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In a court hearing scheduled to begin in September, the City of Edmonton will have to justify its silencing of a non-profit group that wants to promote gender equality and protect Canadian women and girls from honour killings.

Aqsa Parvez of Mississauga, Ont., was only 16 when she was strangled to death for refusing to wear a hijab. Her brother and father felt that she was dishonouring the family, so they killed her in her own home on Dec. 10, 2007. In a similar case, Mohammad Shafia’s three daughters and ex-wife were found dead inside a car on June 30, 2009, in Kingston, Ont. Mohammad Shafia, his second wife and his son were found guilty of first-degree murder, after a much-publicized trial that exposed the abuse and fear the three daughters had experienced before their “honour killing.”

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So-called honour killings occur when a woman is considered to have sullied her family’s honour through some sexual indiscretion, or perceived immodesty. Victims of honour killings die at the hands of their own family members. They are powerless and voiceless, unable to get help from those closest to them.