Scared girl made false rape claim
A teenage girl falsely claimed she had been gang-raped because she was scared to tell her mother she spent the night with a colleague, a court has heard.
Victoria Eaves, 19, of Winton, Greater Manchester, told police she had been blindfolded and attacked by four men.
Officers wasted up to 200 hours on the investigation before finding CCTV evidence disproving her account.
Courtesy: BBC
” Nah! How Can Men Get Raped? That’s So Funny! ”
He looked at the marks on his neck. They were almost purplish now, they pained less but they still made him shudder. Bites on his neck, nails dug in his back, impressions of fingers on his wrists. His penis hurt, it was an ugly red color, and his testicles were horrifyingly bluish black. They were physical evidence of what had happened to him. It was true, he admitted to himself. I was raped by a girl. Continue reading Yes, Men Get Raped Too, And Mostly Suffer In Silence.
Trinamool Leader’s Shocker: ‘Will Ask My Boys to Go and Rape CPM Women
Reported by Monideepa Banerjie, Edited by Prasad Sanyal
Kolkata: Tapas Pal, popular Bengali actor and a member of Parliament from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has been caught on camera purportedly saying, “I will ask our boys to go and rape CPM women if necessary.”
The footage aired by local TV channels is hazy, but Mr Pal is clearly heard making the shocking threat while addressing party workers and assuring them that members of other parties will not be allowed to harm them. He also allegedly makes other threats.
Read more » NDTV
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/trinamool-leader-s-shocker-will-ask-my-boys-to-go-and-rape-cpm-women-550555
BY LEONARDO BLAIR , CP REPORTER
A Christian father who watched his wife and daughter get brutally raped by members of the militant group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) because he couldn’t pay them a poll tax in Mosul, Iraq, killed himself under the weight of the trauma this past weekend.
A report from the Assyrian International News Agency said ISIS began enforcing Islamic laws in the northern Iraq city which they overran on June 10.
Read more » The Christian Post
http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-father-commits-suicide-after-isis-members-rape-wife-and-daughter-in-front-of-him-because-he-couldnt-pay-poll-tax-122220/
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION -Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-150-2013
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that two scheduled caste, Hindu women were raped by their Muslim landlords before their family members. Later on, one of them was murdered in revenge for making a report to the police. She and her mother were abducted by one of the landlords from outside the clinic of a doctor in broad daylight, close to the police station, and she was shot dead in front of her mother. The Shadi Pali Police Station of Umer Kot district, Sindh, took time to register the First Information Report (FIR) in order to give the rapists time to abscond. The family members of the victims are displaced from their village and are living on the roadside in the cold nights but the police and authorities have refused to help them. In providing protection to the rapists, the police and notables of the area forced the victims to reach to a settlement and give amnesty to the rapists. Once again the police have shown their efficiency to get approval from judicial magistrate so that perpetrators are freed.
Read more » ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-150-2013#.Up95-1OgQkw.facebook
Via Facebook
Iowa’s “rape the gay away” pastor gets his sentence reduced and visitation rights with his children.
Iowa pastor and youth counselor Brent Girouex, who claimed with a straight face that he was trying to “cure” teenage boys of their “homosexual urges” by having sex with them, has had his sentence reduced from 17 years in prison to sex offender treatment and probation.
Read more » AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/rape-away-gay-pastor-gets-sentence-reduced
When people ask me about my experience studying abroad in India, I always face the same dilemma. How does one convey the contradiction that over the past few months has torn my life apart, and convey it in a single succinct sentence?
“India was wonderful,” I go with, “but extremely dangerous for women.” Part of me dreads the follow-up questions, and part of me hopes for more. I’m torn between believing in the efficacy of truth, and being wary of how much truth people want.
Because, how do I describe my three months in the University of Chicago Indian civilizations program when it was half dream, half nightmare? Which half do I give?
Do I tell them about our first night in the city of Pune, when we danced in the Ganesha festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on and tell them how the festival actually stopped when the American women started dancing, so that we looked around to see a circle of men filming our every move?
Do I tell them about bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris costing a few dollars a piece, and not mention the men who stood watching us, who would push by us, clawing at our breasts and groins?
When people compliment me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the man who stalked me for forty-five minutes after I purchased them, until I yelled in his face in a busy crowd?
Do I describe the lovely hotel in Goa when my strongest memory of it was lying hunched in a fetal position, holding a pair of scissors with the door bolted shut, while the staff member of the hotel who had tried to rape my roommate called me over and over, and breathing into the phone?
How, I ask, was I supposed to tell these stories at a Christmas party? But how could I talk about anything else when the image of the smiling man who masturbated at me on a bus was more real to me than my friends, my family, or our Christmas tree? All those nice people were asking the questions that demanded answers for which they just weren’t prepared.
When I went to India, nearly a year ago, I thought I was prepared. I had been to India before; I was a South Asian Studies major; I spoke some Hindi. I knew that as a white woman I would be seen as a promiscuous being and a sexual prize. I was prepared to follow the University of Chicago’s advice to women, to dress conservatively, to not smile in the streets. And I was prepared for the curiosity my red hair, fair skin and blue eyes would arouse.
But I wasn’t prepared.
There was no way to prepare for the eyes, the eyes that every day stared with such entitlement at my body, with no change of expression whether I met their gaze or not. Walking to the fruit seller’s or the tailer’s I got stares so sharp that they sliced away bits of me piece by piece. I was prepared for my actions to be taken as sex signals; I was not prepared to understand that there were no sex signals, only women’s bodies to be taken, or hidden away.
I covered up, but I did not hide. And so I was taken, by eye after eye, picture after picture. Who knows how many photos there are of me in India, or on the internet: photos of me walking, cursing, flipping people off. Who knows how many strangers have used my image as pornography, and those of my friends. I deleted my fair share, but it was a drop in the ocean– I had no chance of taking back everything they took.
Continue reading CNN – India: the Story You Never Wanted to Hear
A Norwegian woman has spoken out about the 16-month prison sentence she received in Dubai after reporting a rape incident to police.
Interior designer Marte Deborah Dalelv was on a business trip in Dubai when she says she was raped.
The 24-year-old reported the March attack to the police but found herself charged with having extramarital sex, drinking alcohol, and perjury.
Convicted earlier this week, she says she is appealing against the verdict.
The appeal hearing is scheduled for early September.
Describing the sentence as “very harsh”, she told the AFP news agency: “I am very nervous and tense. But I hope for the best and I take one day at a time. I just have to get through this.”
The case has angered rights groups and the authorities in Norway.
Read more » BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23381448
KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly has unanimously passed a resolution which calls for making DNA tests mandatory in rape cases. The resolution was tabled by PPP MPA Sharmila Farooqi.
As per the resolution, DNA tests should be mandatory in all rape cases, the costs of which should be supported by the Sindh government.
The resolution comes in the wake of controversial recomendation by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) last month which had attracted a great deal of criticism from women rights organisations.
The CII had recommended that DNA should not be included as a primary evidence with regard to rape cases.
They held the view that Islam has set procedures to determine cases of rape and said Islamic procedure should be adopted during investigation.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had called the CII declaration “regressive, unfortunate and unkind to rape victims.”
The HRCP also called on the new government for an urgent reconstitution of the CII.
A number a civil society groups have called for the CII to be abolished in the ‘larger interest of a progressive and tolerant society’.
Courtesy: DAWN
http://beta.dawn.com/news/1017553/rape-cases-sindh-assembly-calls-for-mandatory-dna-tests
Egypt has issued an arrest warrant on Sunday against the Salafi preacher, who recently said it was “halal” (permissible) to rape female protestors, charging him with the defamation of religion, an Al Arabiya correspondent reported. …..
Read more » Al Arabiya
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/17/266857.html
Human Rights Watch report contains allegations of brutality, rape, threats
By: CBC News
An international human rights organization is calling on the federal government to launch a national inquiry into claims from aboriginal women of abuse and threats by RCMP officers in northern British Columbia.
Human Rights Watch, known for bringing worldwide attention to victims of torture and abuse in places like Syria and Burma, says the eyes of the world should also be on northern B.C. ….
Read more » CBC
Link – http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/02/12/bc-human-rights-watch-abuse-report.html
– – – – – – – – –
More details » Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/13/canada-abusive-policing-neglect-along-highway-tears
Bangladesh cleric Abul Kalam Azad sentenced to die for war crimes
A court in Bangladesh has sentenced a well-known Muslim cleric to death for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 independence war.
Abul Kalam Azad’s conviction is the first verdict handed down by the controversial tribunal. The cleric, a presenter of Islamic programmes on television, shot dead six Hindus and raped Hindu women during the war, prosecutors said.
He is thought to be in Pakistan and was found guilty in absentia. ….
Read more » BBC
By HEATHER TAN
SINGAPORE (AP) — A young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus in New Delhi died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her horrific ordeal galvanized Indians to demand greater protection from sexual violence that impacts thousands of women every day.
She “passed away peacefully” with her family and officials of the Indian embassy by her side,” said Dr. Kevin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth hospital where she had been treated since Thursday. “The Mount Elizabeth Hospital team of doctors, nurses and staff join her family in mourning her loss,” he said in a statement.
He said the woman had remained in an extremely critical condition since Thursday when she was flown to Singapore from India. “Despite all efforts by a team of eight specialists in Mount Elizabeth Hospital to keep her stable, her condition continued to deteriorate over these two days. She had suffered from severe organ failure following serious injuries to her body and brain. She was courageous in fighting for her life for so long against the odds but the trauma to her body was too severe for her to overcome.”
The woman and a male friend, who have not been identified, were traveling in a public bus after watching a film on the evening of Dec. 16 when they were attacked by six men who took turns to rape her. They also beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into her body resulting in severe organ damage. Both of them were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.
Indian police have arrested six people in connection with the attack, which left the victim with severe internal injuries, a lung infection and brain damage. She also suffered from a heart attack while in hospital in India.
Indian High Commissioner, or ambassador, T.C.A. Raghanvan told reporters that the scale of the injuries she suffered was “very grave” and in the end it “proved too much.
He said arrangements are being made to take her body back to India
The frightening nature of the crime shocked Indians, who have come out in their thousands for almost daily demonstrations, demanding stronger protection for women and death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum life imprisonment. Women face daily harassment across India, ranging from catcalls on the streets, groping and touching in public transport to rape.
But the tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, which forces them to keep quiet and not report it to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Also, police often refuse to accept complaints from those who are courageous enough to report the rapes and the rare prosecutions that reach courts drag on for years.
PAKISTAN: Military demolishes temple, Ahmadi graves desecrated, a six-year-old Hindu girl was raped and a 70 year old Christian missionary shot
December 6, 2012 – ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-200-2012 – The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a wave of persecution against the religious minority groups has again started with the connivance of military and local authorities. In the recent days more than 100 graves of Ahamadis were desecrated by excavating the graves and breaking the headstones bearing the names of the dead persons. The same happened with a Hindu temple which was destroyed along with the houses by the military authorities, allegedly after being bribed by a private builder who wanted to grab the land. In another case a six-year-old girl from the Hindu community was raped in a bid to push the Hindu community to leave the country and take refuge in India. Also, a 70-year-old Swedish Christian missionary was shot at and is in critical condition. Her cook was also beaten up by the unknown persons two days before the incident.
Read more » ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION (AHRC)
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-200-2012
Asian Human Rights Commission claim girl was lured on shopping trip by friend before she was kidnapped.
Abductors drove her 120 miles before raping her, then forced her to sign marriage papers
Victim managed to escape eight months later, but police refuse to prosecute rapists because they are tied to militant Islam group
By Wil Longbottom
A 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for eight months in Pakistan by a man who then falsified marriage documents with her, it was claimed today.
The girl was lured on a shopping trip in Lahore by a friend, before she was driven 120 miles to Tandianwalla and raped by the friend’s uncle in January this year.
Two days later, she was forced to sign papers consenting to marriage with the man and beaten for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam.
She was then held against her will for eight months, before managing to escape and contact her family.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has said the rapists have not been arrested because of their affiliation with a militant Muslim organisation – the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
It claims the police have refused to order a medical check-up on the girl, and have warned her parents that it would be better for them to hand over the girl to her ‘legal’ husband or a criminal case would be filed against them.
An investigation into the kidnapping found the girl’s father reported her disappearance in January and made complaints against her abductors, but police took no action for eight months.
Last month, the girl – who has not been named for legal reasons – called her family from Tandianwalla and told them she had been abducted, but had escaped and was hiding at a bus stop.
The girl’s parents travelled to the town and rescued her, before taking her to a local magistrate to give a statement.
The rapists then contacted the police through their religious group and produced a marriage certificate that claimed to show one of them was married to the 12-year-old.
As a result of their complaint, the Christian family has gone into hiding as members of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are searching for them.
By Joseph Guyler Delva
PORT-AU-PRINCE – (Reuters) – Two U.N. peacekeepers from Pakistan have been sentenced to a year in prison for raping a 14-year-old Haitian boy after being convicted in a Pakistani military trial in Haiti, authorities said on Monday. ….
Read more » Reuters
Today a news article in Dawn revealed the shocking case of female students and staff members forced to offer sexual favours in return for grades and demands of their immediate superiors.
I do not believe that this news is “shocking” because such cases are a rarity. In fact I believe that such cases probably proliferate throughout educational institutions, or indeed in any institution where men are in a position to extract sexual favours. This case is shocking because of the International Islamic University Islamabad’s indifference to these cases and its efforts to cover it up. Further, they have tried to justify their actions by claiming that they hushed up these allegations to protect the parents of female students and the reputation of the institution.
So what exactly has happened?
Continue reading PAKISTAN – The Islamic university where girls were raped
– Christian children have become the victims of recent violence
The shocking protest of a Catholic Member of Parliament in Pakistan: “In Karachi children are being raped and tortured to eliminate the presence of Christians. Dozens of people have been reported as a result of the blasphemy law
By Vatican Insider staff
Rome –
Children raped and tortured, families extorted, abuse and violence taking place at the expense of terrified victims who remain silent: this is the reality of what is happening to the Christian community in some suburban quarters of Karachi, Southern Pakistan’s biggest city and the capital of the Sindh province.
Speaking to Catholic news agency Fides, Michael Shind, a Catholic MP working in Pakistan’s Sindh province, gave a shocking statement condemning the situation for Christians in the Country. Javed, whose statement was also reported by Vatican Radio, warned that for months now, Christians in the areas of EssaNagri, Ayub Goth and Bhittaiabad, have suffered indescribable violence perpetrated by members of political movements, such as the Pashtuns, which are characterised by a strong ethnic and Islamic identity. Christian families are going through living hell but “people are not reporting the abuse for fear of retaliation.”
Just last month, Javed told Fides, “We recorded 15 cases of rape.” In EssaNagri there are real “torture cells” where Christian children are imprisoned and tortured. “Captors ask for ransoms of up to 100.000 rupees and if families cannot pay, the little ones are tortured until they are beyond recognition.” The result of the violence that has been going on over the past six months is that numerous families have decided to leave Karachi. “These acts of violence are aimed at eliminating Christian presence in the area; it constitutes a kind of ethnic cleansing: we are seen as slaves who are unworthy of setting foot on Pakistani soil.”
In another case reported, a so-called “house of tolerance” was opened near a Catholic Church in Ayub Goth where “Christian girls from destitute families are forced into prostitution.” Although the authorities have been made aware of this, they have not taken any action yet. Javed is launching an appeal to ask “for an end to the oppression of our community.”
What is more, the controversial blasphemy law continues to provoke disputes and attract criticism in Pakistan and internationally, while the situation for religious minorities is very serious. They are suffering as a result of the rising extremism of Islamic fundamentalist groups. As reported by Fides, the numbers of people against whom charges have been pressed for allegedly committing blasphemy are shocking. In 2011, the blasphemy law (articles 295b and 295c of the Penal Code) led to at least 161 people being incriminated and 9 killed in extrajudicial executions after they were accused of blasphemy. These accusations “are false in 95% of cases,” says one Muslim lawyer, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons.
According to a Report by the Asian Human Rights Commission, a human rights watch NGO operative in Asia, “Pakistan failed to guarantee respect for the human rights of its people.” The Commission documented the killings of 18 human rights defenders and 16 journalists in 2011. They had been involved in a process of denouncing evil in society, corruption and Islamic extremism.
Corutesy: Vatican Insider
Politics in Pakistan can not be described in black & white. More of it is in gray. And also in red – with the blood of so many. But it is mostly dominated by the colors of infamy, shame, hypocrisy, corruption, mismanagement, greed, barbarism, lies, deceit, terrorism, long boots, lotacracy (turncoats), injustice, massacre, rape, racism, discrimination & other crimes.
Courtesy » Indus Herald
By Mark Dummett
On 13 June 1971, an article in the UK’s Sunday Times exposed the brutality of Pakistan’s suppression of the Bangladeshi uprising. It forced the reporter’s family into hiding and changed history.
Abdul Bari had run out of luck. Like thousands of other people in East Bengal, he had made the mistake – the fatal mistake – of running within sight of a Pakistani patrol. He was 24 years old, a slight man surrounded by soldiers. He was trembling because he was about to be shot.
So starts one of the most influential pieces of South Asian journalism of the past half century.
Written by Anthony Mascarenhas, a Pakistani reporter, and printed in the UK’s Sunday Times, it exposed for the first time the scale of the Pakistan army’s brutal campaign to suppress its breakaway eastern province in 1971.
Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed, but certainly a huge number of people lost their lives. Independent researchers think that between 300,000 and 500,000 died. The Bangladesh government puts the figure at three million.
The strategy failed, and Bangladeshis are now celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of their country. Meanwhile, the first trial of those accused of committing war crimes has recently begun in Dhaka. ….
Read more » BBC
‘Boy’ kills SSG commando
By Staff Report
LAHORE – A teenager killed Pakistan Army SSG commando Muhammad Arshad, 27, over reasons yet to be determined in the Nawankot Police precincts on Monday.
The deceased was a resident of Chunian district Kasur. Arshad joined the Pakistan Army two years ago and was trained for Special Services Group (SSG). Arshad was performing security duty at the Tarbela Dam. Late on Sunday night, Muhammad Arshad and an unidentified friend, estimated to be 18 years of age, checked into Lahori Hotel room number 6 in the Nawankot Police Station jurisdiction.
Around noon on Monday, the hotel administration knocked at the door but received no response. Upon suspicion, the administration opened the door with a duplicate key and found Muhammad Arshad dead. The hotel administration informed local police from mobile number 03324226761 about the mishap after which a heavy contingent of police reached and shifted the body to morgue for autopsy. Meanwhile, Army officers reached the site and collected circumstantial evidence from the crime scene. ….
Read more » Pakistan Today
By AP
DHAKA: A senior Bangladeshi official on Sunday urged Pakistan to formally apologize for alleged atrocities and acts of genocide committed by the Pakistani military during the independence war in 1971.
Foreign Affairs Minister Dipu Moni made the demand in a meeting with Pakistan’s new envoy to Bangladesh, a statement released by the ministry said.
Aided by India, Bangladesh, then the eastern wing of Pakistan, won its independence in 1971 after a nine-month war.
Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed an estimated 3 million people, raped about 200,000 women and forced millions to flee their homes. Pakistan has disputed the allegations. …
Read more » DAWN.COM
A viral video of Ameer Jamat-e-Islami (JI) Munawwar Hassan defending the silence over the rape of women and condoning imprisonment of female rape victims if they fail to produce four male witnesses in accordance with the Hudood Ordinance, has deeply outraged many sane people in Pakistan.
According to Hassan, if a woman cannot produce four male witnesses present at the time of her rape, she be imprisoned based on Hudood Ordinance and Shariah Law. This, he claims is in the best interest of women who are raped so if she fails to produce the witnesses she ought to refrain from filing an FIR altogether.
According to Hassan, somehow, it is in the best interest of the society for a woman to stay silent after being raped, while the perpetrator roams free. ….
Read more » The Express Tribune Blogs
Don’t forget, there is other side of the story too. They say that it was Indian Muslims who started genocide and rape first. And then, there was no stop to it.
Muslims killed every single one on a train of Hindus/ Sikhs, train was leaving Pakistan to go to India. Sikhs & Hindus killed every single one on a train of Muslims, train was leaving India to go to Pakistan.
Here in the video below, watch a senior citizen who lived to tell the story. You couldn’t dare to watch this more than once.
→ YouTube
By Rebecca Conway
MULTAN,(Reuters) – On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous’ home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.
Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan’s south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.
Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan’s remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality.
At the hospital in nearby Multan town, Asma’s shocked parents sat quietly by her bedside and struggled to explain what the future holds for their now disfigured daughter.
“I don’t know what will happen to her when she leaves here,” Asma’s father, Ghulam Mustafa, said, in a dilapidated ward heavy with the smell of antiseptic and blood, where other women, doused with acid or kerosene by relatives or fellow villagers, awaiting an equally uncertain future.
Asked if Asma will return to her husband, her father remains silent.
Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (link.reuters.com/jet92s)
Read more → Reuters
by Hakim Hazik
Hundreds of women who would have spent their days in quiet comfort in our serene district jails, because they could not produce four adult, sane, pious, male, Muslim witnesses, will now be dragged through the courts and will have to bear the full brunt of the cross examination of the prurient defense counsel. Any faithful Muslim women would rather die than bear this humiliation.
Ours is a religion which for the first time in human history has given the women the right to be raped with dignity. This is a great civilizational achievement. Empires have come and gone but the condition of the women did not change. ….
Read more→ ViewPoint
– The Jamat-e-Islami, and rape
by Usmann Rana
A viral video of Ameer Jamat-e-Islami (JI) Munawwar Hassan defending the silence over the rape of women and condoning imprisonment of female rape victims if they fail to produce four male witnesses in accordance with the Hudood Ordinance, has deeply outraged many sane people in Pakistan.
According to Hassan, if a woman cannot produce four male witnesses present at the time of her rape, she be imprisoned based on Hudood Ordinance and Shariah Law. This, he claims is in the best interest of women who are raped so if she fails to produce the witnesses she ought to refrain from filing an FIR altogether.
According to Hassan, somehow, it is in the best interest of the society for a woman to stay silent after being raped, while the perpetrator roams free.
I can’t help wonder if the leader would preach silence if a member of his family was attacked.
In the video, the Ameer inexplicably labels the Women’s Protection Bill as an effort to spread “vulgarity, nudity and shamelessness” in Pakistan, while demanding the seemingly intimidated anchor quote verses from the Holy Quran, who eventually has to descend into a monologue to prove his own Islamic credentials before being able to propose an argument to defend raped women. Interestingly, the Ameer himself fails to present any Quranic verse or Hadith to back his views.
The repugnant manner in which the host of the talk show is dismissed, and labeled an infidel for challenging the Holy Quran and Hadith, is a classic example of moral policing by self righteous Muslims in the country, who are masters at evading rationality.
I sincerely hope these morally, self righteous people read Maheen Usmani’s piece titled ‘Why the deafening silence after rape’ which cites horrific facts about rape in Pakistan including “Situation of Violence against Women in Pakistan 2010” by Aurat Foundation, according to which a total of 4,069 cases occurred in Pakistan last year.
Every two hours, a woman is raped in Pakistan and every eight hours, gang raped. And after all this, we are confronted with the reality that in this land, where the taste of justice for many is nothing but bland and vapid, 70 per cent of the crimes against women go unreported.
But how silly of those supporting the Women’s Protection Bill to seek greater freedom and protection of women in a society suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder regarding female sexuality, and the shame/honour dichotomy. The last thing then this country needs is rights for some 51 per cent of population. …
Read more → The Express Tribune
by Sana Saleem
I am at a loss of words today. No words can describe the dejection, pain and anguish that many of us felt on hearing the Supreme Court’s verdict on Mukhtar Mai’s case. After nine arduous years of waiting for justice, five out of six accused in Mai’s rape have been acquitted. It was the Supreme Court that took suo moto notice on the LHC’s decision and now its decision to uphold the initial verdict is extremely disappointing to say the least. …
Read more : DAWN
By Raza Rumi
April 21, 2011 will be remembered as a black day in Pakistan’s history. Not because this was the day when the Supreme Court acquitted the alleged rapists of a poor, marginalised woman. It will be marked as the day when, once again, Pakistan’s colonial criminal justice system failed to protect the vulnerable, thereby rendering a heinous crime such as gang rape almost unpunishable.
Nine years ago, a misogynistic panchayat of south Punjab ordered the gang rape of a woman for no sin of hers. It was her (then 12-year-old) brother who was sodomised and then accused of illicit relations with the sister of the powerful rapists. This low-caste family had to be ‘fixed’. Thanks to the media frenzy, the state had to act when what happens in subaltern Pakistan was exposed. Suo motu notices by the courts, police investigation and faulty prosecution ultimately led to no justice. At every step of the legal process, powerful men obstructed the cause of justice. …
Read more : The Express Tribune
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