For daring to be free, beautiful Aqsa Parvez was sacrificed on the altar of family honour.
In pleading guilty to that “chilling and antiquated patriarchal” crime of honour killing, her father, Muhammad Parvez, 60, and brother Waqsa, 29, will be sentenced to mandatory life terms in prison for second-degree murder.
“I deeply regret my actions,” her brother told Justice Bruce Durno while his distraught mother, wife and two brothers looked on.
“Aqsa Parvez’s murder was a gender-based crime, motivated by patriarchal concepts of honour and shame which these defendants had chosen to adopt,” Crown attorney Mara Basso said Tuesday in asking that the men not be allowed to apply for parole for 18 years.
“This is all about the honour of the males in the family. Embarrassment to the family is enough to warrant murder.”
And what had the rebellious 16-year-old done to raise their ire and “require” that she be lured back home and choked to death in her own bedroom that December 10, 2007?