Honour killings in Canada now average nearly 1 per year

By the sheerest coincidence, the Montreal Gazette and Toronto Sun have just brought to the attention of the Canadian public the results of a study by Marie-Pierre Robert, a law professor at the Université de Sherbrooke.

According to Prof. Robert, the number of honour killings committed in Canada has increased, along with the numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia. Since 1999, she writes in the Canadian Criminal Law Review, there have been 12 honour-killing victims in Canada, an average of one (1) per year. Between 1954 and 1983 there were only 3, an average of less than one every ten (10) years.

The study shows that all of the cases involved at least one female victim, and all of the killers were immigrants, usually of Muslim or Sikh background. . Most of the perpetrators were men. The average victim was 21 years old. Aqsa Parvez, shown here, was just 16 when her father killed her in December of 2007.

The Toronto Sun lists three more examples.

Hasibullah Sadiqi, sentnced to life in prison for shooting his sister and her fiance in Edmonton on Sept. 19, 2006. He claimed they had brought dishonour on his family.

Rajinder Singh Atwal stabbed his 17-year-old daughter Amandeep to death in 2003 for insisting on living with her boyfriend. Atwal found guilty of second-degree murder in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison.

Adi Abdul Humaid stabbed his wife, Aysar Abbas, 23 times in the neck and once in the heart on a lonely stretch of B.C. road on Oct. 14, 1999. He said he thought she was sleeping with her business associate. Sentenced to life in prison.

Murders such as these and the Shafia case -- see previous post -- have sparked calls for a separate section of the Criminal Code of Canada to deal specifically with honour killings. Professor Robert said such a move isn't needed because honour killers are always prosecuted "to the maximum" under Canadian law.

But, since Canada has no death penalty, the "maximum" can mean life without parole for up to 25 years for first-degree murder, or as little as up to 10 years for second-degree murder. What would the penalty be, Walt wonders, in India or Pakistan or Afghanistan.