Rights groups urge Pakistan to reform rape laws.

 

AFP

November 27, 2006

OPPOSITION: Supporters of the opposition Islamic alliance beat a poster of Bush and Musharraf during a rally in Karachi November 26. The rally was held to protest against amendments to Pakistan's Islamic rape laws. (REUTERS)

KARACHI, Pakistan --  Thousands of supporters of hardline Islamic parties staged a rally in Karachi Sunday in protests against the passage of a bill that amends the country's Islamic rape laws.

Pakistani parliament this month voted that rape and adultery cases should no longer be heard under the country's harsh religious laws. The Islamic hardliners boycotted the proceedings.

Around 8,000 people participated in the rally called by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six fundamentalist parties.

MMA activists carrying banners and placards chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's war on terror ally the United States.

"We'll intensify our protests to mobilize the people to stand against the induction of anti-Islamic laws," a central MMA leader, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, told the rally.

He claimed that secular parties were trying to change the country's Islamic identity.

"Secular parties have sided with military dictator General Musharraf to change the Islamic identity of Pakistan, which we would not allow," Ahmed said.

Slamming the parliament another leader, Liaquat Baloch, said that MMA lawmakers would resign from their seats next month.

"This bill has been passed by General Musharraf to appease his masters in Washington," Baloch said.

The parliament overwhelmingly approved the Women Protection Bill to overhaul widely criticized religious legislation known as Hudood Laws. The laws have run parallel to Pakistan's British-influenced penal code.

The late military dictator, General Zia ul Haq, introduced the Hudood Laws 27 years ago as part of a sweeping Islamization of Pakistan that coincided with the country's role in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.

The laws currently say that women must produce four Muslim male witnesses as evidence of rape - an almost impossible burden of evidence - or potentially face adultery charges themselves.

The maximum sentence for adultery by a man or a woman under the laws is death by stoning, although that has never been enforced and those convicted of the crime get jail or a fine instead.

Human rights groups, who have long campaigned for a change in the law, hailed the bill as a step forward for Pakistani women.