[wvns] Canadian Muslim Girl Killed by Dad
Dead girl was 'scared of her father': friend
Aqsa Parvez; Allegedly killed for refusing to wear hijab
Chris Wattie
National Post
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=162252
A cab driver has been charged with murdering his 16-year-old daughter
after she was allegedly attacked in a clash with her strict Muslim
family over whether or not to wear the hijab, the traditional Islamic
head scarf for women.
Muhammad Parvez, 57, was charged after his daughter Aqsa Parvez died
in hospital late on Monday. The victim's older brother, Waqas Parvez,
was charged with obstructing police in connection with the girl's death.
Police were called to a suburban home in Mississauga early on Monday
morning by a man who told 911 operators he had killed his daughter.
They found Ms. Parvez lying motionless on the floor of her bedroom, to
all appearances dead, but paramedics found a faint pulse and rushed
her to hospital. The teenager succumbed to her injuries several hours
later, police said yesterday.
Constable J.P. Valade would not give any details about the teenager's
killing, but police sources said she was choked.
Const. Valade would not comment on the possible motive for the
killing, but said detectives are continuing to interview neighbours
and friends of the girl as well as members of her extended family. At
least 11 people lived at the family's large, two-storey brick house in
a new subdivision in Mississauga.
Police cleared out the home yesterday to begin a detailed forensic
sweep through the house.
Last night, it was reported that the brother was charged after
allegedly misleading officers at the scene.
Friends of the girl told the National Post that she had left the
family home, where her brothers also lived with their families, about
a week before the attack because of arguments with her father and
brothers over her refusal to wear traditional Muslim garb, including
the hijab.
"She was scared of her father; he was always controlling her," said
Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, a friend and classmate at Applewood
Heights Secondary School, where both were Grade 11 students. "She
wasn't allowed to go out or do anything. That's why she left.
"She got threatened by her father and her brother. He said that if she
leaves, he would kill her."
Her classmates said Ms. Parvez had been staying with a friend because
of tension at home and returned on Monday only to retrieve some clothing.
A memorial table was set up at the front of her school yesterday where
friends of the slain teenager could write their memories, put up
pictures, leave flowers and mementos.
"Aqsa was honestly the brightest girl around," one student wrote. "She
had the biggest smile and was the happiest person in school. She loved
to dance and take pictures."
Sylvia Link, a spokeswoman for the Peel District School Board, said
officials are looking into the case to see if there was anything they
could have done to help Ms. Parvez or students in similar situations.
"We want to see what we can learn from this tragedy," she said.
Several Canadian Muslim groups condemned the attack on the teenager.
"There should be zero tolerance for violence of any kind against women
or girls," said Shahina Siddiqui, the president of the Islamic Social
Services Association.
"The strangulation death of Ms. Parvez was the result of domestic
violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to
colour or creed."
"We call for the strongest possible prosecution of Ms. Parvez's
alleged attacker," said Faisal Kutty, the legal counsel for the
Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.
===
Murdered teen tried to leave strict family
16-year-old's love of dancing, fashion and photography brought her
into conflict; father now faces murder charge
OMAR EL AKKAD AND KENYON WALLACE
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
December 12, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071212.wgirl12/BNStory/National/home
Aqsa Parvez was largely estranged from her family and sleeping away
from home in recent days. The 16-year-old's friends said she returned
to her home in Mississauga on Monday only to collect her belongings.
Shortly afterward, she was taken to hospital, where she died early
Tuesday morning – leaving friends grief-stricken and igniting a public
debate on religious extremism in Canada.
Her father, 57-year-old taxi driver Muhammad Parvez, is charged with
murder. Her brother, 26-year-old Waqas Parvez, is charged with
obstructing police.
Ms. Parvez's friends described the Grade 11 student at Applewood
Heights Secondary School as someone who was drawn to Western culture
even as her family adhered to a devout form of Islam. Friends paint a
picture of a hardworking and cheerful girl who loved dancing, fashion
and photography – interests that often clashed with her strict home
environment.
"Aqsa was always trying to get us to go shopping with her," schoolmate
Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson said. "We were supposed to go to the mall
together today."
Last week, Ms. Parvez temporarily moved in with a friend from school.
"She said she wasn't getting along well with her family and that
things weren't right," said Trudy Looby, the mother of one of Ms.
Parvez's friends, Alisha. "When she was here, she was very happy."
Ms. Looby said she told Ms. Parvez to inform her parents about where
she was staying. "She notified me that the school was aware of where
she was staying and that that was okay," the mother said.
During her stay, Ms. Looby said, Ms. Parvez didn't wear the hijab, a
head scarf that friends said was a hot topic within her family.
Krista Garbutt remembers walking down the street with Ms. Parvez
earlier this year, when the two of them spotted Ms. Parvez's brother
walking toward them. Panicking, the teenager quickly fumbled for her
head scarf, trying to put it on. "There were times when we'd be
walking down the street and she'd see her brother and she wouldn't be
wearing her hijab and she'd have to put it on," Ms. Garbutt said. "She
said, 'He'll kill me, he'll kill me.' I said, 'He's not going to kill
you,' but she said, 'Yeah, he will.' And nobody believed it."
On Monday morning, Peel Regional Police responded to a 911 call from a
man who said he had just killed his daughter. When officers arrived at
a single-family detached home on Longhorn Trail, they found Ms. Parvez
suffering from life-threatening injuries. She was taken immediately to
Credit Valley Hospital and later transferred in critical condition to
the Hospital for Sick Children, where she died.
Peel police said the Crown is waiting to decide whether Mr. Parvez
should be charged with first- or second-degree murder, pending a
police investigation. Although police would not elaborate on the
ongoing homicide investigation, the difference between laying a first-
or second-degree murder charge often rests on proving that the killing
was premeditated.
Ms. Garbutt said the teenager went home on Monday to collect her
belongings, at which point her father "basically went ballistic."
For weeks before, Ms. Parvez had been living something of a double
life, friends said.
"She wanted peace with her family," Alisha Looby said. "She wanted to
make them happy but she wanted to be herself at the same time, and
there's nothing wrong with that."
A makeshift memorial is already in place at Applewood Heights, full of
mementoes and messages left by grieving students.
"Aqsa was honestly the brightest girl around. She had the biggest
smile and was the happiest person in school. She loved to dance and
take pictures," one student wrote.
Across Canada, the killing has taken on larger proportions. On call-in
shows and websites, many have used the incident as part of a wider
indictment of fundamentalist Islam. One Canadian conservative blogger
suggested Canadians boycott taxicabs driven by Muslims.
In a statement Tuesday, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic
Relations called on Canadians of all faiths to address issues of
domestic abuse, and called for "the strongest possible prosecution" of
those responsible for Ms. Parvez's killing.
Trudy Looby, who let Ms. Parvez stay at her home last week, said she
now wishes the teen had not left.
"I was feeling that whatever it was she was dealing with at home was a
bit too personal to involve me in," Ms. Looby said. "I wish she would
have stayed longer, that's all. It's a sad waste of life."
===
Muslim girls can play cultural chameleons, researcher says
Katie Rook and Amy Smithers
National Post
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=161350
Aqsa Parvez was a well-liked Muslim girl who, classmates say, had been
experimenting for months with the arrangement of her hijab.
She finally decided to go without the Islamic head scarf, which is
worn by some Muslim women, in September. It was a gradual change
classmates say they were indifferent toward, but one which some
members of her family had difficulty accepting.
Following Aqsa's death late Monday, her father, Muhammad Parvez, was
charged with murder. Her 26-year-old brother, Waqas Parvez, has been
charged with obstructing police in their investigation.
The Mississauga community where Aqsa lived and went to school is
shocked by an attack in the middle-class subdivision, but those
closest to Aqsa recalled tension at the family's home after the Grade
11 student decided to remove her hijab.
A classmate from Applewood Heights Tuesday noted that Aqsa, 16, had on
a recent occasion returned home from school with trepidation; she was
worried about what reaction her decision would elicit among relatives.
Dressing in one manner at home and another at school is one way young
Muslim girls in Canada are negotiating competing cultural demands,
says Jasmin Zine, a sociology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.
In her research with Muslim girls, Ms. Zine said, she has rarely
encountered youth who are being coerced into wearing a hijab by their
parents. However, many Muslim girls in Canada are struggling to
reconcile Muslim traditions with more secular Western behaviour.
"For some youth, what they do is develop a double persona. At home
they're the good Muslim kid, they pray and they fast and go to
mosque," she said.
"When they go to school they become a different person. They create a
persona to fit with the competing cultural demands of home and school."
In addition to removing the hijab, some Muslim youth may also
anglicize their name and wear makeup, Ms. Zine said. When it is time
to go home, they don the hijab.
"It is about fitting in. I don't think it's about shame. I don't think
they dis-identify with being Muslim, they just remove the markers of
that identity so that they are better able to fit in with the cultural
code at school. Now the codes are very, very tough," Ms. Zine said.
The hijab is a cloth meant to cover the hair which Muslim girls may
choose to begin wearing around the age of puberty. The hijab is a way
to identify oneself as Muslim, Ms. Zine said.
There is disagreement among scholars about whether the hijab is
mandatory, she added.
"So for those who choose not to wear it -- they are then sometimes
seen as being less pious, that they are leaving Islam, although it has
nothing to do with that. Religion is not a piece of cloth," Ms. Zine said.
"Your faith and your belief are not wrapped up in a piece of cloth,
but it's a very loaded [signal] from the perspective of people viewing
you."
Aqsa's classmates believe the identity she was carving out for herself
was being challenged at home.
"She just chose to remove the hijab because she wanted to be like
everyone else and her parents were pushing her, I guess," said Nadine
Abrahim, 16.
"Last year [Aqsa] wore it. Maybe at the end she started removing it a
bit. Like, showing a bit of her hair. And then this year she just
completely removed it. She would take it off when she came to school,
even change her clothes."
The decision to wear a hijab is not necessarily a difficult one for
every Muslim girl, says Ausma Khan, a human-rights lawyer and the
editor-in-chief of Muslim Girl magazine.
But, she acknowledges, the hijab has become a flashpoint.
"It can so easily be taken for a signal of difference and otherness
and alienation, but it doesn't have to be read like that," she said.
Ms. Khan, 38, is now based in Los Angeles, but grew up in Canada and
observes an evolution of Canadian-Islamic identity as immigrant
communities become more established in North America.
"There is definitely an American-Islam or a Canadian-Islam that has
imbibed the reality of growing up in a pluralistic society that
accommodates difference, that respects difference.
"I think we see that in the practice of this generation of young
women. They are accommodating. Just as they want to put their own
viewpoint forward, have their religious freedom and be protected, they
are equally willing to recognize and respect the rights of others."
Friends gathered outside Applewood Heights Tuesday said Aqsa was no
different than any teenager gaining a better sense of identity.
"She wanted to live her life the way she wanted to, not the way her
parents wanted her to," Krista Garbhet told the Post.
"She just wanted to be herself, honestly she just wanted to show her
beauty, and not be pushed around by her parents telling her what she
has to be like, what she has to do. Nobody would want to do that."
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