Canada declares war on Catholicism

[Asher]

Who was complaining? I enjoy people exposing their stupidity. Especially when he reminds me of people from this site.

[Felch]

Jesus, are you really complaining about the completely inconsequential internet radio ramblings of a teenage West Virginian?

I was astonished to find out that West Virginia has electricity.

[Ben Kenobi]

Really ? So if a Muslim or a Hindu or a Sikh Canadian, or say a strict Catholic from a southern Italian background wanted to kill their daughter for a perceived slight to their family's honour, it would, in your words, be 'permitted' in Canada.

One Catholics don't do that.

Two, yes, they have and continue to do so, all because they argue that is how their culture deals with certain things and they believe their culture should take precedence. This is part of why they want to impose Sharia law. The vast majority of the cases never hit trial.

Which particular case established this legal precedent ?

The same folks who argue that Cultural relativism is the way to go.

[Ben Kenobi]

So out of the English and French cultures you have the symbols of the shamrock- Irish and Catholic, and the thistle- Scottish, and the Tudor Rose.

Yessir. The French want out, so we should let them chart their own path.

No fleur de lys for the Frogs, nowt for the Chinese, nothing for the Metis, the Native Bands or Inuit, and no mention of the Jooze.

And your point? Are you saying that Canada should recognise Mandarin and Cantonese as official languages?

You remember them ben ? People like Mordechai Richler and William Shatner.

And your point again? Beyond Richler, is he the only Jewish author of significance in Canada? That speaks volumes.

What an oddly limited view of Canada's cultures and ethnicities

Yes, that I how I see things. Jewish people are Jewish. French, French, Chinese, Chinese, that is their primary culture, not Canadian.

English Canadians? Well, that's another matter isn't it? You're arguing that because they are different from the norm that Canada ought to be inclusive, but you are merely proving my point. Richler is important because he is Jewish, not because he is Canadian. If he weren't Jewish, nobody would trot him out as an essential component of Canadian culture.

And yes there are norms in Canada. Is that so difficult to understand? Most people at least in English Canada, are 'thistle, shamrock, rose entwined", or Irish, English and Scottish ancestry. Is there something wrong with articulating a policy that recognises this fact?

[Asher]

[DinoDoc]

I was astonished to find out that West Virginia has electricity.

Where do you think the market for the electric banjo is?

[SlowwHand]

Trite.

Ben is correct. As part of North America, it's made up primarily of Britain and some amount of French...and German.
Yes, there are Swedes and other, but the majority is as stated. Africans, Puerto Ricans, Asians, Mid-Eastern and Mexicans make up a lot, but that's not the history.

[Hauldren Collider]

Where do you think the market for the electric banjo is?

Nashville and/or Lexington

[Dr Strangelove]

Wasn't it pointed out somewhere else that so far every honor killing in Canada has been punished by maximum jail sentences? What more could Canada do? If they re-instate the death penalty for honor killikgs they'll have to re-instate them for all murders.

[giblets]

Ben is convinced that there are far more honor killings that never go to trial. I have no idea why he believes that someone in Canada can just kill their daughter and have a good chance of never having to stand trial...

[rah]

It's because he's an idiot. Why are you surprised? He makes **** up that fit into his warped world view. Benland is a strange place. But that's ok. He's allowed to live in Benland. But when he let's us view Benland, it's a never ending source of amusement.

[MRT144]

I wish we had the nediverse instead of benland.

[rah]

Yeah. It wasn't as bad a while back, but since his return, Ben has become a parody of himself.

[giblets]

KINGSTON, Ontario — A jury on Sunday found three members of an Afghan family guilty of killing three teenage sisters and another woman in what the judge described as "cold-blooded, shameful murders" resulting from a "twisted concept of honor," ending a case that shocked and riveted Canadians.

Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and using the Internet.

The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia's childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.

Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said the evidence clearly supported the conviction.

"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honorless crime," Maranger said. "The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor ... that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

In a statement following the verdict, Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson called honor killings a practice that is "barbaric and unacceptable in Canada."

Defense lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father's first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn't call police from the scene.

After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, "We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust."

His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother."

Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, "I did not drown my sisters anywhere."

Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, but said his client will appeal and he believes the other two defendants will as well.

But prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis welcomed the verdict.

"This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances," Laarhuis said outside court.

"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," he said to cheers of approval from onlookers.

The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.

Shafia's first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.

The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father, the court was told.

The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar's room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was becoming almost impossible to control: skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.

Shafia's first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and "made life a torture," while his second wife called her a servant.

The prosecution presented wire taps and mobile phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honor killing allegation. The wiretaps, which capture Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves, were a focal point of the trial.

"There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this," Shafia said on one recording. "Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows ... nothing is more dear to me than my honor."

Defense lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts do the accused say they drowned the victims.

Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.

"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/29/canada-honor-killing-shafia-family-guilty_n_1240268.html

Yes... I see now. Canada is clearly under Sharia law and permits honor killings.

[rah]

I'm sure Ben will just keep continuing to say

The vast majority of the cases never hit trial.

Despite all the real evidence.

Benland is a wonderful place.