 And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family. According to the Columbus-Dispatch, Rifqa has admitted that she’d been “unruly” when she’d fled her home, and the “family will try to resolve their issues with counseling.” In a statement read by Rifqa’s attorneys, ‘both she and her parents said they loved each other and believe counseling is the best route.” Ahem. The family’s honor has now been slightly salvaged by Rifqa’s open admission (clearly, an admission that had been required) that she’d been…”unruly.” Is it “unruly” to choose one’s own God, or to try and save one’s own life? I’m just asking. In any event, in grand American tradition, “counseling” is seen as an all-purpose, face-saving panacea, a way of avoiding a more superficial or harsher rule of law—a way of dealing with problems that are far beyond (or beneath) a judge’s purview. Thus, “The case plan for Rifqa and her parents says they should talk about their respective religions and visit and communicate regularly.” Had there been no settlement, I would have testified as an expert witness in this case. Luckily, thanks to the good lawyering involved, my testimony was not required. And so, the Bary family (the teenager and her parents) will now enter counseling—always a dicey proposition in my opinion; girls and women are especially vulnerable to false promises of happy endings and true love. Many grown, battered women, report how well their sociopathic batterers bond with their counselors, and how their own anxieties and justified paranoia is minimized, scorned. Ultimately, these women may not only be diagnosed as “crazy,” they may also lose their children, their homes, even their lives—right under their counselor’s nose. One can only hope that the counselor in the Bary case will know a great deal about the nature of honor killings and the fate of apostates in Islam. For example, in the tragic case of Toronto’s Aqsa Parvez, the counselors at the shelter for battered women to which she fled did not understand the dynamics involved in an honor killing family and, when Aqsa’s mother called to say she missed her, they simply allowed Aqsa to go; Aqsa went home and was promptly killed by her father and brother. Aqsa’s crime? She did not want to wear hijab. Speaking of honor killings and what counselors do and don’t understand: I am about to publish a new study about honor killings (due out in the next issue of Middle East Quarterly) in which I studied 230 honor killing victims on five continents. Therefore, I am not at all surprised by the “surprising” news coming out of Finland concerning a potentially “new” kind of victim. Native Finnish women who marry “immigrant” men (the article simply will not use the word “Muslim”) have begun to flee for their lives to avoid being honor-killed—but not only by their husbands, but by their husbands’ family, even by his entire clan. One Finnish woman who married into an “immigrant” family says: “They’ve threatened to kidnap my children, and my husband has repeatedly threatened to kill me. He says nobody can stop them, that horrible things happen, and he doesn’t even have to do them himself, that revenge will come from the clan….
The Multicultural Women’s Association Monika, which runs a safe house for immigrant women and their children, says that more and more Finnish women are turning to them when Finnish authorities fail to understand the threat of honour violence.” According to Nasima Razmyar, Monika’s Project Manager: “You can have 200 people involved in honour-related violence, that is, the entire extended family. And not just the family in Finland, but relatives abroad and back in the home country. In general, our laws need to understand much better this type of group threat…One problem is that Finnish authorities in social services and on the police force treat honour violence just like any other case of domestic violence. They don’t take into account the fact that instead of a dispute between two individuals, honour violence pits a single woman against the wrath of a large group of people.” One hopes and prays that the counselor assigned to the Bary family understands the nature of honor killings. They can certainly read my first study, which appeared in Middle East Quarterly. And, I will gladly send him or her my new study as soon as it is published. P.S. Tundra Tabloids reports that Finnish state news had pulled the article about honor-related violence in Finland but restored it recently in a more sanitized form. Here’s what was deleted from the original article: “Among immigrants honor violence has occurred in Finland for many years.” “She said that her marriage was hell, but no one believed her.” “The woman is the man’s property and thus can assault the woman however he pleases, if the woman refuses to obey the rules.” “Honor violence has been increasing in recent years in Finland, when unmarried young women immigrants from a foreign culture struggle under the pressure. They may be forced to marry and be prohibited from socializing with Finns.” “We’re currently unable to secure and protect the lives of people in the way that the authorities should do, Hukkanen says.” Once again, I wish to acknowledge Esther’s fine work at IslaminEurope.blogspot.com Phyllis Chesler 
It is poetic justice that the Aqsa Parvez Peace Park was dedicated on the 18th (18 is chai or "life" in Hebrew) of September, erev Rosh Hashanah. Wild. I am sure the city organizers had no clue, but for me it is .....providential. It is just beautiful .............. MoreSource: Atlas
 By Robert Spencer Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a thoroughly unpleasant character with whom I have appeared on many radio shows (on which he invariably likens me to Osama bin Laden, although I have never flown any planes into buildings, beheaded anyone, or exhorted anyone to do so), attacks Rifqa Bary, the seventeen-year-old girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her home and father after he threatened to kill her (as she explains here), and her supporters in a contemptuous, dishonest, condescending and arrogant piece at the Huffington Post, "Rifqa, the Reverand [sic] and Apostasy" (August 18). Hugh Fitzgerald and Andy Bostom have already weighed in on this utterly contemptible article, but I have a few things to add. Al-Marayati is intent on impugning Rifqa's own testimony in favor of her father's protestations that he does not intend to kill her -- and indeed, it is her word against his, and the only price we will have to pay if al-Marayati turns out to be wrong is a murdered teenage girl. To support his case, al-Marayati makes essentially two points, both encapsulated in this sentence: "Mohamed Bary allowed his daughter to become a cheerleader and says she can practice any faith she wants -- clearly, he is not a fundamentalist." His first point is thus that Mohamed Bary, by allowing his daughter to prance around in skimpy cheerleader costumes, clearly was not the sort to insist on the finer points of Islamic law like the death penalty for apostasy (which al-Marayati implies does not exist anyway, so it's hard to see why it would be a feature of "fundamentalism" in the first place). However, honor killing victims in the West have invariably been girls who have been Westernized, adopting Western non-Muslim mores to the growing dismay of their male relatives. Al-Marayati's point is that if Mohamed Bary were a "fundamentalist," he would not have allowed Rifqa to become Westernized in the first place. Real life, however, is not always that simple. Honor killing victims like Amina and Sarah Said in Texas and Aqsa Parvez in Canada appear to been quite Westernized for a considerable period before their relationships with their fathers reached a tipping point, and they were murdered. Rifqa Bary fled before that could happen, but the fact that she was a hijab-less cheerleader indicates nothing. Pamela Geller explains further in responding to the same claim from Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel. Read more here ... Source: JihadWatch
 A grove of trees has been planted in Israel in Loving Memory of Aqsa Parvez and All Victims of Honor Killings Worldwide. More ...Source: Atlas
 How a sixteen year-old Muslim girl, murdered in an honor killing, continues to be abused by her family in death as she was in life.By Jamie Glazov Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Pamela Geller, founder, editor and publisher of the popular and award-winning weblog AtlasShrugs.com. She has won acclaim for her interviews with internationally renowned figures, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye'or, Natan Sharansky, and many others, and has broken numerous important stories -- notably the questionable sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign. Her op-eds have been published in The Washington Times, The American Thinker, Israel National News, Frontpage Magazine, World Net Daily, and New Media Journal, among other publications. FP: Pamela Geller, welcome back to Frontpage Interview. In December 2007, a young girl by the name of Aqsa Parvez was murdered by her father in an honor killing in Toronto. Today she lies in an unmarked grave. Why? Tell us about the case.  Geller: Aqsa Parvez, a Grade 11 student was strangled to death by her 57-year-old father, Muhammad Parvez. Aqsa’s 26-year-old brother, Waqas Parvez, has been charged as well. In the fall of 2007, Aqsa Parvez went back and forth between friends’ houses and youth shelters. She had been afraid to go home. Her father was enraged because she refused to obey his rules, and he had promised he would kill her. On the morning of December 10, Aqsa waited at a Mississauga bus shelter with a friend she had been staying with. As they waited, Aqsa’s 26-year-old brother Waqas pulled up at the bus stop. He said that she should come home and get a fresh change of clothes if she was going to be staying elsewhere. Aqsa did not want to at first, but then got into his car. Less than an hour later, Muhammad Parvez called 911 and told the dispatcher that he had killed his daughter. Read more ... Source: FPM
 A Palestinian woman wearing a hijab veil.The deadly face of Muslim extremism
Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan, National Post
Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 The tragic death of a Mississauga, Ont., teenage girl -- allegedly at the hands of her own traditionally minded Muslim father -- has sent shock waves across the world. Canadians are justified in raising concerns as to whether this is a sign of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in their own backyard.
Aqsa Parvez, a sprightly 16-year-old, beloved of her friends and peers at Applewood Heights Secondary School, was only trying to be herself, was only wishing for a normal adolescence amid Canada's rich cultural mosaic. Her father has now been charged with murder, and his son with obstruction, while a young life has been snuffed out -- likely in the name of honour and Islam.
Radical Muslim men consider themselves ultimately responsible for the conduct of the womenfolk. This outlook is rooted in a medieval ethos that treats women as nonpersons, unable to decide for themselves what they should wear, where they must go and what they must accomplish in life. If their conduct is seen as contravening this austere religious outlook, they are invariably subjected to abuse.
The hijab in particular has become a thorny issue among Muslim families. It has been elevated as a sort of "sixth pillar of Islam" among militant sects. Young teenage girls are often lectured over the virtues of the hijab by their family members. Once they hit puberty, compliance is deemed a non-negotiable religious requirement.
Go on reading here: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=162281
"Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us."Attributed to Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel If you do an Internet search for Aqsa Parvez or Amina & Sarah Said, you will notice Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, Michelle Malkin, and other non-Muslim blogs among top results. Muslim reaction is scarce. Hoverer, when you find it, the articles seem to be focused not on honorcide itself, but on distancing honorcide from Islam. These articles are permeated with claims that honorcide is un-Islamic, that it has nothing to do with either Islamic culture or religion. The fact that most honorcides in the West occur in Muslim families (while Muslims represent a small minority of general population) is dismissed as simple domestic violence and not an honor-related crime. After Aqsa Parvez was murdered, her disgraceful family placed a numbered marker on her grave: Later, the family refused a headstone (that was offered to them for free); they seem to want to punish Aqsa even after her death. Aqsa's crime? Refusal to wear hijab. How many Muslim (so-called civil rights) organizations took up Aqsa's cause? None. When Pamela Geller started the Aqsa Parvez Memorial Fund, more than a hundred people donated money. Only two of them appear to be Muslims. Golda Meir supposedly claimed that we hate infidels more than we love our own children. Muslim reactions to recent honorcides show even more disturbing trend: the infidels love our children more than we do. I just cannot wrap my head around it. Are we really that scared that image of Islam could be tarnished by these horrible crimes? Is protecting the image worth sweeping the problem under the rug and continue having our children and wives murdered in the name of family honor? Was not only Golda Meir right, but did she actually understate the issue? L.A.
By Robert Spencer Some time ago, as you may recall, Pamela Geller took up a collection to provide honor killing victim Aqsa Parvez with a headstone -- at present Aqsa lies in an unmarked grave, plot #774 in Meadowvale Cemetery in Brampton, Ontario. I was honored to be able to join Pamela in this effort. However, Aqsa's family rejected the grave marker we had offered to place at her gravesite, which only contained her name and dates and the legend "Beloved, Remembered, Free." But then the Canadian town of Pelham passed a resolution to honor Aqsa, and to stand up for victims of honor killing. And now, after craven dhimmis blocked many attempts to construct a monument for Aqsa and victims of honor killing in the U.S. or Canada, Pamela has arranged to have a grove of trees planted in American Independence Park in Jerusalem, Israel, through the Jewish National Fund. There will also be a plaque in American Independence Park, inscribed " In Loving Memory of Aqsa Parvez and All Victims of Honor Killings Worldwide." Pictures, details, and further background here. I think it is fitting that this remembrance of Aqsa should end up in Israel, a state that is on the front line of defense against the global jihad -- against, that is, the forces that wish to expand the scope and power of the Islamic laws and cultural attitudes that led to Aqsa's murder. This is one of the first, if not the first, public memorials to the victims of honor killing, and it is a powerful indication that there are some people in the West who will never acquiesce to the destruction of life and memory that is involved in honor killing. I was dismayed by the amount of dhimmitude and fear Pamela encountered in trying to memorialize Aqsa, but not all of us in the West are cringing dhimmis. The grove and plaque, as well as the Pelham memorial, are indications of that. Congratulations and thanks to my friend and colleague Pamela Geller, who had the vision, persistence, and courage to conceive of this project and see it through. Source: Jihad WatchPamela Geller
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 Scott McLeod, Fire Chief and driving force behind the Aqsa Parvez memorial resolution that was approved this past week, gives us the following wonderful news about the Aqsa Parvez Memorial being erected in Pelham. The town is going forward and going to build a memorial, later in the year. There will be an official ribbon cutting taking place. I think we should all go! A generous local monument company has offered to donate a granite bench and will inscribe the stone with the memorial we had wanted - In loving memory of Aqsa Parvez, Beloved, Remembered and Free.  Source: Atlas ShrugsThe City of Pelham
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 By Mark Steyn For reasons best known to himself, The National Post's Chris Selley chose to pick a fight with the few people who want to ensure that Aqsa Parvez's short life is memorialized by something more than the plot number of an unmarked grave. Pamela Geller and Kathy Shaidle can take care of themselves, and have done, but the reality is that if it weren't for the frothing loony ranting wackjob haters of the blogosphere a 16-year old girl murdered for not wanting to be imprisoned by her family's culture would be entirely forgotten. So what's more offensive? The moral outrage of Pamela Geller at the westernization of "honor killing"? Or the mainstream coverage by a politically correct media? Here's what the lunchtime poll at Toronto's CITY-TV thought was the big issue arising from Aqsa Parvez's murder: Do you think society discriminates against women who wear a hijab? Gotcha. It's our fault. Here's the weirdly contorted lengths Canada's Number One news anchor, CTV's Lloyd Robertson, went to to avoid telling his viewers Aqsa Parvez had been strangled? Her neck was compressed, to the point she couldn't breathe. Read more ... Source: Steyn OnlineChris Selley
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
By Joe Warmington "How could they let her rot in an unmarked grave?"
-- U.S. blogger Pamela Geller Aqsa Parvez has been gone 14 months and still, according to the frozen ground in Lot 17 of Brampton's Meadowvale Cemetery, she's nothing more than No. 774. If not for two flowers placed there recently, you would not even know this is a grave. "We had no idea we would not be able to build a memorial to this girl," said a disappointed Pamela Geller from New York City. Geller proudly boasts being the 34th best-known blogger on the web -- her Atlas Shrugs site of stories that may have escaped coverage in the play-it-safe, middle-of-the-road mainstream media. When she saw my column on the anniversary of this shocking Dec. 10, 2007, murder, she jumped all over it. Read more ...Source: Toronto SunH/T: Atlas Shrugs
Atlas reader and godsend, Norman, has been scouting locations in Canada for an appropriate memorial to Aqsa Parvez near where she lived. I was leaning towards planting trees in Israel until Norman suggested this, "an arboretum on the grounds of the University of Guelph. Guelph is not far from Mississauga where a lot of kids from Mississauga go." Yes, yes, a place in Canada, near where Aqsa lived where lots of young people go. Perfect. It's gorgeous. Read more ...Source: Atlas Shrugs
 By Joe Warmington Number 774. One year to the day Aqsa Parvez was stolen from this world -- allegedly by two members of her family -- that is all there is at her gravesite to show she even existed. Section 17, plot number 774, in the Meadowvale Cemetery in Brampton, to be precise. No name, no date of birth, no date of death. No nothing. But resting here is a girl who dared to be Canadian. She was strangled Dec. 10, 2007 inside her family's Longhorn Trail home. Her father and brother will be in court next week to answer to charges of first-degree murder. At Parvez' gravesite, one would never know the 16-year-old Grade 11 Applewood Heights Secondary School student was buried here. You would never know anybody was buried here. "If not for a couple of her girlfriends, who put some flowers there, there would be nothing," said a disgusted Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and author of Chasing a Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State. "It's disgraceful." Read more ...The general indifference to honor killing victims in North America is disgraceful. Now Pamela is taking up a collection to buy this poor girl a proper headstone. At very least, we can remember her, as part of our effort to prevent other girls from suffering the same fate. Please contribute! Source: Toronto SunH/T: Jihad WatchPamela Geller
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 Aqsa Parvez, left, Shemina Hirji, top right,
Amina Yaser Said and Sarah Yaser Said, bottom right.By Craig Offman It is the grizzled face on a Wanted poster that usually catches the eye, but as the FBI realized late last month, the words matter, too. In its initial poster seeking fugitive Texas cab driver Yasser Abdel Said – sought for the double homicide of his teenaged daughters – the bureau said he disapproved of their dating non-Muslim boys and stated that they were murdered "due to an ‘Honour Killing.'" Though family members speculated that the father's Islamic belief motivated the crime, the use of the phrase "honour killing" incensed the local Muslim-American community, who argued that the accused's religion should not be linked to the double homicide, which left his two daughters dead in the back of his taxi. After a public outcry, the FBI struck the offending words three weeks ago. A Bureau spokesman explained that unlike a hate crime, there is no legal definition of an honour killing. "It's not our job to label this case anything other than what it is, what is from a criminal perspective," he said, apologizing that the writer did not see "the misunderstanding" the wording would create. Read more ...Source: National PostH/T: JEH The FBI
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Tomorrow's looking it could be a very busy day for Sarah Fulford. Toronto Life’s editor is scheduled to speak at Ryerson University in the evening, but it’s quite possible she’ll spend her day fielding phone calls from readers angry about the latest cover story published by her magazine. A group called the Urban Alliance on Race Relations has created a Facebook page, urging people to phone Fulford and express their concerns about Mary Rogan’s cover feature on Aqsa Parvez, the 16-year-old who was murdered last year. After Parvez was strangled, her father Muhammad Parvez phoned 911 and told the dispatcher that he had killed his daughter. Muhammad and his son Waqas will be tried sometime next year. The Facebook group, which currently has 127 members, offers five “talking points”, which callers are encouraged to bring up in phone conversations or messages to Fulford. Read more ...Source: Masthead OnlineSarah Fulford
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 Sweet 16: more than 20 Facebook pages devoted to
Aqsa Parvez were created within days of her deathAqsa Parvez had a choice: wear a hijab to please her devout family or take it off and be like her friends. She paid for her decision with her life. When her father and brother were charged with her murder, it raised the spectre of religious zealotry in the suburbs. Is this the price of multiculturalism?By Mary Rogan Over the fall of 2007, Aqsa Parvez shuttled between friends’ houses and youth shelters. She was afraid to go home. Her father, Muhammad, was enraged because she refused to obey his rules. He swore he would kill her. On the morning of December 10, Aqsa huddled in a Mississauga bus shelter with another Grade 11 student, a girl she had been staying with for the past couple of days. They had plenty of time to make it to their first class at Applewood Heights Secondary School. As they waited, Aqsa’s 26-year-old brother Waqas, a tow-truck driver, showed up at the bus stop. He said that she should come home and get a fresh change of clothes if she was going to be staying elsewhere. Aqsa hesitated, then got into his car. Less than an hour later, Muhammad Parvez phoned 911 and told the dispatcher that he had killed his daughter. Within minutes, police and paramedics arrived at 5363 Longhorn Trail, a winding suburban street near Eglinton and Hurontario, and found Aqsa unconscious in her bedroom. The 16-year-old wasn’t breathing. The paramedics started CPR, found a faint pulse, and rushed her to Credit Valley Hospital, 10 minutes west. A few hours later, she was transferred to SickKids and put on life support. She died just after 10 that evening. The official cause was “neck compression”-strangulation. In the days following her death, Aqsa’s story was widely reported in the Canadian media as well as on CNN and the BBC. Was her murder an honour killing or simply a gruesome case of domestic violence? Worldwide, an estimated 5,000 women die every year in honour killings—murders deemed excusable to protect a family’s reputation—many of them in Pakistan, where the Parvez family had emigrated from. Canada prides itself on its multiculturalism and, to varying degrees of success, condemns institutionalized patriarchy. But there is growing concern that recent waves of Muslim immigrants aren’t integrating, or embracing our liberal values. Aqsa’s death—coming in the wake of debates about the acceptability of sharia law, disputes over young girls wearing hijabs at soccer games, and the arrest of the Toronto 18—stoked fears about religious zealotry in our midst. Is it possible that Toronto has become too tolerant of cultural differences? When police arrived in answer to his 911 call, Aqsa’s father, who worked as a cab driver, was arrested and charged with second degree murder. Waqas was charged with obstruction. The charges against both men were changed to first degree murder in June, after police decided her death was a planned and deliberate act. Read more ... Source: Toronto LifeH/T: Shariah Finance Watch
 By Natalie Alcoba Peel police have charged Aqsa Parvez’s brother with her first-degree murder, and say others may be arrested in a killing that drew international attention for an apparent clash of Muslim and Western cultures. “It is certainly my belief others do have certain knowledge and may have some involvement,” said Inspector Norm English, who heads up Peel Regional Police’s homicide and missing person bureau. “Certainly, they may be a victim of circumstance or the situation they are in.” Ms. Parvez, 16, was strangled to death in her Mississauga home on Dec. 10, after allegedly sparring with her family over her refusal to wear a hijab and other traditional garb. Her father, Muhammad Parvez, was quickly charged with murder. This week, 27-year-old Waqas Parvez was taken into custody and also charged with first-degree murder, which suggests the killing was premeditated. Mr. Parvez picked up his sister at a bus stop the morning she was killed and drove her home to get a change of clothes. He had previously been charged with obstructing police for allegedly misleading investigators. Read more ...Source: National PostMuhammad & Waqas Parvez
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And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family.
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