3.The Province

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Dad charged in daughter's death

By Chris Wattie


A Mississauga cab driver has been charged with the murder of his sixteen year old daughter. He strangled her after she refused to wear her hijab. The police were contacted early Monday morning by a man saying he has killed his daughter. Aqsa Parvez had run away from home earlier this week because of conflicts we was having with her family over traditional Muslim garb, including the hijab. When talking with a friend she confessed that, "she was scared of her father: He was always controlling her." She apparently wasn't allowed to do anything and she was never allowed to go out. On the Monday morning she refused to wear her hijab and she got into a fight with her father about it. In the end it resulted in him strangling his daughter till the point where he thought she was dea. Whem paramedics arrived on the scene, they found a faint heartbeat but when she was taken to the hospital she was soon pronounced dead.
I have never understood religion very well. I was brought up in a family that doesn't have any specific religion, we just believe in what we believe. This does not mean I do not believe in God, it just means I do not go to church and that I do not call myself or obey any certain religion. I absolutely respect what others believe in and I normally think very highly of the Muslim religion, considering they take in many different cultures and are very open to people converting. The only problem for me about the Muslim religion is their beliefs are very strong, sometimes too strong in some circumstances, such as this one. When people believe in something so strongly, they might get out of hand especially when someone else is trying to disobey their beliefs.
In this situation, I believe that the father should have never even put his hands on his daughter, under no circumstances. They live in Canada, which is a place of freedom. I do understand that he would get angry because he has brought his family up in the Muslim tradition, but just because she did not want to wear her hijab does not mean she does not favor the Muslim lifestyle. The fact that he did not let her go out or anything is absurd, if I were her I would have run away too. People learn by going out in the world, especially teenagers. She did not have the life she deserved and her life was cut short due to an angry father who probably regrets what he has done greatly. All of this could have been avoided, you should never let a religion or a conflict in beliefs ever get in the way of your actions and should never be a reason to harm anyone.