Honour on Trial by Paul Schliesmann Page B

content. Hussain had a good management job at a Montreal grocery store. He could provide for Zainab. But what Latif heard over the phone from Dubai unnerved him.
    "I [had] asked her hand for Hussain and they agreed. We are waiting for your [Mohammad's] opinion," Latif recalled telling Shafia. "He said, 'Just wait until I come.' He was angry."
    Shafia, though indicating he was agreeable to the marriage, demanded that there be no contact between Zainab and Hussain for now.
    Latif was stung. "Your honour is my honour," he pointed out to Shafia. His son was willing to marry Zainab who had shamed the family with her broken marriage to Ammar. Latif and his family, in other words, were doing Shafia a favour.
    Shafia was preoccupied with Zainab's behaviour. Latif couldn't believe what he heard next. "He said, 'If I was there, I would have killed her.'"
    Latif was perplexed. "Why do you want to do that? She is a child," he told Shafia. "Children make mistakes. Don't show yourself [to be] that angry. Your problem is solved." One way of restoring honour¹ to the family is by marrying the "offending" woman off. The marriage is supposed to be with the person who violated her honour — even if she has been raped by him — but marrying the woman to someone else is an acceptable alternative.
    According to Latif, Shafia could not be appeased. When Latif persisted in seeking permission for the marriage arrangement, Shafia accused the older man of trying to get at his wealth through marriage.
    "I said, 'I have no eyes for your money. It's just for the humanity of this girl and the honour of this girl,'" Latif replied.
    According to Latif's account, Shafia abruptly hung up the phone. They never talked again about the matter.
    "I was worried why Shafia … he's talking this way," Latif said.
    Latif decided to go to Tooba's brother, Ahmed Javid, who lived in the same area of Montreal. Ahmed arranged for Tooba to come to his house for a meeting with Latif. Latif insisted that she come alone. He felt biased information was getting to Shafia. "Shafia used to get the message very fast," he said. "That's why I wanted to talk to Tooba alone. I had suspicion of Hamed."
    When Hamed appeared for the meeting with his mother, Latif decided to tackle the problem head-on. He sat Hamed down on the verandah for a talk. You're really a good boy, he told Hamad, but your family is fixed on too many old traditions. He also knew that Hamed had too much control over the girls, including Zainab, who was older than her brother. "You have five sisters," Latif said. "You should make yourself friends to your sisters. You should work with your sister[s] like a close friend.
    Latif decided to send a message to Shafia through the son: Lighten up. Let the sisters go to parties. Let them associate freely with friends.
    "Maybe your father doesn't understand the environment," Latif told him. "Your sisters can't watch TV. They're like political prisoners. This is completely against humanity, against the situation in this country."
    Latif said Hamed listened quietly as they sat on the front porch. In a few days, the young man would pack his black suitcase and fly off to join his father in Dubai for 12 days.
    1 http://www.meforum.org/50/honor-murders-why-the-perps-get-off-easy

Rona's life…
    WHILE the Shafia girls were feeling the heavy hand of parental control in June of 2009, pressure was building on Rona. Isolation was increasing inside the household and she had no network of friends in Montreal.
    When Rona first came to Canada in November 2007, the Hyderis invited her to their house, along with Tooba and Shafia, for the traditional meal given to travellers. Latif told her to consider him her "paternal uncle."
    "You can always come to our house. Don't feel isolated that you have no brother or sister here or no parents here," he recalled telling her. "She became very happy when I told her these things."
    The Hyderis didn't have much contact with Rona after that,