The other option

Submitted by Navigator (Canada), Dec 13, 2007 at 18:56

In Canada we have just suffered the loss of 16 year-old Muslim girl who did not want to wear the hijab to school. Her father is accused of strangling her to death and has been charged with second degree murder. The case has not yet come to trial and charges remaind to be proved.

Spokespeople for Canadian Muslim organizations prattle on about how this parent child abuse is a common theme across all cultures in Canada. Some individual Muslims have written into local newspapers condemning the death but also add in the usual mantras: "Islam is a religion of peace" and the Koran advises that there "shall be no compulsion" in religion. I conclude that either these people lie about their religion or they simply not schooled sufficiently in it tot understand it.

I have lived through "beatniks", "hippies", "punk rockers", "goths", "skas", "body piercing", and "tatoos" as expressions of youthful rebellion against the rules and in defiance of parents. I cannot recall an instance when any teenage child, outside of Islam, was murdered by a parent for reasons of dress. Why do people who want to live by the restrictive rules of this religion want to bring their children up in a pluralistic western society?

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