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Paul Schliesmann. Honour on Trial: The Shafia Murders and the Culture of Honour Killings. Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2012. 207 pp. $21.95 sc.
The Shafia trial attracted unprecedented attention in the local, national and international media. Described as a heinous case involving the honour killings of four of the Shafia female family members, it symbolized how an immigrant family chose to punish its own for violating cultural codes. According to media accounts, it was a classic tale of culture clash with the key words being immigrant origins and tribal, patriarchal cultures.
Schliesmann, a reporter, followed the trial through its three-month span at the local Kingstone courthouse, in geographic proximity to the site of the crime-the Kingston Mills locks. There, as Schliesmann documents, in 2009, a car was found submerged in the canal. Four dead bodies were found belonging to Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia (aged 19, 17 and 13, respectively), and Rona Amir (aged 52). The three younger women were daughters of Mohammad and Tooba Yahya Shafia, while Rona was Mohammad Shafia's first wife.
Schliesmann offers a journalistic account of the trial recounting the evidence presented, the arguments of the prosecution and defence, and testimonies presented by numerous witnesses. Each chapter tours through the different facets of the casefrom the initial investigation and interrogation by the Kingston police to the arguments presented in court. Honour on Trial is an easy read, accessible to a wide audience but lacking in any kind of scholarly analysis. Though Schliesmann includes a concluding chapter...