Monday, April 6, 2009

Women's Uprising in Pakistan

Hooray for the women of Pakistan, who have been marching by the thousands over the weekend to protest the flogging of a 17-year-old girl by the Taliban in the Swat district, northern Pakistan.

Here's a report on Pakistan's Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (newly restored to his office) responding to the demonstrations and the initial flogging:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/06/pakistan-flogging-video-court

This article quotes the Taliban in Swat as saying that if they were fully in control of the government there, "...she would have been shot."

The MGM movement leaders in Karachi respond that the men involved in the beating should be publicly hanged. Apparently both sides play for keeps in Pakistan.

The big issue is whether the Swat district should be allow to institute Shari'ah law as the civil law (as well as religious law) in northern Pakistan. We all need to pray that that will not happen.

The girl, whose name may be Chaand Bibi, was charged with "adultery" and whipped 34 times by one Talibani while she is screaming and being held down by two men.

Someone had the courage to videotape this horrible scene and then to release it to others sympathetic to women's rights.

Women's groups call the girl innocent. In these cases, the alleged crime is often more in the minds of the accusers than a real event.

My questions: where is the man caught in adultery? Why isn't he being whipped or shot? If something sexual actually occurred, was it a rape?

Chaand Bibi was called to testify in legal investigations of her whipping, but she denies being the one in the video. Of course--pursuing her attackers can only result in further suffering for her.

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