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'Honor killings' in Canada: 5 responses to the Shafia verdict

Here are five opinions and editorials published in Canadian news outlets after the guilty verdict, which carried a sentence of life in prison with no parole for 25 years.

4. If it’s about honor, why lie?

  • By Whitney Eulich Staff Writer

Opinion Editorial by Sally Armstrong in The Ottawa Citizen

 “[C]uriously, those who defend their cultural right to murder their women even in countries that allow it, invariably rely on a coverup, a tapestry of lies and the wailing presumption of innocence….
 
And this is indeed the point — a dishonest response to a vile act. If pushing a car occupied by your children and first wife into a canal so they will drown is an act of honour ... how do the keepers of the honour key pretend the death was an accident? If it’s all about family honour, how come it’s a secret?
 
Invariably, those who defend honour killing and other harms associated with women and girls are quick to challenge a critic with 'This is our culture, our religion; it’s none of your business.' But when culture and religion are hijacked by political opportunists, when misogyny is passed off as 'our way,' when women and girls are denied an education, denied access to health care, exposed to daily rations of violence, then surely it is the obligation of everyone to speak out, to say, what is happening here is not cultural, it is criminal.”

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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