New Pakistani rape laws anger Islamists

[deadparrot]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's lower house of Parliament passed amendments to the country's rape laws Wednesday, ditching the death penalty for extramarital sex and revising a clause on making victims produce four witnesses to prove rape cases.

Consensual sex outside marriage remains a crime punishable by five years in prison or a $165 fine, said a parliamentary official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

International and local calls for change intensified after the 2002 gang-rape of a woman, Mukhtar Mai, who was assaulted after a tribal council in her eastern Punjab village ordered the rape as punishment for her 13-year-old brother's alleged affair with a woman of a higher caste.

The amendments — which still must be approved by the Senate — enraged Islamic fundamentalists, but won cautious support from human rights activists, who wanted the controversial laws scrapped altogether.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061115/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_rape_laws

[MercutioATC]

1. 5 years in prison or a $165 fine?!?!?

Take Saturday night's bar tab. Keep me out of jail.


A little disparate, even considering the low incomes in Pakistan, no?

[williesgirl]

2. God, I feel sorry for Islamic women.

[smirkymonkey]

3. Afghan women seek death by fire...

"Increasing numbers of Afghan women are committing suicide by setting fire to themselves to escape difficult lives, according to NGOs based in the country. They say women forced into marriage or suffering chronic abuse are killing themselves out of desperation....(more)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6149144.stm

If anyone tells me that "It's their cuuuuuuulture" or that the United States is responsible for the way Muslim men treat women, I am going to reach through the monitor and punch them.