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How Geeti Shafia’s tombstone came to be engraved with a mistaken date
The correction may be slated for spring, two years after her murder
For Ali Altaie, the warm spring weather can’t come soon enough. The co-director of the Hamza Cemetery, an Islamic burial ground in
Laval, Que., has been fielding frequent phone calls in the wake of the Shafia “honour killing” trial that saw Mohammad Shafia, his wife, Tooba Yahya, and son Hamed convicted on four counts of first-degree murder. Their victims, Rona Amir Mohammad and sisters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti are buried in a neat row in Altaie’s cemetery. And people keep calling to tell him about a disconcerting mistake on one of their graves that the family doesn’t appear to care enough about to correct.

At 13, Geeti was the youngest of those killed and dumped into the Rideau Canal at Kingston, Ont. But her date of birth, barely visible above the snow on the grounds of the cemetery, is erroneously chiselled on her tombstone as “22-10-1991”—the same date inscribed on the grave of her beloved, 17-year-old big sister Sahar, which sits beside hers. “We’ll fix it,” Altaie tells Maclean’s, clearly frustrated with the attention brought by the mistake.

But any alterations will have to wait. The company that provides tombstones for the cemetery won’t make repairs to them during the winter because the ground is frozen. “They’re supposed to go and fix it as soon as the weather is good,” says Altaie.

It’s not clear why the mistake hasn’t already been corrected—though it is perhaps hardly surprising given that Geeti’s father, the man convicted of her brutal, premeditated murder, once infamously spat, “May the devil s–t on their graves!” while referring to her and her sisters. Altaie says he gave the correct information to the company, which made the error. Now that the issue has risen to prominence, Altaie says a person claiming to be a cousin of the Shafias has also called to ask that Geeti’s birthdate be changed on her tombstone. With that blessing, Altaie says the cemetery will foot the bill for the change, which he expects to cost $200. “It doesn’t matter how much it costs,” says Altaie.

Maclean’s readers feel the same way. After senior writer Michael Friscolanti wrote of the gravestone mix-up in the Feb. 13 issue, many wrote letters expressing shock, distress and confusion over the mistake. “What an incredibly sad thing to think that this was not noticed and corrected right away,” said Sarnia, Ont., resident Carole Mitro. Others, meanwhile, have expressed their desire to help have Geeti’s real birthday inscribed on her tombstone. “She is owed this one small kindness after having been failed in her short life,” wrote Jennifer Tyrrell.
[...]
“If respect is not shown to the living, it is not likely to be shown to the dead.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/02/21/a-telling-mistake/
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]​

I personally am going to follow up on this myself,if its a manner of money Ill arrange that by collecting from strangers if I have to
b/c I dont see the people that "want the devil to shit on their graves" willing to right a wrong
Im pissed over this,you cant make mistakes like this let alone let them stay there
I never knew about this mistake
 
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The gravestones of (left to right) Rona Amir Mohammad, Zainab Shafia, Sahar Shafia and Geeti Shafia in the Islamic cemetery in Laval Qc. on Monday, Jan. 30, 2012.​

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So can you justify over a million Muslim being slaughtered by a largely Christian nation? It was started and carried out by a man who proclaimed himself a "born-again Christian" and made no bones about using this fact to get him elected. Why are the Christians not speaking out about this? Where are the religious leaders of Christianity and Judiasm (and hell, even atheists don't belive in the carte blanche murder of people for no other reason than oil) speaking on behalf of Iraqis and Afghanis?

Again...a million dead Muslims in less than 10 years. But complete silence from the atheists and Christians alike.

Nowhere near one million Muslims were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan (combined) by U.S. forces. Even so, no persons were killed simply because they were Muslims and the persons in these areas wherein coalition forces are present have not been forced to follow any Christian edicts. In fact, Iraqi Christians are suffering far more since the U.S. led invasion of Iraq than they were under the regime of Saddam Hussein, which goes to show that this military operation has nothing to do with Christianity. As for there being "complete silence" about the death of civilians, innocent or not, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan...I guess you have not been watching MSNBC, CBS, NBC, CNN or reading The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post etc.. for the past nine years.
 
The religion of love, peace & forgiveness still going at it full steam
Keep people ignorant and uneducated, stuff some BS religion down their throat as a control measure, make them kill family members in the name of religion, wrap your children in explosives and indiscriminately kill everyone in the name of religion and what do you have, Muslims

No forgiveness for the desecrators of the Koran," a section of the crowd shouted. "Only death."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/22/us-afghanistan-korans-idUSTRE81K09T20120222
(Reuters) - Four people were shot dead and dozens wounded in protests in Afghanistan which flared for a second day on Wednesday in several cities over the burning of copies of the Koran, Islam's holy book, at NATO's main base in the country, officials said.

The American Embassy said its staff were in "lockdown" and travel had been suspended as thousands of people expressed fury over the burning, a public relations disaster for U.S.-led NATO forces fighting Taliban militants ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.

The U.S. government and the American commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan apologized after Afghan laborers found charred copies of the Koran while collecting rubbish at the sprawling Bagram Airbase about an hour's drive north of Kabul.

The apologies failed to contain the anger. Thousands of Afghans took to the streets again, chanting anti-American slogans.
 
Not as it Christianity has been any more loving over the centuries. And as someone who has a relative who is gay and several more friends that are as well,trust me when I say that the man who is suddenly the Republician Party's frontrunner and darling are linked to people who would like nothing more than to see my relative and friends dead..along with others who don't fit their version of the BIble.
Religion is for controlling people..and nothing more.
 
So can you justify over a million Muslim being slaughtered by a largely Christian nation? It was started and carried out by a man who proclaimed himself a "born-again Christian" and made no bones about using this fact to get him elected. Why are the Christians not speaking out about this? Where are the religious leaders of Christianity and Judiasm (and hell, even atheists don't belive in the carte blanche murder of people for no other reason than oil) speaking on behalf of Iraqis and Afghanis?

Again...a million dead Muslims in less than 10 years. But complete silence from the atheists and Christians alike.

I'll ask again, what is the justification for the current bombing of innocent people in the name of Allah? There is at least one suicide bombing a day, that I read about. How do the justify suicide bombings and death missions like 911 if suicide is forbidden in Islam? Its not just a few kooks. It's a lot of them, and they are backed up by a majority of the Muslim world.
 
Not as it Christianity has been any more loving over the centuries. And as someone who has a relative who is gay and several more friends that are as well,trust me when I say that the man who is suddenly the Republician Party's frontrunner and darling are linked to people who would like nothing more than to see my relative and friends dead..along with others who don't fit their version of the BIble.
Religion is for controlling people..and nothing more.

Rick Santorum is going to kill gay people? Perhaps that is what MSNBC and the Huffington Post want you to believe. Who is the one being controlled here?
 
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Oh and I would like to thank Pete for breaking my "dislike" cherry. I consider it high praise that a racist, bigoted, homophobe doesn't like what I have to say.

Patience little grasshopper. Apparently you are the last one on this site to know Pete is a gay, black man, who works with different embassies around the world to bring peace and harmony withing cultures. I would have popped your cherry long ago if I knew I was the type of guy you were looking for.

I am also curious if you have any insight into these statements.
1998 speech to Muslims in California by Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the “Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR):

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should
be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

1995, Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to youth conference in Toledo, Ohio:

“We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America.”
Now, are these two quotes the words of a “Peaceful” religion? If I was in Saudi Arabia and I said that Christianity should be the dominant faith in the Muslim world, I would probably be stoned to death!
 
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Man defends testifying against niece’s family in Shafia trial
KINGSTON, Ont. - A man who helped convict his niece of killing three of her daughters and her husband's first wife says he has been ostracized from his family and friends.
"At the beginning, not just in Afghan society, some of the Canadians abandoned me," said Latif Hyderi, a 65-year-old Montreal man. "We would go to the mosque and no one would talk to me."

Hyderi appeared at the Kingston Mills murder trial in November to testify that Mohammad Shafia, Shafia's wife and Hyderi's niece Tooba Yahya and their some, Hamed.

They were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, for killing daughters Zainab, Sahar, Geeti, and Shafia's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad. The bodies of the four women were found in a car submerged at the Rideau Canal locks in Kingston on June 30, 2009. The Crown was told the women were part of an honour killing because of their acceptance of Western ideals and trends.

Hyderi, who speaks neither English nor French and spoke with QMI Agency through his son, Reza, said the women's deaths were made more tragic because Zainab was engaged to marry his son, Hussain.

Hyderi had to choose between justice and family the day he learned his future daughter-in-law was found dead in the Rideau Canal.

He testified against Shafia, even though his family and other members of the Afghan society in Montreal urged him not to.

"When the killings happened my father knew it was not an accident because Mr. Shafia told my dad he was going to kill Zainab. For my parents it's everything. He's very disappointed in the reaction to his testimony, though he knew it was reality," Reza said.

At the trial, Hyderi said he tried to convince Mohammad to ease up on the restrictions, that they were living in a whole different culture in Canada.

"If Shafia would listen to me those four women would be alive on this earth," he told the court. "I feel very bad for what they introduced to the community. For me, the children were always clean."

Hussain, now 29, is refusing interviews. Reza said his brother was devastated by what transpired and is trying to put his life back together.

"It's hard for me to see Tooba, my niece, in prison. It's very shameful," Hyderi said. "I swear I was a friend to the Shafias and I never thought they would face such a time.

"No matter what they think - even if they consider me an enemy - I tell the truth and nothing else.

"My duty was to oppose the crime and stand up for reality. In that, I have God with me and I felt it was right."
[...]
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2012/03/20120302-165556.html
 
Canadians' duty to remember Shafia girls, PM says

'Barbaric practice' of so-called honour crimes denounced by Harper]
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The three Shafia daughters and their father's first wife were murdered in 2009 by their parents and eldest brother​
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it is the duty of all Canadians to remember the murdered Shafia daughters and ensure that no one else falls victim to so-called honour crimes.

Harper made the comments during a stop Friday in Montreal, the same city where Geeti, Zainab and Sahar Shafia tried to assimilate into life as Canadian teenagers and where one of the country’s most horrifying murder plots was hatched.

“There is nothing honourable about so-called honour crimes,” he said. “Indeed this is a barbaric practice which our laws rightly deem to be heinous and indefensible acts and nothing less.”

Awareness campaign

Harper announced $348,000 in funding for Montreal’s Shield of Athena Family Services, the non-profit organization for victims of family violence that will be launching an awareness campaign on honour crimes.
Melpa Kamateros, executive director of the Shield of Athena, said her organization has noted a rise in so-called honour crimes.

"For many communities in Quebec, family violence is still a taboo subject," she said.

"To break the taboo, we have to break the silence," she said. "We have to provide services that are linguistically and culturally attuned to the ethnic communities and to victims coming from these communities."
[...]


The prosecution’s case revolved around the notion of family dishonour in the minds of the Shafia parents and eldest brother.

That perceived blight was brought about by the victims' boyfriends and disobedience, according to the Crown.

During the extensive trial, court heard from numerous witnesses who said the women were isolated in a physically and emotionally abusive household and tightly controlled by their parents and brother.
[...]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/16/montreal-honour-killing-shafia-harper.html
 
Gala to honour slain Shafia women
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Flowers were placed next to the Kingston Mills Locks on where a car with the four Shafia women inside drowned​
KINGSTON, ON - The four women of the Shafia family, murdered at Kingston Mills along the Rideau Canada in 2009, will be remembered at this year's Canadians for Women in Afghanistan Gala in Kingston.

"We, as a chapter, felt there was no closure," said gala organizer Madeliene Tarasick.
[...]
An education fund is being set up in the women's names and will be introduced at the gala on May 17 gala at St. Lawrence College.

Tarasick said that while their organization's mandate is to educate girls in Afghanistan, train teachers in the war-torn country and build schools, the conclusion to the three-month murder trial couldn't go unrecognized.

"We have that natural connectedness," said Tarasick. "First, the fact this happened was tragic enough. Second, it happened right under our noses in Kingston. We just felt we had to respond in some fashion."

The money raised until Sept. 30 will go to assist the education of girls or young women in Afghanistan.

This may include help with paying tuition fees, purchasing of computers or other resources or providing safe travel to and from schools.

Tarasick said girls sometimes have to go to other villages to continue their education, but their parents fear for their safety if they have to walk.

The 14 chapters of Canadians for Women in Afghanistan have raised $4.5 million since 1996 for their wider group of projects. The Kingston chapter has raised $130,000 since 2003.

The organization recently partnered with CIDA, paying for half of a $1-million program to train 2,000 teachers in Afghanistan.

When the Kingston organizers met to plan this May's gathering - which will feature speaker William Crosbie, Canada's last ambassador to Afghanistan - they realized they had to pay homage, in a quiet and meaningful way, to the Shafia women.

"At the end, justice was served. Justice needed to be served," said Tarasick, who praised Kingston Police and the judicial system for their diligence. "After that, we felt there was a slight vacuum. There's need for closure, to have something positive come out of it."

Donations for the Shafia fund or Canadians for Women in Afghanistan can be mailed to: Marg Stewart, 2970 Unity Road, RR1 Elginburg, ON K0H 1M0
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2012/04/20120404-191826.html
 
Shafia appeals seem unlikely to succeed

It didn’t take long for the Shafia family to file appeals on their January first-degree murder convictions.

At first blush, one might think an appeal would have a decent chance of success.

After all, there was no eyewitness testimony to the murders, or a confession.

Expert evidence was unable to determine precisely when and where the four deceased women were killed.

There was no evidence of precisely who did what to whom.

Couple that with a lengthy trial accompanied by a lengthy charge to the jury. Surely, there were some legal errors.

But it isn’t easy to overturn a jury verdict.

A jury doesn’t provide reasons for its decision.

Given that, an appellate court is left examining the trial record, looking for legal errors.

But errors alone aren’t enough for an appeal to succeed.

That’s because of a provision in the Criminal Code that allows an appellate court to dismiss an appeal in spite of legal errors in the trial if the court is of the opinion “no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice has occurred.â€￾

This doesn’t only apply to minor legal errors, which would have had no impact on the verdict.

It also applies to serious errors that would otherwise justify allowing an appeal and ordering a new trial, but for the fact the evidence at trial was so overwhelming, there has been no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice.

The trial judge, the experienced Justice Robert Maranger, had no doubt of the guilt of the three Shafias as evidenced by his statement after the jury verdict, “it’s difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime.â€￾

Certainly, the evidence of murder and the fact it was planned and deliberate was overwhelming at the Shafia trial.

It included the recent purchase of the used Nissan for the trip; the Lexus paint scratch on the Parks Canada garbage barrel; damage to the Lexus headlight matching the shards left at the crime scene; damage to the Lexus front matching damage to the Nissan’s rear; Internet searches on how to commit murder; the timing of the cellphone calls; discussions with the motel manager over how many people would be staying in the rooms; the location of the sunken car; bruises on three of the victims’ heads; the turned-off ignition; the driver’s side window being open, with none of the victims having tried to escape.

All this and more overwhelmingly pointed to murder as opposed to an accident, as the defence argued.

The evidence may have been circumstantial but circumstantial evidence is often more trustworthy than eyewitness accounts and is often used to convict.

The wire-tap evidence unmasked the mastermind behind the murders as Mohammed Shafia.

Speaking of his recently deceased daughters as “filthy whoresâ€￾ or the statements, “there was no other way, they committed treason from beginning to end, they betrayed kindness, they betrayed Islam, they betrayed our religion and creed, they betrayed our tradition, they betrayed everything,â€￾ and “even if they hoist me up onto the gallows, nothing is more dear to me than my honour,â€￾ all made his identity clear.

But it was the totality of the wiretap evidence, along with the many lies the Shafias recited during police interviews, plus the lies told by the parents during their Hail Mary testimony at trial, that laid bare the conspiracy engaged in by the father, mother and son.

It would be unusual for anyone convicted of first-degree murder not to appeal the conviction.

[...]
I read nothing into this appeal other than a desperate tactic by desperate people.

After all, we know Paul Bernardo and Robert (Willie) Pickton both appealed their murder convictions to the Supreme Court of Canada. And we know how that worked out for them.
http://www.lfpress.com/comment/2012/04/13/19630346.html
 
Hamed Shafia, his father, Mohammed, and his mother, Tooba Mohammed Yahya, were sentenced to life in prison for murder, with Judge Robert Maranger excoriating their "twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

Leading Muslim thinkers wholeheartedly endorsed the Canadian judge's verdict, insisting that "honor murders" had no place and no support in Islam.

"There is nothing in the Quran that justifies honor killings. There is nothing that says you should kill for the honor of the family," said Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in England.

"This idea that 'somehow a girl has besmirched our honor and therefore the thing to do is kill her' is bizarre, and Muslims should stop using this defense," he said, arguing that the practice is cultural, not religious in origin.

"You cannot say this is what Islam approves of. You can say this is what their culture approves of," he said. . . .

Although the practice may not be Islamic, she said, not all Muslims understand the distinction.

"It is a problem within Islam because of how Muslims often confuse culture and religion," she said. "It's Muslims who have to learn to separate culture and religion. If we don't, Islam will continue to get the bad name that it gets." . . .

"Significant cases are happening within South Asian communities, be it Pakistani, Indian, Sikh, Muslim, Kurdish, Iranian, Middle Eastern communities," she said. . . .

On the other hand, honor murders are not a problem in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

"No such a practice can be found among Indonesian Muslims," said Azyumardi Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/...r-murders-experts-insist/?iid=article_sidebar
 
Sidenote: Afghanis are not Arab. These folks are most likely Pataani and they are reknown for their tribal/backwards ways. Incidently they are also famous for their wonderful treatment of guests....weird, huh?

I hope this man is comfortable with the fact that the Qu'ran states any man who kills his children will burn for all eternity in hell. I don't have an issue with polygyny, it's allowed in Islam with some very strict guidelines. (which are rarely followed by polygynist men) But if they are all consenting adults then who am I to tell them no? I find it strange that a man sleep with innumerable women and even make children with them but the moment he wants to marry more than one and support them he is a criminal. But I digress.

This guy should be punished according to the Shariah law, stone him to death...or beheading..I am flexible. :crazy: Too bad Canada doesn't have a death penalty.
Pashtun and what many don't realize is within their tribal culture they frequently marry their cousins and have married more than one sister before. In America as well as Canada they will usually pass off the older wife as a sister. This honor killing thing in the Americas needs to be nipped in the bud. There are probably many more cases than are realized.
 
Honour killings occur not only amongst "backwards" Paatani peoples, but in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc... This practise cannot be confined to a peripheral group within the greater Muslim population. It is a practise that is not unknown even among the Muslim population in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. To place the blame for this sickening culture on a small group is disingenuous.
Jordan I think has the highest rate
 
My apologies to all if anything I added was redundant! When I flipped to this article earlier only saw one page of comments, everything pretty much was already covered
 
The permanent resident status of Tooba Yahya, the Montreal woman serving a life sentence for killing her three daughters and her husband's first wife in 2009, has been revoked.

Yahya, husband Mohammad Shafia and their son Hamed were convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of the women in 2012. The bodies of their daughters Zainab,19, Sahar,17, and Geeti, 13, and that of Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, were found in a car submerged in the Kingston Locks.

The Shafia family and Rona Amir, Mohammad Shafia's first wife in the polygamous marriage, left Afghanistan and came to Canada in 2007.
At a hearing in Montreal Thursday, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada determined that Yahya will not be permitted to remain in Canada as a permanent resident when she is released from prison. She will not be eligible for parole for at least another 16 years.

Yayah's lawyer Stéphane Handfield said his client's life could be in danger if she is returned to Afghanistan and her only recourse will be a humanitarian appeal.

A deportation order was issued for Mohammad Shafia on Feb. 27. The immigration board said it had no information concerning Hamed Shafia.

It's not yet clear whether similar immigration proceedings will be launched in the cases of Hamed and Mohammad Shafia, who are serving their sentences in Ontario.

The three members of the Shafia family appealed their verdict in 2015, arguing that expert testimony on the practice of so-called honour killing presented by the Crown at their trial prejudiced the jury and that Hamed was actually a minor at the time the crime took place.

Documents the family used in 2007 when immigrating to Canada showed Hamed would have been 18 at the time of the killings.
The age argument was rejected by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Hamed Shafia had asked the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal, arguing new evidence showing he was a youth at the time of the deaths should not have been dismissed. The top court announced in April it would not hear the appeal.
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