely receives Islamophobic screeds by defenders of the legislation. But she is determined not to be silenced. “I have a voice. I will use it, especially when my own government doesn’t want me to,” she said.

Amrit Kaur, the vice-president of the World Sikh Organization, receives her share of hate mail, too. The 28-year-old recent graduate is a vocal opponent of Bill 21: she would have been a Quebec schoolteacher this year had she been allowed to continue wearing her turban.

Instead, Kaur reluctantly packed up her things and moved across the country to Vancouver BC, to accept a teaching position. “I had no choice. I think at this point in my life, I need job security,” she said.

Kaur argued that the law reflects a profound lack of understanding about religions like Islam and Sikhism.

“Keeping your faith hidden is very much a Protestant way of doing things,” Kaur said. “You need to understand that my faith, and the way I practice, doesn’t work like that. And you don’t have to be OK with it. You just have to accept that I have that right to live my life the way I want to live my life.”

Although not all Sikh women – or men – wear turbans, Kaur says that it was her personal choice to do so. “I had pressure from people saying, ‘Don’t try it, people are going to racist towards you.’ But I’m going to live my truth.”

Among the province’s chief justifications for the law is that it improves gender equality by freeing women from the constraints of oppressive religions. Critics say it targets women from religious and ethnic minorities who are already well-integrated into society, and damages their ability to earn a living and gain economic independence.

“Muslim women with government jobs – you don’t get more integrated than that. They speak French unless they’re teaching at an English school, they’re part of a union. They’re complying with all the rules and regulations,” said Robert Leckey, the dean of McGill University’s law faculty, who also suggested that those affected could demand compensation in court.

For someone like Farhat, who is just starting her career, the damages are near incalculable. She regularly questions whether she can stay and raise a future family at home in Montreal. “The law doesn’t touch [most Québécois] one bit, but for me, it has disastrous consequences on my whole life,” she said.

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Quebec City mosque shooter 'not a monster' say parents

The parents of the 28-year-old man who opened fire on worshippers in a Quebec City mosque, killing six men and injuring more than a dozen others, have blamed years of bullying and intimidation for their son’s actions, saying he is not a “monster.”
After pleading guilty to six counts of first degree murder in March, Alexandre Bissonnette is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole for up to 150 years.
As sentencing arguments wrapped up on Thursday, Raymond Bissonnette and Manon Marchand spoke publicly for the first time since the shooting, expressing their sympathy to the victims and lashing out at the crown prosecutor for minimising the relentless bullying Bissonnette suffered in school.

“Alexandre is not a monster,” Raymond Bissonnette told reporters as his wife fought back tears beside him. “The crown said that all young people are bullied at some time in their lives and don’t commit serious crimes. I think that this opinion does not do justice to the serious damage and suffering caused by bullying and intimidation.”
They had worked for years to address the bullying but failed, leaving Bissonnette battling mental health issues. “Unfortunately, Alexandre’s mental condition caused by the years of intimidation was not identified by us nor by the doctors he consulted,” he said.
He noted that the crown did not order a psychiatric examination after Alexandre’s arrest. Instead it sought to “demonise” their son by seeking six back-to-back life sentences, amounting to a 150-year sentence that could rank as the longest in Canadian history.
“One hundred years is actually a death sentence in disguise; we all know that,” said Raymond Bissonnette. “I fear that in my son’s case, the crown is seeking a political, not a judicial sentence.”

Nearly 50 people were at the mosque in 2017 when the three-minute shooting rampage began. Video of the attack played in court showed Bissonnette pausing numerous times to reload his semi-automatic Glock handgun as worshippers scrambled to protect the handful of children in the mosque at the time.
Bissonnette’s parents have attended much of the sentencing hearing, listening quietly as the victims’ families detailed how the killings shattered their lives and left many in the city’s tight-knit Muslim community fearing for their safety. “I would like to express to them, once again, in my name and my family’s name, all our compassion, our sympathy with them in this terrible, terrible, terrible ordeal,” Raymond Bissonnette said.

Canada mosque shooter says he was motivated by Trudeau welcoming refugees

Earlier this year, prosecutors sought to paint Alexandre as an unrepentant killer who saw violence as a means of avenging the relentless bullying he had suffered in school.

The court heard that Bissonnette had trawled the internet, obsessively following the social media feeds of Donald Trump and right-wing commentators in the US and scouring for content to feed his resentment of immigrants, Islam and feminists as well as his fascination with mass shooters.
When asked if he had anything to say, a tearful Alexandre said he was ashamed of his actions. “I regret that my life has caused so much suffering and pain for so many people,” he told the judge.

In February, Bissonnette’s parents issued a written statement, hinting at their anguish in the wake of the attack. “The immense pain and suffering caused to the innocent victims and their families by this inexcusable act remains for us, to this day, totally inexplicable,” they said. “Alexandre remains our son whom we love and who will always remain a part of our family. Like all parents, we had hoped to see him succeed and be happy in life. In a sense, we, too, have lost a son.”

The judge is not expected to hand down a sentence until October.

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Quebec Muslims Face Uncomfortable Spotlight in Election

How I Met My Granddaughter’s Father

I’m responding in a loving way to my brother Mezba who is married (congratulations!) and has offspring (wonderful!) but is nevertheless about to enjoy the benefit of my sincere, unsolicited advice. I imagined what I would say if a young man came to me with this attitude intending to become the father of my grandchildren, whether it’s my son or someone who would like to become my son-in-law.

It’s especially easy to respond to this article because Mezba is so honest, so naive, and so unapologetic with his outrageous generalizations. Mezba, bro veteran, tell it like it is!

“There were no good girls in Canada.” I’ve never been to Canada, but there are many good girls in America! Either Canada is some kind of country-wide brothel with a small oasis of righteousness, or you weren’t looking hard enough, Mezba! Besides, what is a “good” girl?

“Many of them had been in previous relationships.” I’m tired of the attitude that women should be blamed for the relationships they’ve been in, and I’m frustrated that dating implies sex in the minds of so many Muslims. Spending some time with members of both sexes can be done in a halal way, can lead to a successful marriage in the best case, and (if nothing else) is a healthy way of developing comfort and a mature attitude towards relationships – a time investment that pays off when you get married and when you choose to pontificate later in life.

“They were too old.” Too old for what? Too old for sex? Too old to have babies? The frank truth is that men die younger than women on average, and the limits of childbearing years for women are exaggerated in our communities. Do I really need to bring up Khadija (as)?

“If [raising a proper, Islamic family] meant not keeping up with one’s professional peers, so be it.” A little compromise here goes a long way; what if a woman’s career is more promising than her husband’s? Shouldn’t he be willing to put his career on hold and be the house-husband for the sake of raising a “proper, Islamic family”? Isn’t that a conversation worth having?

“An arranged marriage is where a guy gets a girl he would never have a shot with in real life.” I hope this is a (distasteful) joke! Mezba, arranged marriages are still real life! Why ever would a girl consent to an arranged marriage when she can do better by meeting guys the old-fashioned way?

Reading articles like this reminds me of an episode of “Red Dwarf” where they go to an alternate dimension which is exactly the same as our universe except that men and women are swapped. The humor comes from the protagonists seeing their attitudes towards the opposite sex reversed.

If you’re unsure if you’re being a misogynist, try imagining a role-reversal and see if it seems funny or strange.

Let’s put aside romance for a moment and work this out logically: ideally, women should aim to have their first children when they’re 27 or 28; hence, they should get married to a man when they are 25 or 26. This leaves them time after college to take it easy, go on road trips with the girls, chill, and enjoy life a little before settling down with their husbands, enjoying them for a year or two, and then having that first kid. It doesn’t make sense for her to marry someone who’s also 25 or (God forbid) older: a man with a career of his own won’t want to take time off to stay at home and raise the kids, and, let’s face it: women want a man who is young whom they can enjoy and who won’t leave them an elderly widow at the end of life. An attractive, 25-year-old, career-driven, upwardly-mobile woman should be trying to marry a hot, 21- or 22-year-old man who is just finishing college and who’s willing to sacrifice his career to raise a “proper, Islamic family”.

See what I mean?

The truth is, finding a spouse is tough. People look for so much in a spouse: a companion, a confidant, a parent for their children, a good family member to their family, someone to make babies with, have sex with, and to show off to everyone else – in some order, depending on one’s preference. An arranged marriage can help get you there, but it’s not a magic bullet. Finding The One is a challenge for all but the extremely lucky in every culture.

Our community needs to revise its attitude, lest we leave many Muslim women in the west with only one option: accept that you’ll be judged and marry a non-Muslim, someone that has a shot with you in real life. As it is, after reading such a piece, they must be asking: are there any “good boys” in Canada?

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Young, Inuit and Muslim: Maatalii Okalik-Syed’s faith journey

As a young Inuk woman, Maatalii Okalik-Syed is exceptional in many ways.

From a very early age, the 21-year-old native of Pangnirtung, Nunavut committed herself to helping others. She’s worked with several grassroots Aboriginal and Inuit organizations, all the way up to the Government of Nunavut. And now she’s set to graduate from Carleton University with a Human Rights and Political Science degree, minoring in Aboriginal Studies.

But an impressive resume is not the only thing that sets Maatalii apart. Maatalii is a Muslim, one of a small but growing number of Indigenous women in Canada converting to a religion most associate with the Middle East.

It’s not known exactly how many have converted, but some Indigenous Muslims report seeing more and more people like them praying at Ottawa-Gatineau mosques. People like Linda Soliman. A Cree woman originally from Fort Albany in northern Ontario, she credits Islam with strengthening her parenting skills and improving the relationship with her parents.

“You’re not the first person to ask,” laughs Maatalii as she tells the story of how she became a Muslim.

“I grew up in the eastern part of Ottawa. The elementary school I went to had people from different cultures and backgrounds and from different faiths,” Maatalii explains. “Same thing during middle and high school.”

And it was during high school that she would first become curious about her future faith. There to help answer her many questions about Islam was Bengali friend and classmate Ashique Syed.

Her religious curiosity only continued to grow when, by 2004, Maatalii accepted Islam as her new way of life. Four years later, she and Ashique married.

The ceremony took place in his family home. “It was a wonderful wedding, a mixture of both cultures,” says Maatalii.

But Maatalii admits the fact they were from different cultures did cross her mind, aware that, “traditionally, Bengali people would marry other Bengali,” she says.

There was also the language barrier to consider. “It was definitely a learning curve,” says Maatalii. “I’m picking up a lot of Bengali and he is taking Inuktitut language classes. We work together to make it work for both of our families,” she adds.

Such cultural support even goes beyond each other’s families. “I’ve done a lot of leadership work in the (Inuit) community and every step of the way he was doing it with me,” she notes. Last year, the couple went to her home community of Pangnirtung.

“We went fishing, and we caught 4 or 5 seals, and we also went caribou hunting. He actually skinned the caribou,” shares Maatalii. “Once school is done, we have wishes to go back there.”

In other parts of the world, the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Islam is more pronounced.

In Australia, one estimate pegs the number of Aboriginal Muslims at 1,000, enough to support more formal organizations like the Indigenous Muslim Support Network. And in Central America, Islam is gaining a foothold among some Mayans.

For Maatalii, news that other Indigenous people in Canada and around the world are converting to Islam comes as no surprise.

“It’s a religion of peace.”

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Canadian jury finds Afghan family guilty of 'honour killings'

A jury in Canada has found three members of an Afghan family guilty of drowning three teenage sisters and another woman in what the judge described as "cold-blooded, shameful murders" resulting from a "twisted concept of honour". The verdicts concludes a case that shocked Canadians.

Prosecutors said the defendants killed the three teenage sisters because they felt they had dishonoured the family by defying its strict rules on dress, dating, socialising and using the internet.

The jury took 15 hours to convict Muhammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21. They were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

After the verdict was read the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Muhammad, 52, Shafia's first wife in a polygamous marriage.

Their bodies were found 30 June 2009 in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.

The Ontario superior court judge Robert Maranger said the evidence clearly supported the conviction.

"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honourless crime," Maranger said. "The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour ... that has absolutely no place in any civilised society."

In a statement following the verdict, the Canadian justice minister, Rob Nicholson, called honour killing "barbaric and unacceptable in Canada".

Defence lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father's first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn't call police from the scene.

After the jury returned the verdicts, Muhammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said: "We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust."

His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother."

Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said: "I did not drown my sisters anywhere."

Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict. His client would appeal and he believed the other two would as well.

The prosecutor, Gerard Laarhuis, said: "This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances.

"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," he said to cheers of approval from onlookers outside the court.

The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.

Shafia's first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.

The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father.

The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar's room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.

Shafia's first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and "made life a torture", while his second wife called her a servant.

The prosecution presented wire taps and mobile phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honour killing allegation. The wiretaps captured Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves.

"There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this," Shafia said on one recording. "Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows ... nothing is more dear to me than my honour."

Defence lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts did the accused say they drowned the victims.

Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believed the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.

"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said."
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Guilty pleas in murder of teen Aqsa Parvez

The father and brother of a slain Mississauga teen have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a case which has been called an "honour killing."

In an unexpected development on Tuesday afternoon, Aqsa Parvez's two family members admitted to strangling the teen girl at the family home on the morning of Dec. 10, 2007.

Muhammad Parvez, 60, and son Waqas, 29, were both scheduled to go on trial in January for first-degree murder.

Aqsa's death ignited an intense public debate after reports surfaced that she may have been killed for rebelling against her family. Some friends said that family tensions exploded after Aqsa refused to wear the hijab, which is a Muslim head covering.

Lawyers confirmed the second-degree murder pleas to ctvtoronto.ca on Tuesday afternoon.

It is expected that the father and son will be given automatic life sentences. An agreed statement of facts was to be read out in the Brampton courtroom.

Aqsa was only 11 when her family moved to Canada from their native country of Pakistan.

But within a few years, the teen began to argue with her conservative family about clothing, friends and her desire to earn her own money.

According to an agreed statement of facts which was presented in court on Tuesday, the real trouble began a year before the murder.

The teen had told friends at her school that she no longer wanted to wear her hijab, despite her family's insistence. As the arguments escalated, Aqsa ran away from home more than once and told friends that she feared for her life as her father grew angrier.

On the morning of her death, a family member picked her up at a bus stop and took her home. Not long after Aqsa arrived home, her father called 911 and told the operator he had strangled his daughter, the court heard.

Evidence showed that Aqsa had the DNA of her brother under her fingernails.

In an interview with police shortly after the death, Aqsa's mother said that her husband had been angry because of the teen's behaviour.

The mother told police: "He said, ‘this is my insult. My community will say you have not been able to control your daughter.'"

Crown prosecutors are asking that both men serve 18 years before they have a chance of parole.
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Quebec's witch hunt against niqabi minority

Governments intervene against the religious wishes of Jehovah's Witness families to give blood transfusions to save the lives of their kin. The Quebec government wants to intervene to deny health care to women whose religious wish is to wear the niqab.

In Saudi Arabia, Iran and parts of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, police or vigilante militias crack down on women not wearing the niqab or the burqa. In Quebec, authorities want to crack down on women who do.

Quebec officials have already chased down one niqab-wearing woman to oust her from a second French language class after she had been hounded out of her first. The bureaucrats are emulating the gendarmes of autocrats Kemal Ataturk of Turkey in the 1920s and the first Shah of Iran in the 1930s who persecuted women wearing either the niqab or the hijab.

It is scary when a state feels compelled to keep women either covered or uncovered.

It is scarier when majorities in democracies feel threatened by a minority – in this case, a tiny minority within the Muslim minority. Or feel the need to crush an isolated religious or cultural practice. Had such attitudes prevailed in an earlier era, we may not have been blessed today with Hutterites, Orthodox Jews, Sikhs and others in the rich religious tapestry of Canada.

Across Europe and now sadly in Quebec, populations and governments are in a tizzy over a few dozen niqabi women. Sadder still, Quebec is not only out of step with the rest of Canada but has taken a bigoted leap ahead of Europe, the historic home of Islamophobia.

In France – where out of 5 million Muslims, 367 wear the niqab (as counted by the domestic intelligence service, no less) – a parliamentary panel has pondered the issue for a year and suggested a ban from schools and hospitals but nowhere else.

In Denmark – where out of 100,000 Muslims, there are less than 200 niqabis (as estimated by the ministry of social affairs), the government is still mulling a ban.

In Quebec, less than 25 women are said to wear the niqab – of whom only 10 turned up last year at the Montreal office of the provincial health board out of 118,000 visitors.

Yet the obsession with the niqab continues. On the day Jean Charest tabled his anti-niqab bill, Hydro Quebec's $3.2 billion deal to take over NB Power and gain access to the lucrative U.S. market collapsed – with nary a public concern.

His bill calls not only for showing the face for the legitimate purposes of a photo ID and security. It also bans niqabis from working for, or even receiving services from, government and the broader public sector. These taxpayers may be denied all schooling, including French language instruction, and all non-emergency health care, including regular checkups.

Charest rationalized it on the basis of gender equity, the secular nature of the state, the need to integrate immigrants, and the importance of personal interaction. Except that:

The giant crucifix in the National Assembly will stay.

Property and other tax breaks given the churches will remain, including for the Catholic Church, where women must remain in the pews and not ascend to the pulpit.

Niqabi women will be driven out of the public sphere, end up with less personal interaction with others and be ghettoized. It is a strange way to advance gender equity.

It is argued, as by Nicolas Sarkozy in France, that banning the niqab is not anti-Islamic, since it may not be a religious requirement, as opined by a senior Egyptian cleric last year. We elect politicians not to propound fatwas but to implement secular, democratic laws in an equitable manner for one and all. As for those enamoured of the authoritarian ways of Egypt, they are free to move there.

We are witnessing collective hysteria, prompting even liberal governments to cave in. It was not a pretty sight to see Charest, a Liberal, competing for headlines with Ann Coulter, the Muslim-baiting neo-con from America.

That's democracy in action, it can be said. But we have seen many ugly manifestations of the popular will before. Targeting the niqabis may not be in the same league as past Canadian sins against some minorities but history should provide us with the perspective to pause.

Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.
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Quebec body rules against right to wear niqab

Religious beliefs cannot trump gender equality, ruling says in health board cas


The tension between gender equality and religious rights has flared into political debate again with two new rulings by Quebec's human-rights commission on the right to wear the niqab and the hijab.

A woman wearing the niqab cannot demand to be served by another woman when dealing with the Quebec Health Insurance Board, the commission ruled. Concluding that religious beliefs cannot stand in the way of gender equality, the commission found that when a woman wearing the Islamic face covering is required to identify herself and proceed with the photo session needed to produce a health insurance card, the Health Insurance Board has no obligation to accommodate her request to be served by a woman.

"Since freedom of religion was not significantly undermined, there is no obligation to grant an accommodation," the order states.

The health board had previously agreed to such requests. But last fall critics argued that the health board was acceding to religious fundamentalism.

The decision was greeted with approval in Quebec's National Assembly yesterday by MNAs of all political stripes.

"I am against the veil. I don't think the veil represents anything more than a symbol of submission of women to religious authorities," said Amir Khadir, an Iranian-born Muslim and Quebec Solidaire MNA.

Immigration Minister Yolande James suggested the ruling will form the basis of new guidelines on religious accommodation for public services, following on the action taken last week to bar a woman from attending a free French language class for immigrants unless she agreed to take off her niqab.

Another decision issued yesterday by the commission involved a client who refused to be served by a health board employee wearing a hijab - a traditional headscarf that does not cover the face.

The commission ruled that the garment had no bearing on the delivery of services and should be allowed to be worn. The incident reflected more a clash of values rather than an infringement on the client's freedom of religion or conscious, the commission stated.

"It cannot be concluded that the neutrality of the public institution was called into question because the service being delivered remained neutral."

The breadth of the debate over "reasonable accommodation" was reflected in a letter signed by more than 100 Quebec intellectuals and published yesterday in the Montreal daily Le Devoir. The letter argued that secular values should be enforced with no exception throughout the public service. The group argued that the time has come for Quebec to enforce its belief in a pluralist society by banning religious symbols from the public service - including the crucifix in the National Assembly.

Parti Québécois immigration critic Louise Beaudoin repeated her party's call yesterday for a charter that would reinforce Quebec's secular values, such as gender equality.

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Muslim journalist in Canada called "Bin Laden" and punched in head

Police say an attack on a Muslim man on a Vancouver city bus appears to have been a hate crime.

Qasimali Baig, 59, said he was punched by a man shouting racial slurs after Baig boarded a bus in East Vancouver on Wednesday night.

Baig said he was on his way home after attending prayers at a mosque.

"This guy flew from his back of the bus seat and came and punched me," Baig said. The man yelled at him before the attack.

"Bin Laden is coming. All these Muslims are bad people," Baig quoted the man as saying just before the assault.

"Our Hate Crime Unit has reviewed the file and believes this was an unprovoked attack motivated by bias, prejudice or hate," said Vancouver Police spokesperson Const. Jana McGuinness

The man hit Baig just above his left eye, but the victim says he was not seriously hurt.

The bus driver stopped and called for police, who arrived within minutes. But the suspect — described as a white man in his 40s — had already fled.

Baig said none of his fellow bus passengers came to his aid. "They all got scared and started running from the bus," he said.

Baig said he has lived in Vancouver for 22 years after deciding to make the city his home because of its cultural diversity. He said this was his first personal experience with racism.

Canada: Madina League Hockey Ball game fifth season just concluded

It's twilight, the sun has set behind the hills bordering the Milliken Mills Community Centre in Markham. Inside the arena, the echoing clatter of hockey sticks and shouts quickly dies down. The players remove their helmets, lay down their sticks and answer the call to prayer.

"You always have to take into consideration the prayer times," said Safi Habib, commissioner of the Madina Hockey League, a Muslim ball hockey league in east Toronto.

"The best time to play ball hockey is the nighttime, around the sunset or after the sunset," because there are fewer prayers, said Habib, 33, as the players, bowing on a white mat in the corner of the rink, observe the fourth prayer of the day.

There are more than 400 Muslims playing organized ball hockey across Greater Toronto, and interest in the connection between the community and the sport is at a high.

Last month, the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted their first Muslim player, Nazem Kadri.

The 5-foot-11 centre played for the Ontario Hockey League's London Knights and was the seventh overall pick, the highest a Muslim player has ever been drafted.

If he gets called up, Kadri would be the second Muslim player of Middle Eastern descent to play in the National Hockey League: Montreal-born Ramzi Abid played parts of four seasons before moving to Europe a few years ago.

"We are crossing our fingers," said Habib, "we would love to see (Kadri) in a Leafs uniform."

Like most Canadians, said Habib, Muslim youth have grown up loving hockey. They were playing ball hockey in large numbers in the mid-1980s and within a decade were competing on organized teams and in tournaments.

Last weekend marked the fifth annual Salaam Cup, a three-day event in Malton that saw the country's top Muslim players go head to head.

The Greenbirds took the cup.

Members of Canada's Muslim community, said Habib, "are utilizing the skills they have learned from their parents and their home countries," such as Pakistan and India, where cricket and field hockey are the dominant sports, "and using them in a sport Canadians love to play."

"They bring that culture of athleticism from those countries. They want to adapt to what Canadians do and hockey is the first thing that comes to mind."

From a practical perspective the sport is also far less expensive than ice hockey, since it requires minimal equipment, and, although many teams choose to play in arenas, all you need is a patch of concrete or a parking lot.

The Madina league has eight teams, each with about 16 to 18 players. They meet every Friday night in Markham, battling towards the Madina Cup in mid-August.

At the community centre in Markham, the first teams to play are the Hitmen and the Shaolin Monks.

As the game progresses, heat radiates off the players on the bench. The air thickens with the smell of sweat and the slightly rank scent of hockey equipment a few games overdue for a good cleaning.

"We are doing all right, obviously we are killing them," said Monks player Muqtidah Gulam, 29, after his team takes a 5-0 lead.

Players shout encouragement, but there is little to no swearing. The Muslim faith discourages profanity, anger or competitive aggression. Swearing in tournament play will result in a penalty and could mean a suspension, said Habib. "We are trying to teach the religion as much as possible, and that is hard to do if you are allowing bodychecks or fighting."

On the bench for the Hitmen is Zaid Majoo, a burly 23-year-old whose gold-toothed grin is wide and frequent, even as he watches his team go down in smoke.

"Hands down they are just hustling us. Outplaying us every single place, to the boards, to the net, everywhere," said Majoo.

The Monks win 6-0. The two teams shake and clear the rink. Meanwhile, throngs of Muslim boys and young men arrive to watch the next game.

Paying rapt attention is Usamah Bhoola, a 9-year-old centre for Team Corporate, one of 20 teams that make up the Scarborough Muslim Ball Hockey Association.

Bhoola, who plays Sunday mornings in the parking lot of Cornell Junior Public School, likes "passing and shooting."

"Kids love the game of hockey," said league president Saleh Hafejee, 42. "They are exposed to the game and they want to play." The league formed in 2003, out of the Jame Abu Bakr Siddique mosque at Lawrence Ave. E. and Midland Ave. It has 250 players and is growing as new immigrants sign on. "They don't have the skills, but their friends are playing. So they are getting involved."

Good Friday, Canadian Muslim Style

It's not just Christians who flock to houses of worship at Easter.

Muslims do it, too.

"In Canada, Easter has become the third Muslim holiday, after the two Eids," says Nadir Shirazi, a Toronto multi-faith co-ordinator at the University of Toronto.

Friday is the traditional big day for Muslims to attend afternoon prayers, but the North American work week can make that difficult. Most observant Muslims end up at a mosque near their place of work each Friday, rarely able to be at their family mosque on Islam's primary day of worship.

But that changes every spring with Good Friday, a statutory holiday steeped in Christian tradition to mark the day the Bible says Jesus was nailed to the cross.

The day off gives Muslims a rare chance to pray at their neighbourhood mosques, alongside family and friends.

"For many Muslims, this is the only time they get to pray with their families, instead of a place near their work," says Shirazi, who also helps companies make their workplaces more accommodating to people of faith.

Across Toronto, mosques are bracing for their biggest prayer day of the year with added events such as lectures, discussions, games for the children and dinners.

Farhad Khadim, vice-president of the Islamic Centre of Toronto in Scarborough, says his mosque expects to see about twice as many worshippers today, estimating that there will be between 1,000 and 1,500 coming through the doors around lunch time.

"Normally, we get about 600," says Khadim, whose mosque includes families from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

As a result, there will be a special lunch prepared today, with foods from many different countries, and pizza for the children.

There will be added lectures for the adults, and a forum to seek input from youths on how to engage them more in the life of the mosque.

"This is a traditional thing we do every Good Friday," he says.

Khadim, an active member of the Muslim community, says other holiday weekends such as Christmas and Thanksgiving have also gained importance in the Muslim calendar by providing an ideal time to hold conferences, such as the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference held in Toronto every Christmas.

"It's a matter of convenience," Khadim says, adding that with Christians busy with their holidays, finding meeting space for thousands of Muslims gets easier.

"You often find that large venues are much more available."

Atheist and Humanist groups also tend to hold conferences during religious holiday weekends – not out of a sense of irony, but because long weekends make travel easier.

For Muslims, though, Good Friday has evolved into a community and family day, with the emphasis on local events and needs.

Theologically, Good Friday is no different from any other day of worship in the mosques. But its status as a day off work has made it a big day to spend with friends and family – much as the church picnic has long been in many Christian churches – and a day many Muslins look forward to all year.

Many imams also take Good Friday as a chance to talk about Jesus and his place in Islam, says Shirazi.

"He's part of our religion, he's a prophet," says Shirazi, who'll be at the Pickering Islamic Centre today.

Khadim says he has also heard imams use Good Friday to talk about the role of women in society, drawing on the stories of the Virgin Mary and Khadijah, the wife of the prophet Muhammad.

"All the prophets were surrounded by strong women," says Khadim.

By coincidence, this weekend is also Passover, when Jews mark the Exodus of Jewish slaves from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. As well, it's the start of the Buddhist New Year.

"Thousands of people across Canada will be taking part in religious or spiritual events over these few days," says Shirazi.

"It's a wonderful convergence of our multiculturalism."


You may also find Ahmed Deedat's research on Good Friday an interesting read. The article is available here.