Murder of Aqsa Parvez

Aqsa "Axa" Parvez (April 22, 1991 – December 10, 2007) was a 16-year-old student at Applewood Heights Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. She was the daughter of Muhammad Parvez, a taxicab driver, and grew up in a Muslim family of Pakistani origin. According to the case background, Parvez had academic difficulties at school and experienced tension with her family, partly related to her dislike of wearing the hijab. She left home on at least two occasions; after the first departure, her father sent her a letter promising more freedom, but conflicts continued and she left a second time. A week before her death, she had moved in with the family of a neighbour, Lubna Tahir.

Parvez was killed around 7:30 a.m. on December 10, 2007, at her family's home in Mississauga, where 12 people were present at the time. At around 8:00 a.m., Peel Regional Police responded to a 911 call from a man who said he had just killed his daughter. Officers found Parvez with life-threatening injuries; she was taken first to Credit Valley Hospital and then transferred in critical condition to the Hospital for Sick Children, where she died. It was established in court in 2010 that her brother, Waqas Parvez, had strangled her, causing death by neck compression. One student reported that her father had been threatening her, and friends said she wanted to run away from the family due to ongoing conflict.

Muhammad Parvez was charged with first-degree murder and denied bail. Waqas Parvez was initially held on a charge of obstructing police, ordered not to communicate with police, and later released on bail with conditions including surrendering his passport. On June 27, 2008, Peel Regional Police charged Waqas Parvez with first-degree murder. On June 15, 2010, both Muhammad Parvez and Waqas Parvez pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Aqsa Parvez, and a statement of agreed-upon facts was released in court. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment, with no eligibility for parole until 2028. Muhammad Parvez died of natural causes in February 2017 while in custody.

During the trial, Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno described the killing as an honour killing, stating he found it "profoundly disturbing that a 16-year-old could be murdered by a father and brother for the purpose of saving family pride, for saving them from what they perceived as family embarrassment." A statement attributed to the father to the victim's mother immediately after the crime — "My community will say you have not been able to control your daughter. This is my insult. She is making me naked." — was cited in support of the honour-killing characterization. Some Islamic leaders described the case instead as domestic violence; Islamic community figures, including an imam who conducted a two-day hunger strike, publicly denounced the killing. A planned public funeral at a Mississauga mosque was replaced with a private funeral hours before it was to occur; Parvez was buried at Meadowvale Cemetery in Brampton, and her family declined a memorial gravestone offered by an outside activist. The case drew international media coverage and was later profiled in the 2010 documentary film In the Name of the Family.