The suggestion of violent disputes...

Via Pajama Media:

Reported by the National Post:

"On Monday, December 10, 2007, at 7:55 am, a 9-1-1 call was placed by a man who indicated that he had just killed his daughter. Officers attended a residence on Longhorn Trail in Mississauga, where the victim was located. Aqsa PARVEZ was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries, but tragically passed away late last night. "

Why was she strangled?

"..apparently after a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women."

The Toronto Star provides "context":

The suggestion of violent disputes between a 16-year-old girl in Mississauga and her father over her desire to show her hair and live a “normal” lifestyle raises questions about tensions between parents and children in the Muslim community.

Suggestion?At what point does the suggestion become a solid fact? This was more than a "violent dispute". It ended with one dead teenage girl and her father and brother in jail.

But members of the community – particularly young Muslim women – say the tension can exist both ways.

Ausma Khan, the editor-in-chief of Toronto-based Muslim Girl magazine, said research into the readership of her publication shows that the decision to wear the hijab – the traditional Muslim headscarf – is almost always a choice the girl makes on her own.

“We have also heard from other girls saying ...that there is community or family pressure to wear it,” she said, but stressed that type of response was in the minority.

What I'd like to know is what kind of "research" she carried out, what were the questions asked, how were the girls reached, how scientific is her conclusion that only a minority of teenage girls feel pressured to wear the Islamic veil, and what kind of pressure they refer to..

Maryam Rana, 20, a student at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, said she has been wearing the hijab since she was in Grade 3 and was not very receptive to it at first.
“I remember when I was little, I found it weird because I was the only one who wore it so sometimes I would `forget’ it at home,” she said laughing. “Not really `forget,’ but leave it at home.”

How brave and cute!

When she grew older she wore it of her own accord and recently chose to begin covering her face as well.

At what point did she decide that she was wearing the veil of her own accord, after being forced, or indoctrinated since the age of 8 to wear it? And what was her motivation for taking her piety a step further and start wearing the Nikab? Was it a religious evolution, or a political decision?

She said that in her experience the tension more often exists the other way around – when girls who want to wear the hi jab are discouraged by their families because they fear it will make them the targets of racism.

Funny, how the article opens and closes on the same incredible note of creating a false equivalence. The claim that more tensions were generated by young women confronting their families about wanting to wear the veil. If this were true and verifiable, then two concerns emerge: One, that young girls who grow up in Canada choose to embrace an oppressive, reactionary custom is a cause for worry. And two, the implication that there is equivalence between girls being forced to wear Islamic headgear by their families on pain of violent punishment, and girls choosing to defy their families' fears of drawing negative attention. The first aims at preserving a tribal violent ethos while the latter is the well known defiance of teenagers against what they consider their parents values.

Also, I have yet to hear of a case where a girl is murdered by her father and brother for choosing to cover her hair...

As LGF says, this story as presented in the Toronto Star is outrageously deficient in representing the facts and background. Why would TS want to whitewash the story in this way, conceal a very real danger to some young girls who want to be just like their other Canadian peers?

The Toronto Star must have a very low opinion of the level of intelligence enjoyed by its readership.

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A blogger's adventures in an abaya