Community reaction to the Shafia trial verdict

Geeti, Zainab and Sahar Shafia were found dead with their father's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, in June 2009. (Trial evidence)The conviction of Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed for the murder of four family members sparked a massive response from the CBC Community.

Since the story announcing the jury's verdict was posted on cbcnews.ca Sunday afternoon, readers posted over 1,200 comments voicing their opinions. We can't possibly reprint all of them, here is a small selection of the discussion.

Many agreed with the verdict, applauding the court and the jury for its decision after the three-month trial.

• "The jury's verdict sends a strong message that honour killings will not be tolerated in Canada! A just decision!" - wandasparkes
• "Now they can finally rest in peace. What a tragic ending to such beautiful women." - mercyj
• "The only good news in a sad story." - Mistrusted
• "Conspiracies can be very difficult to prove but the testimony of the mother and father helped put the nails in their own coffins. The Crown and the investigators did an excellent job." Just another Canuck

Some disagreed with the verdict, either questioning the strength of the evidence or the fairness of the trial as a whole. Other readers countered with their own interpretations.

• "Rather than using superior investigative practices the police played the religion card and they had a willing audience in the jury. The media obliged by hanging out to dry every detail of the Shafia's family life. This did not appear to be a fair trial." - Boots_sox
• "What we read in the news is only what the jurors heard and saw and therefore jurors cannot have been prejudiced by the news reporting. As to the evidence the jury decided the verdict on the basis of what was presented to them. Juries are not subject to oversight and claims of error. The trial was very fair." - norushatall

One commenter wrote about his/her experiences with Afghans living in Canada, which started a fascinating back-and-forth discussion.

"My job takes occasionally takes me to other people's homes. On two occasions, I visited the home of an extended family (3 generations) of Afghans recently arrived in Canada.

On both visits, the female members of the household were required to stay upstairs in their bedrooms, while I spoke with the men at length.

The men also explained to me that the women were never permitted out of the house, unless accompanied by a male member of the household.

I can remember thinking at the time, that this kind of misogynist attitude was probably going to pose some serious problems for this family, once the younger girls in the family grew up, attended school and witnessed the comparative freedom that was enjoyed by their female peers.

People with such attitudes are clearly going to have serious trouble integrating into Canada, and perhaps the lesson to be learned from this tragedy, is that we need to do a better job of screening such people out, and declining them as immigrants.

In this case, allowing them into Canada led to a conflict between cultural values and Canadian freedoms, that eventually resulted in murder." - Tacitus

• "One of the first things that immigrants from these parts of the world should learn before they are even considered to be let into the country is that women here in Canada have the same and equal rights as men...or they will face prosecution." - Muggypie40
• "Agree; entirely. Respecting cultural traditions should not extend to tolerating the virtual house arrest of women and girls, by the male members of their families." - Tacitus
• "It wasn't letting them into our country that led to the murder. This sort of thing also happens in their native country and the rest of the world. To believe otherwise is to paint every citizen in that country with the same brush." Largedd
• "The second part of this reply is of course obvious; women in such cultures are routinely treated in a way that we find unacceptable in our country. However, on the first part, exposure to Canadian freedoms is exactly what led the young women to rebel against their father's authority, and their rebellion appears to have motivated their father to kill them to protect his so-called 'honour.' I still have think that, had this family never emigrated to Canada, the chances of this happening would have been much less." - Tacitus
  

As always, thanks for your comments and feedback.