Sunday, November 19, 2006

Rape law reform roils Pakistan's Islamists | csmonitor.com

Rape law reform roils Pakistan's Islamists | csmonitor.com: "Putting an end to a skirmish but not to the longer battle, Pakistan's lower house of parliament voted on Wednesday to amend the Hudood Ordinances, the country's religious-based laws that govern rape and vice.

Before, women who reported rape were compelled to produce four male witnesses to the crime or face charges that they had committed adultery. If the law passes the upper house, it will replace that burden of proof, deemed both virtually impossible and misogynistic, with standard evidentiary procedures.
In the Monitor
Thursday, 11/16/06

If Delta merges: fares up, fewer seats

Now, how to put Iraqis in charge
Prices fall, US inflation worries ease
Sudan closing off Darfur to outside world
Opinion: A role for Iran in an Iraq exit strategy
More stories...

Get all the Monitor's headlines by e-mail.
Subscribe for free.
E-mail this story
Write a letter to the Editor
Printer-friendly version
Permission to reprint/republish

Wednesday's vote was a chance for lawmakers to show that secular law trumps religious edict in Pakistan. But this small victory for secularism comes only a day after provincial legislators in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a stronghold of conservatism, passed a bill establishing an Islamic accountability bureau - a kind of vice and virtue squad with analogies to the Taliban."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home