Some respite for women, at last: Protection of rights bill gets through NA

Putting an end to a scuffle 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 for rape crime. The Bill must be approved by the upper house of Parliament before it becomes law.

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.

But as normal some fundamentalist are against of it, Pakistan 6 Islamic parties are threatening for nation wide protest for what they called this new law nothing to do with women’s protection but a conspiracy of west.

Like opposition leader and MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman said it is a `shameful attempt to alter the teachings of the Quran and Sunnah and to turn “Pakistan into a free sex zone”

So Mr.Rehman tell me one thing how many men have been convicted just want to know out of curiosity under your 16^th century law? Do you think rapist do rape in broad day light in front of 4 people (well men)? Do you know a woman is raped every two hours and gang-raped every eight hours in Pakistan? At present your current rape law is giving man free sex zone anyway, where women can’t get protection and even can’t get justice.

It is shameful that in this century woman should be subjected to such treatment in your own country. Why should there be a debate or demonstration on such an obvious issue. Men and women are both deserving of protection under the law. Changes in law are for better society, nothing to do with your religion. So don’t start screaming and kicking for nothing. Grow up and learn some things, please don’t exploit religion for your personal vote bank politics.

ISLAMABAD, Nov 15: The government rushed a signal women’s rights bill through the National Assembly on Wednesday amid a boycott by religious parties and some drama after the draft survived a prolonged controversy and an apparent last-minute intrigue.

Slogan-chanting members of the Muttahida Majlis-Amal (MMA) walked out of the house in protest before the vote on the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Rights Bill, which they said was contrary to Islamic injunctions about punishments for zina (adultery and rape). But, they appeared wavering in carrying out an earlier threat to resign from parliament.

The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), the main opposition party, gave a rare support to the ruling coalition in passing the bill, which seeks to protect women from the widely complained misuse of the controversial Hudood ordinances about zina (adultery and rape) and qazf (false accusation of zina) enforced in 1979 by the then-military ruler General Mohammad Ziaul Haq.

technorati tags: Pakistan, Pakistan News, Women, Woman, Women Rights, Justice, Sharia, Islamic, Islam, Sharia Law

Muslim cleric triggers outrage by blaming women for rape

Has he gone mad by blaming women for rape?

Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric has triggered international outrage for describing women who dress immodestly as “uncovered meat” who are inviting a sexual attack.

 Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali – the Mufti of Australia – condemned women who “sway suggestively”, wear make-up and no hijab or Islamic headscarf, in a Ramadan sermon to 500 worshippers, The Australian reported.

Islamic leaders are today meeting in Sydney to discuss his future and are considering whether to sack him from his role as the most senior cleric at the city’s largest mosque.

John Howard, the Prime Minister, said that the cleric’s comments were “appalling and reprehensible”.

He told reporters: The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous. I not only reject the comments, I condemn them unconditionally.”

technorati tags: Australia, Islam, Islamism, Religion,

Dose for violent husbands: A year in jail, Rs 20,000 fine

Finally India introduced a law to protect Women from domestic violence. Husband who beat, harass or abused their wife’s could be jailed and fined under new Domestic Violence Act 2005. Domestic Violence Act 2005 will recognize all forms of abuse against women in the home, including physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic abuse (Dowries harassment). This is a good step by Government of India, really pleased but I want to know this domestic violence Act 2005 will also be made compulsory for Muslims family also or this law will also have exception for Muslims family? As most of Muslims family especially in villages (Husband mainly) choose to go with Sharia Family Law.

NEW DELHI: Men who beat, threaten or yell at their wives or live-in girlfriends could be jailed and fined under the country’s first law aimed at curbing domestic violence.

The new law, which came into effect Thursday, also applies to men or their families who harass wives for larger dowries. The measure aims to prevent cases in which a husband or his family kills a wife because her family did not give dowry.

 

 

 

 

The Domestic Violence Act defines abuse broadly, including verbal, physical, sexual, emotional and economic mistreatment. Violators face up to a year in prison, a fine of Rs 20,000 or both.

“We have been trying for long to protect women from domestic violence. In India, around 70 per cent of women are victims of these violent acts in one or another form,” Renuka Choudhury, the Minister of State for women and child development, said.

 

technorati tags: India, DomesticViolence, Women, WomenRights, News, SocialJustice

Prime Minister asks for reprieve for Brit facing execution in Pakistan

Update: Update: Pakistani prison asks for fresh date to hang Briton

How Pakistan government can hang Mr.Hussain when his murder conviction has already been quashed. Second when Lahore High Court already freed him and declared him non guilty earlier, how come Sharia Court found him guilty of the crimes he never committed?

Tony Blair issued a last-ditch appeal today to save a British man due to be executed in Pakistan in two weeks’ time.

But the Prime Minister refused to join calls for the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall to cancel a planned royal visit to Pakistan which would coincide with the execution.

Mirza Tahir Hussain, 36, a former Territorial Army soldier originally from Leeds, faces the death penalty on November 1 for murdering a taxi driver 18 years ago.

But amid fierce objections that the conviction is unsafe, his family and a coalition of campaigners have battled against the sentence. But at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Blair appealed to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to spare Hussain even though he acknowledged the president’s powers were limited.

 

technorati tags: Pakistan, UK, UnitedKingdom, Politics, Sharia, Islam, Religion

Update: Pakistani prison asks for fresh date to hang Briton

Musharraf rejects execution plea of Briton

ISLAMABAD: The family of a British man due to be executed in Pakistan have received a bitter blow in their campaign to spare his life.

Mirza Tahir Hussain’s family have pleaded with Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf to stop him from being hanged for murdering a taxi driver 18 years ago. But President Musharraf has rejected their pleas for a pardon.

Mr Hussain was cleared of the crime by the criminal system but a separate religious court found him guilty.

The 36-year-old, was just 18 when he left Leeds in December 1988 to visit relatives in Pakistan.

Pakistani prison asks for fresh date to hang Briton

How Pakistan government can hang Mr.Hussain when his murder conviction has already been quashed earlier by Lahore court. Second when Lahore High Court already freed him and declared him non guilty earlier, how come Sharia Court found him guilty of the crimes he never committed? And the last thing I want to know did Mr.Hussain received fair trial under Sharia Court , I doubt it……under Sharia Law..

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani prison authorities asked a court on Monday to fix a new date for the execution of British man sentenced to hang in case that was raised by Prime Minister Tony Blair with President Pervez Musharraf last week.

A British television channel had broadcast an interview with President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday in which the Pakistani leader said he would not reverse a court’s decision regarding Mirza Tahir Hussain.

“I’m not a dictator,” he said. “I can’t violate a court judgement, whether you like the court or not,” Musharraf told ITV’s programme, “The Sunday Edition”.

Hussain, 36, from Leeds in northern England, has spent half his life in jail since his arrest following the shooting of a taxi driver, Jamshaid Khan, in Islamabad in 1988.

The government has stayed his execution from month to month since June.

technorati tags: Sharia, Islam, IslamicLaw, Pakistan, UK, United, Kingdom, CurrentAffairs

When Hindus wear the burkha

Are we all gone crazy? India a Secular country or Islamic Country?

Malti Laad is looking forward to going shopping with her friends next week. It’s Ramzan after all, and, she points out, “Hamari Diwali bhi to hai.” As the group of veiled women samples the goodies on Mohammed Ali Road, they will help Malti buy what’s on top of her Diwali shopping list: a black burkha. The one she wears now belongs to the school where she teaches.

As Malti talks to me inside the school’s air-conditioned audio-visual room, a middle-aged, bearded male enters announcing his presence with a loud “excuse me”. Without a pause in the conversation, Malti pulls down her double-layered naqaab (face veil). As I try to adjust to the pair of kohl-lined eyes that this jovial 23-year-old has suddenly transformed into, the man walks towards us with glasses of water, his head turned firmly away from us. 
The Al-Jamiatul-Fikriya Islamic English School in central Mumbai, which is run entirely on Islamic lines, is full of such surprises. A bearded man in a white kurta pyjama and namaz cap welcomes me in fluent English, commenting on the sudden downpour. Then I see a string of teachers appear, their eyes looking out from black veils as they greet me, “Good evening, ma’am.” Some of them are Hindu.

More trouble for Mr.Musharraf

How Pakistan government can hang Mr.Hussain when his murder conviction has already been quashed. Second when Lahore High Court already freed him and declared him non guilty earlier, how come Sharia Court found him guilty of the crimes he never committed?  And the last thing I want to know did Mr.Hussain received fair trial under  Sharia Court , I doubt it……

Double Oxford protest greets President Musharraf

The brother of a British man facing execution in Pakistan in two days time said that he was hopeful of a reprieve after making a last-ditch appeal to President Pervez Musharraf.

Although General Musharraf declined to speak to the family of Mirza Tahir Hussain as they demonstrated outside the Oxford venue where he made a speech today, the condemned man’s supporters said they were optimistic that he would be spared the death penalty.

Mr Hussain’s brother Amjad said that as his entourage drove away General Musharraf had smiled at him and given him a thumbs-up gesture.

“He knows who I am and he looked at me and gave me the thumbs-up. I’m optimistic. He is aware of this case and it’s about time he put pen to paper and set my brother free,” said Mr Hussain.

Amnesty International demonstrators said that one of the General’s entourage had responded to the shouted questions by saying that Mr Hussain’s case was being looked into “sympathetically”.

The protest coincided with a report out this morning claiming that the Pakistani authorities have detained hundreds of alleged terror suspects and handed them over to the US authorities in return for lucrative rewards.

Amnesty says that the US practice of offering bounties running to thousands of dollars has led to the illegal detention of innocent people, including women and children.

General Musharraf spoke for an hour at the Oxford Union on Pakistan’s rejuvenated economy and its free media but he refused to take questions from reporters in the post-speech question and answer session on either the report or on Mr Hussain.

Leeds-born Mr Hussain, a former Territorial Army soldier, is due to die at dawn in Pakistan on his 36th birthday – October 1, despite having his murder conviction quashed.

He was accused of killing a taxi driver who he claimed tried to sexually assault him at gunpoint in 1988, acquitted by the Lahore High Court, and then convicted again by Pakistan’s Federal Sharia Court.

Anjem Choudary explains why Britain should have sharia law,Vedio Via YouTube….

Anjem Choudary explains why Britain should have sharia law, video Via YouTube….Listen to this extremist…why the hell they want Sharia Law all over world, and best part is by demanding Sharia law which will never go with democracy, he is saying that by demanding this is not extremism but our right…My ..A…..and Britain and all west would be better under Sharia…well Mr.Choudary..I can give you list of countries who run under sharia law and they are the worst nations described by UN…By Human rights….so saying Britain would be better by having sharia law….you just showing extremist view ……..