Tooba Yahya: Amin Muhammad

Honour Killings Dept: On Sunday, Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, were each found guilty on Sunday of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the Shafias' three daughters and the older man's first wife, according to CTV. Amin Muhammad, a professor of psychiatry at Memorial University in St. John's, Nfld. and an expert on honour killings, said such a crime is usually committed when a female establishes a relationship with a man outside of her family and perpetrators of honour killings do so under the mistaken belief that their actions will restore respect for their family in their community, says a Canadian expert on the phenomenon. The Crown had argued the deaths were honour killings, an attempt to restore the family's dignity in the wake of the girls' rebellious behaviour. The family denied these claims, but Justice Robert Maranger called the killings an "honourless crime" when addressing them after the verdict was handed down, saying the victims were killed because they "offended your completely twisted concept of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.