Alleged Honor Killings In Canada

by Austen Hufford

Three members of a family originally from Afghanistan who were living in Canada were convicted of murdering four other family members this week. In June 2009, a car with the bodies of three teenagers and one middle aged women was discovered submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario. The four victims were sisters Zanab, Sahar and Geetin, ages 19, 17 and 13, and their father’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad. Mohammad Shafia, his second wife Tooba Yahya and one of their sons, Hamed, were all convicted of the murders.

The prosecutors allege that Shafia decided to murder his daughters and first wife because they had become westernized: they sometimes wore revealing clothing and the older two sisters might have had secret boyfriends. The family of ten was driving home to Montreal from a vacation to Niagara Falls. They decided to stop and spend the night near Kingston. Prosecutors allege that Shafia, Yahya and Hamed drowned the victims, put them in the family car, and then pushed it into the canal. The family left Afghanistan in 1992, lived in various other countries and entered Canada in 2009. The ten person family, two wives and all, were living together at the time of the murders. All three convicted will serve at least 25 years in prison.

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