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Good Riddance

Jill

Sixty-eight members of the Pakistani parliament are threatening to vacate their seats if their country changes its regressive rape laws.

And “regressive” is a generous description. The current law requires that a woman charging rape must produce four witnesses to the crime — a near impossibility for any rape survivor, let alone any victim of a crime in general. If she fails to prove the case, she can be convicted of adultery, which can be punishable by death.

Maulana Fazalur Rahman, a leader of the Islamic coalition, said Tuesday that lawmakers in his group would vacate their seats in the National Assembly if the government tries to get the assembly’s approval to change the law.

“We will render every sacrifice for the protection of the Shariah (traditional Islamic) laws,” he said at a news conference.

What a brave, upstanding man, deserting his privileged position as a member of Parliament in order to continue the promotion of sexual assault and the institutionalized abuse of women. He should be proud.

via Feministing.

10 thoughts on Good Riddance

  1. So… If I rape Maulana Fazalur Rahman with, say, a lacrosse stick (thank you, Stephen Colbert), would he be required to produce 4 witnesses, I wonder? Or are women singled out?

    Of course, something leads me to believe that macho culture would never allow a person like Rahman to admit to being raped. Oh no! Once you’re penetrated, you’re damaged goods.

  5. As much as I applaud the changing of the laws, the result of them leaving is likely to be different from what you expect. It’s not a matter of “Good Riddance”, it’s a matter of whether they will respect the current balance of power in Pakistan. By threatening this, they are saying that if they don’t get their core demand (enforcement of religious law among the lower classes), they’ll act to undermine the state, and leaving Parliament will be their first warning.

    This is a nontrivial threat, and, in fact, it’s a threat to set women back *further* than before. I don’t know how Musharraf is going to walk this tightrope. This isn’t a bunch of crazy loons making a big symbolic show of things. Pakistan is a state where a relatively liberal elite must compete with a sternly regressive religious grouping for control over The Masses.

  7. BUT here’s the full story from Pakistani media. There also may be a way out:

    http://www.dawn.com/2006/09/07/top1.htm

    There is a “doth protest too much” that can possibly be read into the MMA’s actions. And on the optimistic side, the consensus of the majority of those who matter in Pakistan (which is only a few people) has been for changing the laws for some time now.

  9. A lot of pieces of Islamic trash — brothers to Christian pieces of trash.

    If I could undo any one human characteristic, it would be the impulse to worship gods and force that worship and its tenets down others’ throats.

  10. Islamic Law according to its tenants “on the books” (as opposed to Sharia’ah which is “interpreted” by dumbasses like these) actually states that if a woman accuses someone of rape, she must swear on the Quran that it happened. If he denies it, he must also swear. Provided that neither party can bring witnesses or any other proof (physical or otherwise), then each party is let go in that no one is punished or accused further because nothing can be proved (he said/she said). If a man accuses the woman of sleeping with him of her own accord, the onus is on him (or the “state”) to bring forth 4 Muslim witnesses of stellar reputation to swear upon the Quran that they saw them doing the deed (and by deed I mean penetration and not just foreplay). Their punishments by the way if we’re going to be literal are 1) if married-death & 2) if not married, 70 (80?) lashings. That goes for both male and female.

    Since things have obviously advanced, they will now obviously take into consideration rape assessments, dna analysis, etc when assessing each case. But in this case, it seems like they literally have it ass backwards. Islamically, a woman is innocent until proven guilty.

    But these are the same people who still abide by “honor killings” even though no one argues that its Islamically correct (I’m a practicing Muslim, so I know first hand). They’re hypocritical and just flat out don’t care. Pakistanis have agnostics, atheists, hard core extremists and everything in between. It’s indicative of the whole Muslim world at large. It’s had a female Prime Minister, a substantial female working class, artists, writers, etc but is also the same country in which a bright little group of community “leaders” surmised a great punishment for a male rapist was to have his sister gang-raped.

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