June 28, 2005

The Face of Courage

This is the face of courage. Gang raped at the order of a village official, Mukhtaran Mai refused to continue to be a victim, but has gone against all of her tribal custom and pressed charges agaist the men that did this to her... read this article from the Daily Telegraph about this courageous woman and her desire for justice


Fighting for justice... gang-rape victim Mukhtaran Mai. Picture: REUTERS.

Bravest woman in the world


By SAMI ZUBEIRI

June 29, 2005

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Supreme Court is hearing an appeal against the acquittal of five men who allegedly gang-raped a woman on the orders of a village council.


Victim Mukhtaran Mai's appeal will be a test case in Pakistan where, like other parts of South Asia, women often suffer brutal "honour punishments" including rape and murder to pay for the alleged crimes of relatives.

The 33-year-old was raped for more than an hour in June, 2002, on the orders of a tribal council in the remote village of Meerwala in reprisal for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from a powerful rival clan.


Six men were sentenced to death in August, 2002, after she defied local customs and testified.


But Lahore High Court acquitted five of them on appeal on March 3 and commuted the sentence of the sixth to life imprisonment.


The decision shocked the country and was condemned around the world. The Supreme Court opened the case and adjourned it until today after a 45-minute hearing on legal matters.


"I have high hopes. I hope the original verdict will be upheld and that my attackers will be punished," Ms Mai said.


Pakistan came in for further criticism earlier this month when President Pervez Musharraf barred Ms Mai from travelling to Washington to meet top US officials and rights groups to discuss abuses against women in South Asia.


Mr Musharraf was reported as saying he ordered the ban because he thought her US visit would give Pakistan bad publicity.


Islamabad dropped the travel ban a few days later after the US said it was "dismayed" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice secured a personal pledge from Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri. Pakistan denied it bowed to US pressure.


Yesterday, Ms Mai said the Government had finally returned her passport, which it confiscated when it placed her on the so-called exit control list.



Ms Mai has previously urged Mr Musharraf to intervene in the case, saying her life was in danger if the accused were allowed to move freely.


Ms Mai met Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in March and he ordered the suspects to be locked up again despite their acquittal.


However they were released this month, at the same time the travel ban became public knowledge.


The case has shone an unflattering spotlight on the treatment of women in Pakistan and on the tribal justice that persist in parts of the conservative Islamic country.


Ms Mai became a rights campaigner after the rape.


She embarked on a mission to improve girls' education in Pakistan, where 72 per cent of women are illiterate. She used money she received in compensation after the rape to set up her district's first school for girls.

Look friends at her face, this is the face that has borne up to the evil fruits of a false religion that hates women.

She continues to be abused by people (men) that say they follow a "Religion of Peace". Men who say that the sharia law honors women...Dont honor me, pal... We in the west need to be very concerned about the menace of Islam and how if it takes hold here in the US the way it has in Europe it will be a disaster.

Dont ever say to me, "Islam is a religion of peace that honors women and seeks justice", you'll have to get out of my way before I am violently ill, then violently angry. The God I serve would have it so, for we are to root out the false prophet and the evil cults...speak against falsehood, and defend the defenseless. WE in America need to wake up and see the danger posed by people that believe that what was done to this woman was justice. They the islamists want to bring such laws into our legal system, to honor themm side by side with our own laws... we do so at our peril.