Pamela Geller is a New York liberal, concerned about shariah law.
Most Canadians don’t know who she is, but she did something for us that no Canadian did: She arranged for a proper gravestone for Aqsa Parvez, the teenaged Canadian girl murdered by her father and brother in a so-called honour killing in 2007.
Aqsa was murdered for daring to dress like a Canadian, instead of wearing a punishment sack, as women in shariah countries like Saudi Arabia are required to do.
But Parvez was also victimized even after she died. No Muslim cemetery would agree to have her buried there. Nor would they allow a marker of any sort to commemorate her.
It’s almost as if the leaders of the Muslim community blamed Aqsa and tacitly agreed with her murderers, that she was dishonourable.
For two years, until her family arranged for an inscribed stone, Aqsa was buried in an unmarked grave, in a public cemetery.
For two years, all that was on her tomb was a number, 774. Her murderer father must have been pleased; he got his wish, didn’t he? His daughter was erased from life and, for a time, erased again in death.