Pakistan: Acquittals in Mukhtaran Mai gang rape case

[Ignited Mind]

Pakistan: Acquittals in Mukhtaran Mai gang rape case​

Five of six men charged over a village council-sanctioned gang rape in Pakistan have been acquitted by the Supreme Court.

The court upheld the decision of a lower court, which included commuting the death penalty of the sixth man to life imprisonment.

The victim, Mukhataran Mai, hit world headlines after speaking out about her ordeal in 2002. She has since become an icon for women's rights in Pakistan.

She said she now feared for her life.

Mukhtaran Mai was her clear and unambiguous self when she spoke minutes after the verdict, the BBC's Shoaib Hasan in Pakistan said.

"The police never even recorded my own statements correctly," she said.

"I don't have any more faith in the courts. I have put my faith in God's judgement now. I don't know what the legal procedure is, but my faith [in the system] is gone.

"Yes, there is a threat to me and my family. There is a threat of death, and even of the same thing happening again. Anything can happen."

Ali Dayan Hassan of the US-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict sent a "very bad signal" across Pakistani society.

"It suggests women can be abused and even raped with impunity and those perpetrating such crimes can walk," he told the BBC.
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"Life and death are in the hands of Allah... I will not shut my school and other projects”

Mukhataran Mai

The Supreme Court ordered the five men's immediate release - but it is not clear if they have been freed yet.

The court has yet to issue a detailed judgement. But the Lahore High Court - whose decision was upheld - had put the blame on a lack of evidence.

Our correspondent says many people say another review of the case is needed as it has had such a key impact on the rights of women in Pakistan.
Accolades

Mukhtaran Mai was attacked on the orders of the powerful Mastoi clan as a punishment because her brother - 12 at the time - had allegedly been having an affair with a Mastoi woman. This, they said, had brought shame to the entire clan.

An illiterate villager in the eastern province of Punjab, Mukhtaran Mai was could have gone the way of many other Pakistani women who are raped, committing suicide.

Instead, she battled against her initial suicidal feelings and began a lengthy legal battle, which has since won her human rights accolades and an iconic status for women's rights in the country.

She runs a school for girls in her village, and has vowed that Thursday's ruling will not force her to leave her home.

"Life and death are in the hands of Allah... I will not shut my school and other projects," she told Reuters news agency.

BBC News - Pakistan: Acquittals in Mukhtaran Mai gang rape case

 

[Karachiite]

Mai was not raped once but once again by the Lahore High Court and now the Supreme Court.

 

[Realist]

Disgusting.

 

[Imran Khan]

now they will do some thing more with mai .

 

[Pfpilot]

Under what moral code or culture is this ok? A woman goes through hell and the courts have no qualms about letting these horrible people go...is this the Pakistan we all wanted, because it surely is becoming this way.

 

[Ahmad]

Human rights groups have expressed outrage after most of those accused of the gang rape of Mukhtaran Mai, who was assaulted on the orders of a village council, were freed by Pakistan's supreme court.

Nine years after the gang rape, Mai's struggle for justice ended with the court ordering five of the six accused to be freed. A distraught Mai, who has won international acclaim for her bravery in a deeply chauvinistic society, said that the release of the men had put her life in danger.

Originally 14 had been accused of taking part in the rape, which was ordered in 2002 by village elders sitting as a traditional tribal court after Mai's brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan.

The court judgment acknowledged that Mai had been raped, by upholding the sentence against one of the accused, Abdul Khaliq, but the outcome means that just one of the 14 men she believes were involved has been found guilty. Khaliq's original death sentence had already been commuted to life in prison by a lower court.

"I am scared these 13 people will come back to my village and harm me and my family," Mai said, in her remote home in the south of Punjab province. "I have lost faith in the courts and now I am leaving my case to the court of God. I am sure God will punish those who molested me."

Mai has started a school for girls and a non-governmental organisation that promotes women's education. She vowed that she would not flee her village, and would continue with her work.

The supreme court was heavily criticised by human rights groups for the verdict, which they said put the safety of all Pakistani women at risk. Rape, "honour killings" and other crimes against women in Pakistan are routinely poorly investigated by police and go unpunished by the courts.

"Mukhtaran Mai has had the courage to fight for so many years. This [verdict] shows that you can commit any crime, even in front of 100 people, and get away with it," said Fouzia Saeed, a women's rights activist, speaking outside the supreme court in Islamabad. "Every day something like this is happening in Pakistan. Jirgas [village courts] are still doing this. The jirgas will be encouraged by this verdict."

The court, under activist chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, has taken on authority relentlessly, ordering high officials to answer before it and the re-investigation of cases where the police and prosecution fail to present a competent case. But the court is accused of pandering to the country's Islamist right wing, especially when it comes to cases involving women and religious minorities, and also of failing to convict virtually anyone of terrorist offences in recent years despite raging jihadist violence across the country.

"The court is proactive when it appears to have a political axe to grind, where it is in direct confrontation with the government," said Ali Dayan Hasan, a Pakistan-based senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. "But it appears that when there are vulnerable groups involved and questions of fundamental rights, the court is playing to the rightwing gallery."

Mai's ordeal began after her 13-year-old brother was accused by a more powerful clan of having sex with one of their young women. He was then sodomised in a sugar cane field by the woman's brother, Abdul Khaliq, and two other men. There appears to be no basis for the original accusation.

A tribal council was assembled from Khaliq's clan, which ordered that Mai be punished for her brother's illicit sex by being raped, on the basis of eye-for-an-eye justice. Mai was forced at gunpoint by Khaliq into a stable, where he and other clan members raped her. She was then paraded naked around the village. Tradition dictated that Mai commit suicide, as the shame supposedly fell on her, but she decided to fight her tormentors.

A district court in 2002 found six men guilty of rape and sentenced them to death but freed the other eight accused. Then in 2005, the Lahore high court, the top provincial court, ruled that there was insufficient evidence against five of the men. The case then went to the supreme court, which on Thursday upheld the 2005 judgment.

The cruelty of Mai's case is repeated in the treatment of women across the country, with tribal councils regularly ordering young girls to be handed over in compensation for crimes committed by other family members, and women to be killed for "honour".

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organisation, recorded 791 honour killings of women in 2010; at least 26 of the women were raped or gang raped before being killed. Rape is rarely reported but at least 2,903 women did come forward with rape complaints last year, according to the commission.

 

[Ahmad]

feel sorry for this brave lady.

 

[Ahmad]

[video]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/apr/22/pakistan-gang-rape-verdict-video[/video]

 

[KS]

Mukhtar Mai, Pakistan's woman of steel, is not giving up yet!

Pakistan's Supreme Court may have upheld the acquittal of five of the six men accused of raping Mukhtar Mai, but Pakistan's most famous victim of abuse is not giving up yet.

"No court can weaken my resolve to stand against injustice," Mukhtar Mai, often referred to as the Rosa Parks of Pakistan, tweeted shortly after the verdict. Mukhtar was ordered to be gang-raped by a tribal council in 2002 after her 12-year-old brother Shakoor was accused of having an affair with a woman of the superior Mastoi tribe.
"Supreme Court's verdict proves that police dictate system in Pakistan," read another tweet by Mukhtar.

Civil society groups and individuals have expressed "shock" and "disgust" at the verdict announced by the Supreme Court yesterday. "The verdict is not just a blow for Mukhtaran Mai (and the release of the accused could heighten the threats against her life) but it can and will be seen as another limp response to rape as a crime, a reflection of societal chauvinism, and a blow to womens' rights in the country," wrote Adil Najam, editor of a Pakistani ezine.

"Most importantly, the practical manifestation of the decision will be to deny closure to and to bring back into painful scrutiny the life of a woman who has already been through so much – too much – pain," he said.

A commenter agreed with Najam's post: "Today we have allowed the village elite a free hand to rape any woman in their village and get away with it. "The feudal system wins and the poor lose their face yet again."

Many had expected Mukhtar Mai to commit suicide, as is all too common after rape in the country, but she refused and started a legal battle against her alleged rapists.
Soon her struggle for rights became a struggle for other deprived women too.

With the money she received as compensation from the courts, she built her village's first girl's school – an institution she had never seen before and something which the little girls of her village will never be able to thank her enough for.

Mai, who broke down and wept after hearing the apex court's ruling yesterday, said she was undecided about appealing against the verdict.

"I cannot say anything. I will consult my lawyer but I have no faith in any court now. I only have faith in God's court," she told the media in her hometown of Meerwala in Punjab province.

"The release of the suspects has put my life in grave danger," she said, adding "I have waited and endured problems for five years. "If they had to give such a verdict, why did they cause me so many problems for five years? They need not have taken suo moto notice if they had to uphold the earlier judgement."

Mai acknowledged that the original FIR filed in 2002 against those accused of raping her may have had flaws but pointed out that she was illiterate at the time.
"What is my fault in this? Why is the court punishing me?" she asked.

 

[Ajaxpaul]

the clan members thought she will commit suicide and they can live happily ever after.Now the supreme court gave her supreme injustice. This is just wrong!!!

 

[VCheng]

Is it not telling to compare the level of outrage and hyperbole in Mai's case and RD's case?

 

[Thoma Yosip]

Everyone who participated in the decision to rape this woman as well as the rapists themselves should be punished severely. This is a disgusting injustice. What of the men who sodomized her young brother? Shouldn't they be punished as well?

 

[Developereo]

It seems the case is hopeless now because the police bungled the evidence. Let's hope it was due to incompetence, not malice.

PS. As usual, the Western media, especially the BBC, is interested in sensationalist, cheap point scoring, rather than addressing the real issue. The problem is not the courts, which must follow the rule of law, but the local police.

 

[muse]

Let's hope it was due to incompetence, not malice.

How would that change or effect the cause of justice?? Sometimes we have to break some eggs to make an omelet, that means the accused and the politicians and bureaucrats involved should be "visited" and "admonished" - vigorously!

 

[Developereo]

How would that change or effect the cause of justice?? Sometimes we have to break some eggs to make an omelet, that means the accused and the politicians and bureaucrats involved should be "visited" and "admonished" - vigorously!

Incompetence is easier to cure than malice. A bunch of bungling rural police officers is a less serious matter than systematic misogynistic tendencies in our legal system.

Of course I am being optimistic. I know full well we have both problems.