NYC Letter: Tough Call

PAKISTAN IS DIVIDED OVER RAPE LAW REFORM

Keep time-honored Islamic rape traditions or try this new fangled criminalized rape?

The Islamic community is divided.

PESHAWAR August 29, 2006 (Telegraph) - Both sides in Pakistan's bitter controversy over its rape laws took to the streets over the weekend, either to accuse President Pervez Musharraf of betraying Islam or commend him as the saviour of women. The issue has inflamed the political scene since Gen Musharraf announced last week that he would amend the existing laws that place an almost impossible burden of proof on women bringing a case of rape.

The gang rape of a nurse who refused to perform illegal abortions earlier this year was one of the cases that intensified calls for the repeal of its rape laws.

On the one hand, thousands of women, from the Karachi-based liberal Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), chanted "death" to leaders of the powerful hardline Islamic Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance.

On the other hand, the conservatives have announced a nationwide campaign against the Bill.

The issue isn't rape. The issue is the Islamic culture of male privilege. Begin down this road and what will be next? Restrictions on wife-beating? A cooling off period before honor killings? The very principle of matrimony as property?

Here is a brave case.

The new Bill, dubbed the "Women Protection Bill", proposes to transfer rape and adultery cases from the Islamic legal system to Pakistan's British-influenced secular penal code.

In the case of adultery the Bill asserts that greater evidence must be produced before a person is taken into custody, the penalties are to be reduced and the traditional Islamic principle that in an adultery case the onus of proof is on the accuser is to be enforced.

The new Bill proposes that rape cases be tried under criminal law and that police and judges abide by improved evidence gathering and case assessment practices. Under Islamic laws imposed by Gen Zia Ul-Haq in 1979, women must produce four adult Muslim male witnesses to prove an act of rape [a little tricky unless you can arrange being raped on Parliament Road in the middle of the day on a busy week day].

The existing law means that rapists often escape punishment with impunity.

Yes, well, you can see why the rapists are hopping mad.