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At 2pm EST today, on a CFRA radio press conference, it was announced that the deaths of four Afghan-Canadian girls and women was a “Muslim honor killing.” If so, this is the fifth known honor killing in Canada since 1999 and it brings the death toll to nine victims. I am no statistician but I have friends who are and they tell me that this is a very high number given that the Muslim population in Canada is no more than 750,000.

Let’s hear it for the Canadian police! They have just charged the Shafi family with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder in this case. In other words, they understand that both classic and often unique honor murders are planned and performed by families, not only by individuals.

Kingston police chief Stephen Tanner said, “It was a needless and senseless loss of human life. …They had their lives cut short by members of their own family.”

Only once, in 2008, did our own FBI describe an honor killing as an honor killing. They did so in the case of the Said Dallas case, but within ten days, they retracted that description. One can only imagine why. (And one does not know what the Canadian police or prosecutor will ultimately say).

This is also the second Afghan-Canadian honor killing. The first one took place in 2006, and was a brother-on-sister murder. The brother, Hasibullah Sadiqi, shot his sister and her fiancée in a shopping mall in Ottawa. Sadiqi stood trial in 2009.

Here is the background to this latest developing story in Canada.

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