Home : Top Stories : Perpetrators perceive honour ‘in a faulty way’

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Mohammad Shafia, centre, Tooba Yahya, right, and Hamed Shafia, left, arrive at the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ont., Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. (Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

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CTVNews.ca Staff

Date: Sun. Jan. 29 2012 9:48 PM ET

KINGSTON, Ont. — After Canada’s first mass-honour-killings trial, three members of a Montreal family have all been found guilty of first-degree murder in the drowning deaths of four other family members — including three teenage sisters.

A jury on Sunday handed down its guilty verdicts for Mohammad Shafia and Tooba Mohammad Yahya, as well as their 21-year-old son, Hamed.

They had been charged with murder after the bodies of three Shafia sisters — Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and 13-year-old Geeti — were discovered in a submerged vehicle in a canal near Kingston, in June 2009.

Also in the vehicle was Rona Amir Mohammad, the 52-year-old first wife of Shafia, whom he married in his native Afghanistan before the polygamous family moved to Canada in 2007 and settled in Montreal.

All three suspects had faced four counts of first-degree murder.

Court handouts

Sahar Shafia, left, Zainab, top, and Geeti

The trial, which began in October 2011, heard from 58 witnesses and was presented with more than 160 exhibits from both prosecutors and defence lawyers. While some described Shafia as the ultimate family man, other witnesses painted a picture of strict control in the family and limited freedoms for his daughters.

A dozen independent witnesses — including Montreal police, social workers, teachers and school officials — testified the girls feared their father and even some of their siblings, who they believed were spying on them, and were depressed and desperate to get away.

On wiretap recordings played for jurors, Shafia called his daughters “whores,” “filthy” and “rotten children” who betrayed the family and Islam and did “cruelty” to Shafia by secretly taking boyfriends and by wearing revealing clothes.

Prosecutors alleged that the victims died in an honour killing orchestrated by Shafia to cleanse the shame he felt from the conduct of his daughters.

The trial also heard that Shafia’s first wife, who was living in Canada illegally, wanted a divorce from Shafia and was supportive of the daughters who were dating.

Crown lawyers alleged the three girls and Mohammad were likely pre-drowned, somewhere at the locks, before being placed into the car and pushed into the canal.

Handout

Rona Amir Mohammad

Lawyers for the accused, in their closing arguments in court, told Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger and jurors that the location and logistics were so unlikely that they argue against murder, justifying an acquittal. The lawyers also dismissed the notion of an honour killing, saying that such action is not permitted in Islam.

Lawyer Peter Kemp, who represents the eldest Shafia, said the evidence about the timing of events showed there wasn’t enough time for the accused to commit a complex multiple murder.

Kemp outlined a theory about how long it would take to forcibly drown four people at Kingston Mills — an isolated spot along the Rideau Canal — where the victims were found dead, then place their bodies inside a Nissan Sentra and push it into the water.

All of the victims had drowned, but post-mortem examinations could not pinpoint where and how they drowned.

The 12 jurors were tasked with poring over hundreds of photographs — from the scene where the victims were found; snapshots the family took while on a vacation that preceded the deaths’ and pictures taken on cellphone cameras by the victims — as well as thousands of pages of information in more than a dozen reports from medical, scientific and technical experts.

Jurors also had to consider testimony from Mohammad Shafia and Yahya, who testified at the trial. Hamed Shafia did not testify.

Halifax salon offers women-only day for Muslims

By Rob Tripp

KINGSTON, Ont. — Jurors began deciding the fate Friday of three members of a Montreal family accused of killing four other family members, unaware that there was an eyewitness to some events at the isolated spot where the victims were found dead.

The lone eyewitness did not testify at the trial and jurors were not told of his existence.

His account is among dozens of pieces of information that was withheld from the jurors, in some cases because of rulings by a judge before or during the trial. The information could not be reported publicly until the jury retired to begin deliberations.

Jurors are considering whether prosecutors proved that Afghan immigrant Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, are each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. The accused pleaded not guilty, prompting a trial that lasted more than three months and heard from 58 witnesses. Three of the 10-member Shafia family’s children were found dead in a submerged car discovered June 30, 2009, at the bottom of a shallow canal near Kingston, in eastern Ontario.

Sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, had drowned. Mohammad was Shafia’s first wife in the polygamous family, though her identity was concealed to circumvent Canadian immigration laws. Experts were not able to conclude how and where the victims drowned.

Prosecutors contend the victims were incapacitated, either by being drowned or rendered unconscious, before they were placed inside the family’s Nissan Sentra and the car was pushed into the canal.

The accused mother and father have maintained that their eldest daughter took the car without permission from the motel where the family had stopped overnight. They suggested she went for a joyride and crashed the vehicle into the water.

Prosecutors allege the family’s other vehicle, a Lexus SUV, was used to push the Sentra over a stone lip and into the water. The Lexus was not at the canal that morning, according to the statements and testimony of Shafia and Yahya.

An eight-year-old boy testified, at a hearing held in February 2010, that he saw two vehicles at the canal at 1:40 a.m. on June 30. The boy, who lives in a house on a spit of land 200 metres from the canal, was awake, getting a drink of water when he heard what he described as a “splash, kind of a crash.” The boy went to his rear deck, which affords a clear view of the canal. He saw two vehicles, one larger vehicle with its headlights on, illuminating another, smaller vehicle, with its headlights off.

Handout

Tooba and Mohammad Shafia at their wedding in Kabul in 1988.

The smaller vehicle was on the grass “near the water,” the boy testified at the preliminary hearing, a proceeding that was conducted to determine if there was enough evidence to put the accused on trial. The larger vehicle appeared to be on the road.

The boy said he also heard another sound, like a car horn, “like just ‘beep’ and then gone.” He heard it a few minutes after the “splash-crash.” He did not see or hear any people. The boy said he watched for a few minutes, then went back inside his house and went back to bed at 2 a.m. Police interviewed him later that morning.

The boy’s story appears to contradict the account of Hamed, who told a man in a jailhouse conversation, that he followed his joyriding sister to the canal in the family’s Lexus and rear-ended the Nissan before his sister accidentally drove into the water. But in Hamed’s account, the two vehicles did not go to the canal until after 2 a.m., the time at which the family checked into a motel.

Jurors also did not hear about an incident in which Shafia waved a knife at his wife, Yahya, and threatened to stab her, according to one witness.

Fazil Javid, Yahya’s brother, described the incident when he testified at the preliminary hearing on Feb. 23, 2010. Javid said it happened at the Shafia home in Montreal a week after the deaths, when many relatives had gathered to offer their sympathy to the grieving family.

“He had threatened . . . my sister,” said Javid, who lives in Sweden.

Javid said he was leaving the Shafia house, walking to a car, when he heard a commotion behind him. He turned to see that his sister, Yahya, was crying, coming after him, asking him not to leave and making some sort of gesture with her hand across her throat, suggesting that she was fed up.

Shafia was following her with a large kitchen knife that he estimated had a six-inch blade. Javid said another one of his brothers who was there was restraining Shafia.

“Hamed was trying to take his mother back inside and he was telling his father that don’t make too much noise,” Javid testified.

Lars Hagberg for National Post

Kingston Mils Locks, where the bodies of the Shafia sisters and Rona Amir Mohammad were found on June 30, 2009.

Javid testified during the trial, telling jurors that Shafia asked him for help with a plan to murder Zainab, but he was not asked about the knife incident. Lawyers had discussed the incident before the trial and noted that it was highly prejudicial to Shafia.

Jurors also did not hear about a purported scheme to send Rona Mohammad back to Afghanistan from Canada.

Montreal lawyer Sabine Venturelli, who handled the Shafia family’s immigration matters, testified at the trial but she was not permitted to recount a telephone conversation with Zarmina Fazel, an aunt of Yahya’s who lives in Montreal. Fazel helped the Shafia family and sponsored Mohammad to come to Canada on a visitor visa.

Venturelli testified at the preliminary hearing in February 2009 that Mohammad was seeking permanent residency and her application was progressing well, when the lawyer received a phone call from Fazel in April or May 2009. Fazel, who spoke French and often translated for Shafia, was speaking on his behalf.

“(She was) telling me that Mrs. Rona was causing problems to the Shafia family and that Mr. Shafia was asking me to close the file of Mrs. Rona and to have her sent back to Afghanistan,” Venturelli testified at the preliminary hearing. “He was offering me an honorarium of $10,000.”

Prosecutors argued at the trial that they should be permitted to ask Venturelli about the $10,000 offer but defence lawyers argued it was hearsay and that if the Crown wanted to put the evidence in front of jurors, they could call Fazel as a witness. Prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis told the judge “that’s another matter,” during a discussion held in the absence of jurors. It was an obtuse reference to the fact that Fazel cited sudden memory loss about the $10,000 call and other events when she testified at the preliminary hearing.

While jurors heard considerable evidence that revolved around a lengthy police interrogation of Yahya, they did not know that Yahya fought to keep the interrogation out of their hands.

During a hearing held in February 2010, David Crowe, Yahya’s lawyer, argued that Yahya did not understand the process during the interrogation and she was offered improper inducements in exchange for her answers.

Judge Stephen Hunter concluded that while the interrogator had a strategic plan, so, too, did Yahya.

“The entirety of the evidence suggests that her consistent search for what proof the police had continued throughout,” Hunter said, in ruling that her statements were made voluntarily and were admissible. The key decision permitted prosecutors to put the entire 7-1/2-hour videotape in front of the jurors.

During the recording, Yahya is seen telling the police officer that the three accused were at the canal when the Nissan Sentra plunged into the water. When Yahya testified during the trial, she said she was not at the canal. She said she had lied to the interrogator about being at the scene because she wanted him to leave her alone and she believed it would prevent her son Hamed from being tortured.

Postmedia News

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Gary Peters

The parents of a Canadian woman being held in Mexico under suspicion of trying to smuggle a son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi into the country, say their daughter has lost 45 pounds and is suffering kidney problems and high blood pressure since being arrested late last year.

Betty and John MacDonald visited their daughter, Cynthia Vanier, Wednesday at the Mexico City detention centre where she has been held for the past 2½ months.

“First thing I did was hug her,” John MacDonald said. “I didn’t want to let her go, but a bunch of guys [were standing] around with guns, so we had to let her go.”

Ms. Vanier, 52, of Mount Forest, Ont., and three others were arrested in Mexico City in November in connection to an alleged plot to fly Saadi Gaddafi, his wife and two children to Punta Mita, Mexico, on false passports.

Ms. Vanier has not been charged but is being held under a detention order that is scheduled to expire on Jan. 31, by which time the prosecutor has to let her go, apply for a short extension or lay charges.

The investigation is being conducted by the PGR, Mexico’s federal office of the attorney general.

At the prison, the first sight of their daughter was from outside, they said.

AFP PHOTO/Vincenzo PINTO

Saadi Gaddafi in 2003.

“All of a sudden we looked up at the top floor and her hand, that’s the first thing we saw. It was her. Just kinda recognized her hand,” John MacDonald said.

Mexican officials claim that Ms. Vanier led three others in the smuggling plot, which including buying them a house using fake documents.

The MacDonalds say the allegations are absurd.

It’s believed suspicion fell on Ms. Vanier initially because she went to Libya last July. The purpose of the visit was to assess the security situation for Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

Security contractor Gary Peters, of Can/Aus Security and Investigations International Inc., provided security for Ms. Vanier on that trip.

Mr. Peters said at one point they were working on a legitimate plan to move the Gaddafi family to Mexico, but it was abandoned when it couldn’t be done legally. He believes Ms. Vanier has done nothing wrong.

“I hope she gets out soon and stays,” Mr. Peters said. “This is really, really a bad situation for her, and she is one person I don’t believe deserves to be in jail.”

He said Mexican officials came to Ontario and interviewed him last week about the case — but Mr. Peters won’t reveal what they asked him.

Ms. Vanier’s parents say they expect the prosecutor to do something within the next couple of days. They say they feel hopeless and alone.

But the MacDonalds say they also feel angry — not just at Mexico, but at the Canadian government, saying the consulate has done nothing whatsoever to help despite their many pleas.

Global News, with a file from National Post

Stripped of his Canadian passport and pursued by security forces, Naser al-Raas remains a fugitive in Bahrain 10 months after he became caught up in the country’s crackdown on the Arab Spring.

“It is because I am foreign and they tried to link the demonstrations with foreign influence,” said the 29-year-old IT specialist by Skype from an undisclosed location in the tiny Persian Gulf nation. “Not even [my fiancée] knows where I am,” he said.

Originally from Ottawa, Mr. al-Raas was working in Kuwait when Arab Spring protests erupted in nearby Bahrain. As the situation worsened, on March 6 Mr. al-Raas flew to the island nation to check on his five sisters. In the course of two weeks, he paid several visits to Pearl Roundabout in the capital of Manama, the epicentre of the protests.

“I wasn’t participating, I considered myself an observer,” he said. Although he did witness — and videotape — security forces attacking unarmed protesters during a March 17 suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations. Thirteen people were killed by security forces during the crackdown, five more were killed through torture, according to government figures.

On March 20, when Mr. al-Raas arrived at the Bahrain International Airport to return to Kuwait, he said he was seized by four policemen in civilian clothes, beaten, stripped him of his passport and held at gunpoint. Mr. al-Raas was placed in solitary confinement at the country’s Al Qurain prison. Like dozens of others who were brought to the facility, Mr. al-Raas asserts he endured electric shocks and beatings.

When friends and Canadian officials asked where he was, Bahraini authorities reported only that he was “missing,” according to Mr. al-Raas.

Released without explanation on April 20, Mr. al-Raas was called back to the prison in June to retrieve his passport. Instead, he was arrested, beaten and charged with the kidnap of a police officer.

Katie Edwards

Naser Al-Raas

Suffering from pulmonary embolism, a heart and lung condition, Mr. al-Raas has had two open-heart surgeries and requires anti-clotting medication. Denied the medication while in custody, Mr. al-Raas needed to be hospitalized four times. He views further imprisonment as a “death sentence.”

“As a medical practitioner, I do not support the incarceration of this young man as I believe his life will be in danger,” wrote Dr. Fraser Rubens with the University of Ottawa Heart Institute in a November letter to Bahraini authorities.

Mr. al-Raas was acquitted of the kidnapping charge on Oct. 4, but only weeks later a civilian court sentenced him to five years in prison on new charges of “disrupting the general security” and inciting “hatred and contempt against the regime,” according to an unofficial translation provided by Amnesty International.

Mr. al-Raas says he went into hiding after the conviction.

“In our view, there is absolutely no reasonable basis for the charges,” Alex Neve, secretary general for Amnesty International in Ottawa, told Postmedia in October.

In late November, an inquiry commissioned by the Bahraini royal family concluded that security forces had used “excessive and unnecessary force,” in suppressing the demonstrations. In response, among other reforms, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa freed 310 jailed protesters.

Regardless, the charges against Mr. al-Raas remain. On Jan. 24, a Bahraini court turned down his appeal.

“Canada is … urging the Government of Bahrain to review the case in light of the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, as well as urging that Mr. al-Raas’ conviction be reviewed and his sentence commuted,” Diane Ablonczy, Minister of State for Consular Affairs, told the House of Commons on Dec. 14.

However, groups pressing for Mr. al-Raas’ release maintain that Canadian authorities have “done nothing.”

“They have not officially called for his release, or provided consular assistance,” wrote Calgary-based campaigner Katie Edwards in an email to the Post.

Meanwhile, Bahraini demonstrators continue to clash daily with police in small protests. A travel advisory on the Department of Foreign Affairs website advises Canadians to “avoid all political gatherings, crowds and demonstrations … as they can turn violent without warning,” adding that visitors exercise “particular caution” on Valentine’s Day, the first anniversary of the start of demonstrations.

“The revolution is escalating now,” said Mr. al-Raas. “If they wanted to arrest me, they could find me.”

National Post, with files from Postmedia News • Email: thopper@nationalpost.com

The Shafia honour killing trial was delayed Thursday morning because of a bomb threat.

Shortly before the case was to resume, lawyers, jurors, court officials and a capacity crowd of spectators were asked to leave the Frontenac County courthouse by lead investigator Kingston Police Sergeant Chris Scott.

“I was here when Mr. McCann (defence lawyer Patrick) was arriving at the parking lot,” Kingston resident Dan Simpson later told reporters. “The judge was driving out and said, ‘Don’t bother — bomb threat’.”

Prosecutor Laurie Lacelle was set to resume her closing address.

The gracious old building was soon surrounded by police.

Lars Hagberg/Reuters

Hamed Shafia (2nd L), his father Mohammad Shafia and his mother Tooba Mohammad Yahya leave the Frontenac county courthouse in Kingston, Ontario Jan. 18, 2012.

Mohammad Shafia, along with his second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their son, Hamed, 21, are each charged with four counts of first-degree murder. They have pleaded not guilty.

Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, were found dead inside the family’s car, which was discovered submerged at the bottom of a shallow canal near Kingston, in eastern Ontario.

Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, also was in the vehicle. She was Shafia’s first wife, whom he married in his native Afghanistan before the polygamous family moved to Canada in 2007 and settled in Montreal.

Their trial, underway since October 2011, is in its final stages.

It is expected to resume at 1 p.m. ET.

With files from Postmedia News

Anti-human trafficking advocates say they’re keeping a close watch on the case of a Vancouver man charged with pimping out four young girls.

Reza Moazami, 27, was released from custody Thursday night after two months in jail on 18 criminal counts including trafficking in underage persons, living on the avails of a juvenile, sexual interference and sexual exploitation.

The case marks the first time that the charge of trafficking in underage persons has been used in B.C. since it came into effect last year, and legal experts it signals a change in how prostitution cases are prosecuted.

“Police are no longer willing to look these cases as simply prostitution cases, which is historically how they have been dealt with and often dismissed by many people…. Now they’re being recognized for what they are, which is serious allegations of child sex trafficking,” UBC law professor Ben Perrin told CTV News after the charges were announced.

The trafficking charge carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.

Advocates say that human trafficking can encompass crimes far beyond illegal trade in people.

“It’s the exploitation, using people as property, as slaves, to some extent,” said Rosalind Currie of the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

She says human traffickers prey on the most vulnerable people in society.

“We believe aboriginal women and girls are often very vulnerable, runaways kids that are in trouble with the law…. We really need to protect them,” she said.

The father of one of Moazami’s alleged victims describes what happened to his daughter as abduction.

“They were lured into it. It’s not like my daughter decided, ‘I want to be a prostitute.’ It doesn’t work that way. It was well planned,” said the dad, whose identity is protected by law.

“She’s a very, very confused kid. The damage is done.”

Moazami is scheduled to make his next appearance in court in January.

With reports from CTV British Columbia’s Mi-Jung Lee and Lisa Rossington

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111223/bc_human_trafficking_reza_moazami_111223/20111223/?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

OTTAWA — NDP leadership hopeful Paul Dewar has won an endorsement from Maher Arar, the Canadian who became a symbol of human rights abuses following the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

As the NDP’s foreign affairs critic, Dewar championed Arar’s innocence and played a central role in demanding his release from a Syrian prison, where he was tortured for almost a year.

Ten years later, Arar is now returning the favour, throwing his support behind the Ottawa MP.

“Paul’s knowledge of foreign policy and his involvement in supporting human rights causes in Canada and abroad have allowed him to grasp many of the complex issues that Canada and the rest of the world are facing today,” Arar said in a written statement released Wednesday.

“I can easily picture Paul as the next prime minister of Canada.”

In 2002, Arar was detained by American authorities during a stopover in the United States en route to Canada from a Tunisian vacation. The U.S. suspected Arar was a member of al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the devastating attacks a year earlier on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

After holding Arar in detention for two weeks, without access to a lawyer, the U.S. deported him to his country of birth, Syria, despite his Canadian citizenship. He was imprisoned without charge and tortured for almost a year before finally being allowed to return to Canada.

A commission of inquiry subsequently concluded Arar was an innocent victim of faulty intelligence passed on to the Americans by Canadian security officials. The Canadian government eventually apologized and agreed to pay Arar $10.5 million in compensation. The RCMP also apologized for the injustice done to Arar.

His endorsement of Dewar marks the first time Arar has stepped into the realm of partisan politics, although his wife, Monia Mazigh, ran for the NDP in 2004. She has also endorsed Dewar.

Dewar said he was “shocked and deeply disturbed by the treatment of Maher Arar during those terrifying months he spent in Syria.”

Should he become prime minister one day, Dewar added: “I promise to stand up and fight for the rights of all Canadians, regardless of religion, colour of skin or country of birth.”

Arar joins a lengthy list of human rights advocates backing Dewar’s leadership bid. Among others, Dewar has won endorsements from prominent human rights lawyers Paul Champ and Amir Attaran.

He has also won support form eight former staff at the troubled Rights and Democracy, a Montreal-based, federally-funded human rights agency that has been rocked by internal strife following several controversial appointments to the board by the Harper government.

Three months ago, two aid workers helping to clear landmines out of Somalia were captured by local pirates. Jessica Buchanan, a 32-year-old American, and Danish citizen Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, had been held for ransom ever since. Efforts by the Danish government to secure their release were unsuccessful. At some point over the last few months — when exactly is unclear — the United States developed intelligence on their location, and also discovered that Buchanan, the American, was ill with an undisclosed illness. With her condition deteriorating, U.S. President Barack Obama decided to attempt a military rescue. SEAL Team 6, the same unit that invaded Pakistan and took out bin Laden, was chosen for the job. On Tuesday night, they got it done.

The hostages were both rescued safely, and the 12 pirates guarding them were all dealt with swiftly: Nine were killed when the SEALs moved in, with three captured and taken prisoner. No U.S. troops were killed, and the hostages have been evacuated to a nearby U.S. base. This is exactly what needs to happen every time a Western citizen is abducted and held for ransom. Kidnappings for money can’t be eliminated, but the kidnappers can be. If anything will help reduce these terrible crimes, that’s what it will take.

For years, Somali pirates have roamed the seas off the Horn of Africa, seizing ships for their crews and cargo, and waiting for insurance companies or corporations to pay out huge sums of money to have their men and material released. Gradually, however, shipping companies adapted to the risk, and began putting heavily armed private security teams on their ships, sailing them around the area, or sticking close to warships operating in the threatened waters. Military forces in the area have also been much more assertive in dealing with the pirates found at sea.

That has led some of these pirate groups — criminal organizations by any other name — to begin seeking Westerners wherever they can find them. This has meant several risky abductions from the shore. In September, for example, a British couple at a beach resort in Kenya were attacked by al-Qaeda-affiliated Somali militants. The husband was shot dead, and the wife taken prisoner. She remains a captive. And according to the Associated Press, there are at least three other known Western hostages being held in Somalia currently: Two Spanish doctors, also abducted from Kenya, and an American journalist, seized while working in Somalia.

The explanation given for such crimes is always the same — even when Islamist terror cells are involved, it’s about the money. The hefty ransoms that can be paid can either pay off a crew of hired guns (while enriching the mastermind) or support anti-government operations by terror groups. And the West generally has paid up, or has at least had someone pay up on our behalf. This just feeds the cycle. The more money is handed over for hostages, the more hostages are likely to be taken. The Somali gangs are clearly intent on continuing this — when attacking ships at sea became too hard, they switched to seeking targets on land. Like any good capitalists, they adapted to changing market conditions in a way that helps them keep their business alive.

That’s why the choice to send in the SEALs was the right one. The message must be sent that going after Westerners meanings having Westerners come after you. Both France and the United States have large military bases in the region, and they should be used — not only as hostage-rescue launch points, but also as staging areas of air strikes against the criminal bosses who profit off these crimes (Helpful tip: Drop smart bombs on the guys with the nice cars in heavily guarded compounds).

Military power by itself will never be enough to put an end to kidnapping rings, but it can at least change the calculus for those who seek to profit by abducting Western citizens. Kill enough pirates, and even the prospect of a handsome payout may be insufficient incentive to convince anyone else to sign up for the job.

National Post mgurney@nationalpost.com

joe friesen

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 9:27PM EST

Last updated Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 9:31PM EST

At first glance, gang crime in a U.S. city would seem to have little in common with the family conflicts that led to the killing of several women in Canada in recent years.

But one Canadian group is taking ideas gleaned from the streets of Chicago to tackle the troubling phenomenon of so-called honour crimes.

The Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration in London, Ont. will announce Tuesday that it has a partnership with the renowned Chicago anti-violence group CeaseFire to develop the Family Honour Project, which its creators hope will soon spread to other communities.

The initiative, the first of its kind in Canada, is based on the work of epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, whose public-health approach to violence reduction has been credited with contributing to a significant reduction in gang shootings in Chicago.

Although gang shootings and family honour crimes seem quite different, at their core they share one important cause: Both are driven primarily by the fear that a person’s reputation or image will be harmed if he or she doesn’t respond violently to being treated with a perceived lack of respect.

The CeaseFire approach suggests that if conflict can be identified and calmed before it spirals out of control, casualties can be avoided. Ultimately, it aims to teach those prone to react violently to change the way they think.

The difficult part is identifying where violence might break out, understanding why that’s the case, and developing a line of communication so that counsellors can defuse the situation.

Norman Kerr, who was a director at CeaseFire for more than a decade and who is working with the MRC, said much of the work depends on building relationships. In Chicago, CeaseFire used ex-gang members as counsellors. In London, they expect to use social workers. Those social workers will need to be tapped into all aspects of a community’s life, from school, to the health system to the justice system, in order to gather all kinds of information about who needs support and how to provide it.

“A huge part of [the violence] is the way people feel they’re going to be viewed,” Mr. Kerr said. “We work with people that [feel] they have been disgraced. We talk to them about the consequences – “If you retaliate, this is what is going to happen” – and after a while they realize it’s not worth it. A lot of it is relationships.”

One of the reasons London’s MRC was chosen is that it has a long and successful history working on issues of family violence. It’s also a smaller city with a significant Muslim population. There are four mosques, including one for Shia worshippers and for Bosnian Muslims, but the range of ethno-cultural differences is not as complex as it is in other, bigger cities.

In recent years the city has welcomed dozens of families from war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. When interviewed by counsellors in the MRC’s safe integration program, many exhibit warning signs for potential honour-related crimes, according to Mohammed Baobaid, executive director of the MRC.

“If you have effective strategies for identifying the risk factors of so-called honour-related violence, you can reduce the possibility of honour killing,” he said. “If you intervene right when newcomers come to the country, it makes a huge difference.”

Dr. Baobaid said they often see families struggling with their teenage daughters.

“They are really concerned that their kids will be influenced by Western culture and they maybe will think, extremely, that the girls will initiate sexual relationships with boys. This kind of perception or thinking may lead some parents to be strict or use different control tactics to control the kids,” Dr. Baobaid said.

“We honour their concerns and feelings, but at the same time we help them understand the new reality. Really we help them look at the opportunities available here and normalize this kind of concern, because everybody who has a teenage kid would be concerned, not just Muslims.”

Cross-gender conflict seems to be a red flag, according to Eugène Tremblay, program manager at MRC. For many families their sense of public standing is carried in the behaviour of the female child, he said, which can lead to strife in a new cultural milieu.

“Our hope is to change the entire paradigm around how honour is viewed in the family, and to change it for the positive, so that homes become safer,” said Saleha Khan, an MRC board member.

The MRC will have two people working as counsellors initially, but they haven’t yet secured funding for the Family Honour Project. It will also be supported by family violence researchers from the faculty of education at the University of Western Ontario.

The idea behind this unusual collaboration began with Sheema Khan, a columnist at The Globe and Mail, who contacted Dr. Slutkin and suggested that his model might be applicable in Canada. He suggested she find a partner organization that was trusted by Muslims and well-regarded in the wider community. She chose the MRC. She said she hopes the project will be expanded to South Asian organizations more broadly, and perhaps grow beyond Canada to Europe and elsewhere.