Daval

Clash Over Religious Garb May Be Behind Attack On Teen
Tuesday December 11, 2007
CityNews.ca Staff

She wanted to be more Western.

He wanted her to be more traditional.

And that clash of cultures may have been what led a father to allegedly choke his daughter and leave her in very grave condition in hospital on Monday. Police are saying very little about what happened in a home on normally quiet Longhorn Trail in the Eglinton and Hurontario area of Mississauga. But the friends of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez claim she was desperately trying to pull away from the strict traditions of her devout Muslim family.

And they contend that led to the attack that's left her near death. The sad story began just before 8am when a man called police to report he'd murdered his daughter. Authorities found the girl clinging to life and rushed her to hospital. She'd reportedly been choked into unconsciousness.

Her father, identified as 57-year-old cab driver Muhammad Parvez, was taken into custody at the scene. Students at Applewood Heights Secondary School, which the victim attended, tell of a troubled family life, with the teen refusing to wear the traditional head covering hijab, and preferring more Western-style clothing.

They say she'd moved out and was staying with a friend, and may have gone back to get her things when the confrontation began. "She's kind of rebellious a bit," confirms classmate Heather Bottecher. "She's supposed to wear the hijab. But she doesn't usually wear it. And she usually wears short sleeves when you're supposed to wear long sleeves. And she wears, like, low cut shirts and stuff like that."

"We noticed a drastic change in her appearance," another friend named Shianne Phillips recalls. "Like, she used to dress religiously. Now she's dressing in, like, more causal clothing, like other people."

There are reports the teen would wear the special garb to school then change when she got there to fool her father.

Parvez makes his first court appearance on the attempted murder allegation on Tuesday, but that charge could be upgraded if his daughter dies. Relatives are expected to make the difficult choice about donating her organs if that terrible tragedy happens.

-----------------------------------


They just reported a few minutes ago that the girl died this morning.

This story just completely and totally angers me. I live just a few miles from where this happened and over the last 15 years a HUGE amount of Muslim immigrants have moved into my city. There is so many now that my daughter is one of only two white kids in her class. When I went to school it was closer to half with the other half being a mixture of other cultures.

I don't mean to come across as racist here, this city has always been very multicultural and I truly think that was a great thing, the pendulum is now swinging waaay far to the other side.

When I drive around my area I am seeing just as many women in Hijab's and even Burka's as not. They for the most part seem to keep to themselves are do not try and be freindly with their non-muslim neighbors. The sense of community drops all the time.

My problem with all of this is not the ethnicity of new immigrants, if they are coming to make a better life for themselves then I wish them all of the luck in the world, but for fucks sakes we are in Canada. You need to allow your family to adapt, your children to be who they want to be.

This type of tradegy has happened before and will happen again and it pisses me off.

My arguements here are not fluid and are disjointed. I needed to rant.

__________________
"It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it."
Winston Churchill