The Heretik

MUKHTARAN: WHAT LURKS IN THE SHADOWS

MUKHTARAN: WHAT LURKS IN THE SHADOWS
What Lurks in the Shadows for Mukhtaran Mai Is What Waits for Any Woman who Has Been Raped and Then Some.  Whether raped by a gang or a date, women historically have faced a he said/she said conundrum where he is always given more because his future could be at stake because of a false accusation, while her whole life would be merely ruined by the incident. 

Pakistan is different from other countries.  Many courts would claim jurisdiction in this case.  The Pakistani government would like to see it go away. What people forget in the west is that Pakistan is an Islamic republic with religious as well as state courts.  Who decides may be more important than what is decided.  A woman’s word alone has only recently been given the credibility so critical in rape cases there. And for some reason terror law applies in the case of Mukhtaran.

THE LATEST: JUNE 28, 2005
Pakistan's Supreme Court has suspended the acquittals of five men in a notorious gang rape case that has sparked worldwide outrage.

The Lahore High Court had in March acquitted five men accused of raping Mukhtar Mai in 2002, allegedly on a village council's order.
--snip—

Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said in the ruling: "The inspector general of Punjab police is directed to arrest them and hand them over to judicial custody, pending final disposal of the appeals."
[BBC]

As proceedings came to a close on Monday, Ms Mai had no idea that Tuesday would bring a speedy decision. "I just want justice to be done," she said.

On Tuesday, as Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan continued his arguments, Ms Mai took a nap.

Mr Khan blasted the Lahore High Court's acquittals, saying they was based on pure conjecture.

"A sole statement of the accused in gang rape cases is sufficient to ensure a conviction," he told the court.

Then it was the turn of Ms Mai's lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, to take the podium.

"This is a battle of a poor and illiterate lady who has decided to fight a legal battle against her rapists to the farthest level and she has not succumbed to the pressures she has faced in her course," he said.

He urged the court to review the village council system - Ms Mai was raped allegedly on the direction of such a council, or panchayat.

"In this case the role of the rapists and the panchayat are the same. It is all about dastardly rule," he said.
[MUBASHIR ZAIDI/BBC]

Outside the courtroom, dozens of women hugged and congratulated a relaxed and smiling Mai, who was wearing the traditional Shalwar kameez -- trousers and a shirt -- with a blue-and-green shawl covering her head.

''I am happy and I hope those who humiliated me will be punished,'' Mai said. ''I was expecting justice from the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has done justice.''
[NY TIMES]

RECENTLY:
ISLAMABAD, June 27: The government told the Supreme Court on Monday that the acquittal of five accused in the Mukhtaran Mai gang-rape case was based on wrong assumptions. “The Lahore High Court’s Multan bench judgment was purely based on conjectures as all the corroborative evidences were ignored,” Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan said
--snip—
The Supreme Court had asked the attorney-general to assist the court on the question if the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) could take up the matter by suspending the high court’s order of acquitting convicts involved in the Meerwala gang-rape case.

On March 14, the Supreme Court through a suo motu notice stepped in to end an inter-court controversy by staying separate orders of the Lahore High Court, Multan bench, and Federal Shariat Court, which had suspended Multan bench’s order of acquitting the convicts by declaring high court’s judgment as without jurisdiction.

The attorney-general said the question of jurisdiction was also raised at the time when the Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) initiated the Mukhtaran Mai trial.

Section 6, 7 and 32 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 overrides Enforcement of Zina and Hudood Ordinance 1979, therefore, any appeal against trial court’s verdict could only be challenged before the high court and not the FSC, he said.

Citing a previous apex court judgment, he said the Supreme Court had held in the Mohammad Abbas case that convictions could be awarded even on the sole statement of a gang-rape victim.
[DAWN]

 

So many aspects of Pakistani justice come out in the Mukhtaran case that President Pervez Musharraf would prefer stay in the dark. But in the midst of shadow also lingers hope. For those who doubt, the power of one conscience can challenge a government and the world.  The challenge is to turn from darkness and see us all in the light.

LOOK FOR UPDATES HERE LATER TODAY.

RECENT HERETIK POSTS ON MUKHTARAN MAI:
[LIGHT CHALLENGES SHADOW]
[DARK REFLECTION]
[OTHERS SPEAK UP]
[LIGHT DEFINED BY SHADOW]
[THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE]
[IDENTITY THEFT]
[FRIEND OF THE DEVIL]
  
ALSO RECOMMENDED:
[BBC TIMELINE]
[MUKHTARAN'S STORY]
[INTERVIEW: MP 3]
[TOM WATSON/HUFFINGTON POST]

LIGHT CHALLENGES SHADOW

LIGHT CHALLENGES SHADOW
Mukhtaran Mai Today Started the Appeal of Her Case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.  Guilty verdicts  against her gang rape attackers were overturned by a regional high court in March.  The court heard initial arguments on whether Pakistan’s highest Islamic court should have jurisdicition in the case and then adjourned until Tuesday. The intolerant Islamic sect of Wahabism, the power of tribal councils, the power politics internal and external to the Pakistani government are all confronted by one brave woman seeking justice.

Ms Mai, 33, said outside court on Monday: "I have high hopes. I hope the original verdict will be upheld and that my attackers will be punished."
—snip--
The BBC's Paul Anderson in Islamabad says the case has become a test of President Musharraf's commitment to protect the rights of women.

Women's and civil rights activists, he says, argue neither the president nor the government have been able or had the will to resist the tribal and feudal leaders who mete out justice by what they see as a time-honoured cultural code.
[BBC]

LOOK FOR UPDATES HERE LATER TODAY.

RECENT HERETIK POSTS ON MUKHTARAN MAI:
[DARK REFLECTION]
[OTHERS SPEAK UP]
[LIGHT DEFINED BY SHADOW]
[THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE]
[IDENTITY THEFT]
[FRIEND OF THE DEVIL]
  
ALSO RECOMMENDED:
[BBC TIMELINE]
[MUKHTARAN'S STORY]
[INTERVIEW: MP 3]
[TOM WATSON/HUFFINGTON POST]

DARK REFLECTION: MUKHTARAN MAI

DARK REFLECTION: MUKHTARAN MAI'S STORY SHEDS LIGHT ON THE  DARKNESS IN PAKISTAN TODAY. The light of her story is refracted through the dark prism of Pakistani and world politics.  Her story is not the official one Pakistan wants told to the world.  Her nation's leader and "moderate" women politicians alike see in the adoption and support of her story by the rest of the world as an attack on Pakistan and on the Islam practiced there.  In the strange legal history of her gang rape case, her attackers morph into the  acquitted accused or the accused acquitted.  She is now a victim alleged.  Her attackers run free, while she is safely under house arrest. She may leave the country, but has no passport with which to do so.  The victim of a crime committed by hateful men, she and her motives are attacked by  women politicians for the  apparent  lack of love for her religion and country.  A  Pakistani novel could be written about this story yet without an ending.  A television  series is planned.  Where is the meaning in her story that twists and in the words that turn?

Pakistani President  Gen Pervez Musharraf’s political opponent PPP MNA Sherry Rehman denounced his treatment of Mukhtaran Mai as  but a  sign of his poor treatment of women at home while trumpeting his enlightened policies abroad.  To understand story of Mukhtaran Mai, you really need to read what people in Pakistan are saying.  Some do not look so kindly on Mukhtar as Rehman does.

JUNE 24, 2005 LAHORE REHMAN SAID: “It is a sad indictment of the government’s double-dealing that foreign powers had to intervene to get Mukhtaran’s name off the Exit Control List. But even today she is being coerced by government officials and ‘moderate’ women ministers to say that she is free to go abroad while they keep her strictly under their surveillance and physical control.”
The PPP legislator said instead of turning its attention to curbing injustices done to women in society, the government was focusing its energies in sloppy spin-doctoring about Pakistani NGOs and the utility of sweeping such episodes under the rug.
Ms Sherry said Gen Musharraf himself admitted to the instructions he gave preventing Mukhtaran’s foreign travel or free movement. “What he does not realize is that the quantum and quality of official lies has become more of an embarrassment than anything that Mukhtaran would have said at a private citizens’ forum anywhere in the world.”
“To pretend that Mukhtaran is not a symbol of courage and resistance for Pakistani women is tantamount to turning away from a history of commitments made by the state to its oppressed underclass.”
[DAWN]

"Moderate" women politicians in Pakistan are being used by Musharraf to attack Mukhtaran and her supporters. Mukhtaran's fate melds with a defense of Pakistan and of Islam, powerful forces in a country on the edge of the West, looking in the door, but standing in place.

ISLAMABAD, June 22 (Online): MNA, Aasia Azeem has alleged that a US based organization has disbursed $ 1.33 Lakh to gang rape victim Mukhtaran Mai and the elements who have staged demonstration in US are out to defame Pakistan and Islam.
--snip--
She held that NGOs which advertise all over the world any case of rape in the country are also committing heinous crime in the name of woman rights.
--snip--
She warned that some anti-state elements were working in the guise of NGOs and they were striving to lead Pakistani society to disorder and chaos so that the country is transformed into a secular society.
Mukhtaran Mai should avoid defaming the country, she stressed.
[PAKISTAN TRIBUNE]
State minister for health, Shahnaz Sheikh questioned why the foreign countries are interfering in this case. They have no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan, she added.
[PAKISTAN TRIBUNE]

 

The Pakistan Tribune Online offers insight into the twists of fate and the turn of words iin the story of Murkhtaran Mai.  If we know one thing about Murkhtar's case, we know everything and nothing.  What words mean depends on who says them.  How a country is seen and whether a woman lives free will be determined by who has the last and loudest word.  Here is a brief synopsis of recent events:

FROM THE PAK TRIB ONLINE:

[No plan to travel abroad yet: Mai]
Alleged Gang Rape Victim . . .

[Mai's name removed from ECL under PM directives: Sherpao]
" We want when case starts she remains in Pakistan to defend her self.”

[Asma demands removal of Mai's name from ECL]
. . . the judicial system of the country exposed when it allow the accused of the rape to live freely and the victim was kept in house arrest.

[PTV to air drama serial on Mukhtara Mai soon]
Pakistan Television (PTV) would be soon telecasting drama serial comprising of 13 episodes on rape victim Mukhtara Mai.

[Mukhtar Mai's appeal filed in SC]
Lahore High Court's Multan Bench on March 3 had acquitted five men accused of gang-raping Mukhtar Mai and cut short the sentence of another.

[Mukhtar Mai thanks PM for re arrest of 4 accused]
She said that the past never comes back but for living everybody has to make struggle.

[4 accused in Mai case re-arrested]
the Police of Muzaffarabad re-arrested the four accused who allegedly dragged Mukhtar Mai to a room and raped her on the Panchiat order

[Names of accused acquitted in Mai's case put on ECL: Sherpao]
Sherpao on Thursday directed the authorities concerned to put names of the accused acquitted in Mukhtar Mai alleged gang rape case on Exit Control List (ECL).

[Security around Mukhtar Mai's house beefed up]
" The acquitted accused could take action against me any time", the media organization quoted Mukhtar Mai as saying.

[SC takes suo-motu notice into Mukhtar Mai rape case]
The convicts filed appeals before the Lahore High Court, Multan Bench which partially allowed the appeals on March 3, 2005 and upheld conviction of one accused by commuting his sentence from death to life imprisonment and acquitted rest of them.

RELATED:
[GUARDIAN UK INTERVIEW: PERVEZ MUSHARRAF]
[PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT WEBSITE]

MUKHTARAN MAI: OTHERS SPEAK UP

OTHERS SPEAK UP
For the Voice the Powers in Pakistan Would Silence: Mukhtaran Mai. For a noble woman who suffered the too common and hateful crime of rape, who now is prisoner in her own home, protesters rallied uptown on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.

UPDATE: SCROLL DOWN FOR MUKHTARAN IN HER OWN WORDS

As buses and taxis whisked toward the Plaza, and nannies and strollers and tourists tried to claim a path down the sidewalk next to the park, a coalition of human rights organization sent a stern and strong message to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf: it is patriotic to be a Muslim, a Pakistani, and a woman in support of Ms. Mukhtaran.
[TOM WATSON] HAS MORE

CATCH 22: Mukhtaran Can Travel Alone to the United States Now, But . . .

. . . the Pakistani authorities have now told Mukhtaran that she will be allowed to travel to the U.S. on her own, without an escort – but they still haven’t returned her passport. [NICHOLAS KRISTOF]

SOME: LOCAL BACKGROUND

When the Prophet Muhammad came to the people of Makkah with the message of Islam, he had to deal with a society that had no respect and dignity for its women. Burying baby girls alive was common. Women had no marital rights, no right to inherit property or receive an education. They could not function as individuals within their society without their father or husband's permission. Now, many years later, we are still struggling to purify our societies of these pre-Islamic practices. We know that Islam gave women a multitude of rights that other women did not enjoy until the advent of modernism and secularism. But it's not enough to say, "Islam liberated women." We as believing people must establish this deen in order to create just and peaceful societies so that rape and other forms of abuse are forbidden and punished accordingly.
[I VIEWS]

UPDATE: Mukhtaran Mai in Her Own Words

MUKHTAR MAI:[translated by Azra Rashid] Women are facing a lot of problems here, not only at the workplace, but they’re also facing domestic violence and abuses. I can only understand one reason for this. They think women are weaker than men. Men have all controls in society. The second reason is illiteracy. Women are uneducated. They don't know their rights.
The whole world is with me if you think about it. Not just Pakistan, but the whole world. And if I’m not getting justice, then there is little hope for other women going through the same kind of abuse. I don't think women are to blame for this. They don't get justice, and that's why they let these abuses go on quietly.
But now I understand this, especially after the high court decision. The legal system is weak. The law does not have any strength here. If even the law would falsify the truth, who would then women turn to for their justice? If you think about it, I’m not really getting justice. Just look at the high court decision. They refuse to believe the truth. They said it was a total lie. That's a further abuse for women. But God is watching everything. One witness is not enough in Pakistan to prove a rape. They need at least 15 witnesses. The woman who goes through the abuse and exploitation, no one believes her. The high court said it's a false allegation. The case never took place. They said that because there is no one version of the story. I went to file a report, but there was no one to write it.
There are several different versions of the story. But I told them I wasn't the one responsible for documenting it. I was also illiterate. The police is to blame for this, and not me. It's for the first time that someone has filed a report. And even that took two and a half years to be done. But I didn't want it that badly back then. It all changed after the high court decision. I felt really hurt.
The perpetrators of this crime were ignorant and illiterate people. But the judges at the high court were all educated people. I cannot imagine how they could have come to a conclusion like that. Afterwards I started hating education, as well.
Of course, it hurts. You understand that, too, being a woman, the kind of hurt that a woman must feel after going through such violation. But I have to live. When it hurts really bad, I just go to my school, look at the girls and spend time with them to help forget the pain. But I will go on until I have even the slightest hope of justice.
I don't really want to move away from my village. This is my home. I just feel the same amount of attachment to my village as people do to their country. But when people say harsh things about me, I think about leaving this place. But then I tell myself, I have my school and these girls here. If I left, I’d be leaving them behind, too, and the perpetrators will think that Mukhtar gave up and left after everything that happened to her, that if they do that to a woman, the woman will leave, and they will get away with the crime. I think about that.

[DEMOCRACY NOW]  [INTERVIEW: MP 3]

RESOURCES: [Mukhtaran Mai's Story] [SWANS COMMENTARY] [WIKIPEDIA]

BLOGGERS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT MUKHTARAN CAN BE FOUND [here]
PREVIOUS HERETIK POST [here]   

The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly is interested in showing as much support across the blogs as possible.  If you have posted about Muktaran and would like to be added to the next update of posts, drop a comment below or contact me [here]

MUKHTARAN MAI: THE LIGHT DEFINED BY SHADOW

MUKHTARAN MAI: THE LIGHT DEFINED BY SHADOW
Mukhtaran Mai’s Story of Surviving Gang Rape To Speak of Hope in a Hopeless World May Yet Be Eclipsed by Dark Shadows Growing Larger in the Middle East.  Wahabi, the most puritanical of Islam’s sects, threatens to swallow not just Mukhtaran, but also Pakistan, and the entire region.  Nations like the United States, with its focus on the power of states as the big players in the Middle East, fail to realize that the players take their direction from Wahabi religious leaders. To further understand the influence of Wahabi and how it affected Mukhtaran and may soon engulf the region in a hungry shadow, the United States needs to understand the political power of tribes and their councils, large and small.  The power of the Wahabi sect and of tribal councils is the key to understanding the story of Mukhtaran’s past as well as the future of the Middle East.

Wahabi defines all other faiths as infidel, all other sects as heretical.  In name its roots go back to by Muhammad ibn-Abd-al-Wahab (1703–1792) and its great base of power lies in Saudi Arabia, bankroller of religious revolution and not incidentally the home of nineteen of the hijackers infamous for September Eleventh, 2001.

SWANS COMMENTARY ON WAHABI
Islam is not Wahabi. Wahabi is not Islam. Saudi Arabia is Wahabi. Saudi Arabia is the seat and financial core of Wahabi terrorism. Tight, stark, factual.  Wahabi is an extreme fundamentalism obsessed with eradicating all who call themselves Muslim, all who are not Wahabi. The West is not Wahabi. The West must also go.

Speaking up for herself and for women, Mukhtararan defies the powerful and intolerant Wahabi.  Pakistan aspires to be western thinking in heading toward democracy, as George Bush would spread freedom by the barrel of a gun backed by a tank turret. Bush, Pakistan, and Mukhtaran confront Wahabi as Wahabi clearly, starkly confronts us all.

RESOURCES: [Mukhtaran Mai's Story] [SWANS COMMENTARY] [WIKIPEDIA]

 

PROTESTS IN SUPPORT OF MUKHTARAN MAY [ANAA]

NEW YORK
Wednesday June 22, 2005
10:30-12:30 PM
Location: Half a Block west of Pakistani Consulate
65th Street, Fifth Ave
New York, NY 10021
Directions by subway: Take the N/R train to Fifth Ave.
Open to Public. Please bring your friends.

WASHINGTON DC
Thursday June 23, 2005
12:00-2:00PM
Outside the EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN-
3517 International Court, NW
Washington DC, 20008
Open to Public. Please bring your friends.

Please confirm your attendance and number of friends you can bring. Please write if you are interested to volunteer, email: [email protected] or [email protected]

THE LATEST FROM TOM WATSTON ON  MUKHTARAN MAI:
Apart from a test of wills with a military regime in an especially dangerous part of the world, what does the Mukhtaran Bibi story really mean? In his latest update today, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof makes that case that Mukhtar Mai's saga is emblematic of a larger struggle: to end ritual, sadistic, and nearly feudal sexual abuse of women.

And he adds a powerful kicker: the Bush Administration should take the lead in holding allies responsible for human rights abuses. Is this a Jimmy Carter-like call for human rights as American policy, doomed to draw snickers from the Georgetown-living, Cabernet-swilling realpolitickers?

WHAT THE BLOGS ARE SAYING ABOUT MUKHTARAN
Mukhtaran Bibi is now Mukhtaran Bibi & Co.. Over 120 weblogs, and there's no way of counting how many emails were sent to the email addresses listed. It's been a real struggle for the rights of an individual on the other side of the world, and in some ways, cultural ideology. A group of volunteer writers has increased awareness through the technology of weblogs - but it's a bit more than weblogs. It's about the human spirit that uses weblogs and email as a communication appendage, to stand and defend what they think is right.
[KNOW PROSE]

BLOGGERS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT MUKHTARAN CAN BE FOUND [here]
PREVIOUS HERETIK POST [here]   

Tom Watson has written most about Mukhtaran, most recently [here]

The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly is interested in showing as much support across the blogs as possible.  If you have posted about Muktaran and would like to be added to the next update of posts, drop a comment below or contact me [here].

LET THERE BE LIGHT: MUKHTARAN MAI

LET THERE BE LIGHT
Protests in Favor of Mukhtaran Mai Scheduled in New York and Washington DC This Week  Speak out for a woman who speaks for women around the world. 

I stopped Mai from going abroad.
Pakistani President Musharraf
[DailyTimes] 18 June 2005   

Amnesty International
16 June 2005
             
The recent statements issued by the Government of Pakistan confirms that Mukhtaran will not be allowed to travel to the US. According to Daily Times today, Mukhtaran's name has been removed from the Exit Control List (ECL) but the Government has seized her passport. ANAA is proceeding with its plan to protest against these actions of the Pakistani Government in cities across the US. Please keep visiting [ANAA] website for the latest Updates on Mukhtaran.

[ANAA] TODAY ANNOUNCES PROTESTS!

NEW YORK
Wednesday June 22, 2005
10:30-12:30 PM
Location: Half a Block west of Pakistani Consulate
65th Street, Fifth Ave
New York, NY 10021
Directions by subway: Take the N/R train to Fifth Ave.
Open to Public. Please bring your friends.

WASHINGTON DC
Thursday June 23, 2005
12:00-2:00PM
Outside the EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN-
3517 International Court, NW
Washington DC, 20008
Open to Public. Please bring your friends.

Please confirm your attendance and number of friends you can bring. Please write if you are interested to volunteer, email: [email protected] or [email protected]

WHAT THE BLOGS ARE SAYING ABOUT MUKHTARAN MAI:
"Why should I have spent the money on myself?" asked the poor, misguided liberal feminist. "This way the money is helping all the girls, all the children." . . . Do Muktar a favor and spread the word. Empowering people like Muktar is just as important to the War Against Terror as killing Osama, and a hell of a lot more effective than invading Iraq.
[HERALDBLOG]

And I bet (Musharraf's) not expecting outraged e-mails from all over the world to fly into his government's inboxes.  Which is why they should be. And they should be loud, outraged, and laced with threats about how many congressmen will be informed and how much noise will be made. They should, above all, be perfectly clear on one count: if she dies, her voice will be far louder than if she lived.
[EZRA KLEIN]

BLOGGERS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT MUKHTARAN CAN BE FOUND [here]
PREVIOUS HERETIK POST [here]   

Tom Watson has written most about Mukhtaran, most recently [here]

The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly is interested in showing as much support across the blogs as possible.  If you have posted about Muktaran and would like to be added to the next update of posts, drop a comment below or contact me [here].

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE
Mukhtaran Bibi speaks the truth that indomitable love may conquer all in spirit, but political bodies are another matter. Now the latest update from Pakistan:

UPDATE FROM NICHOLAS KRISTOF/NEW YORK TIMES [here]
On Friday, Ms. Mukhtaran told me that one of the prime minister's aides had just called to offer to take her to the United States. It seems Mr. Musharraf wants to defuse the crisis by allowing Ms. Mukhtaran a tightly chaperoned tour of the U.S., controlled every step of her way.
"I said, 'No,' " she said. "I only want to go of my own free will."
Hats off to this incredible woman. President Musharraf may have ousted rivals and overthrown a civilian government, but he has now met his match - a peasant woman with a heart of gold and a will of steel.

JUST IN KRISTOF ON NEW SMEAR CAMPAIGN  [here]
A Pakistani journalist who wanted to remain anonymous informs me:
For the past 2-3 months, an Urdu newspaper called Ausaf -- which is widely believed to be financed by Pakistan's infamous "agencies" -- has been carrying what can only be described as a vicious campaign against Mukhtaran Mai. Stories have featured about her character (that she smokes so is therefore "bad"!!!), questioning her "patriotism", that she had been sold to a western agenda and so forth.

Another Pakistani confirms that. So I think what we're seeing is a pattern of the Musharraf government getting sick of the attention that Mukhtaran got, getting increasingly resentful of what they regarded as an image of backwardness that she promoted, and thus increasingly determined to destroy her.
Musharraf should be ashamed of himself.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL EXPRESSES CONCERN [here]
Amnesty International USA is gravely disappointed by reports that gang-rape survivor Mukhtaran Bibi was pressured into withdrawing her visa application for a speaking tour in the United States. That the Pakistani government would bar Ms. Mukhtaran from leaving the country is a testament to the calculated measures it has taken to obscure a human rights record that flies in the face of international standards.

KRISTOF ON UNSPOKEN LARGER CONCERN [here]
It does make you think: If this is how President Musharraf treats a woman who has the world's attention, whom U.S. officials have spoken out strongly on behalf of, then what happens to an ordinary woman who isn't in the spotlight?

KRISTOF ON THE NAME: MAI OR BIBI? [here]
By the way, a word of explanation on her name. In the Pakistani press, she's mostly known as Mukhtar Mai, and occasionally as Mukhtiar Mai. Mukhtar is a variant of Mukhtaran, and Mai -- like Bibi -- just means that she's a woman. So calling her "Ms. Mai" means Ms. Woman. I use "Mukhtaran Bibi" because she told me that that's how she would prefer to be called and she showed me that that is what her national ID card uses. That's also what people in her village call her.

 

Here in America where our personal difficulties may seem minor compared to Mukhtaran, we may find inspiration in her so far away. The light of conscience and the power of the will can make more than one woman free.

BLOGGERS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT MUKHTARAN CAN BE FOUND [here]
PREVIOUS HERETIK POST [here]   

Tom Watson has written most about Mukhtaran, most recently [here]

The Heretik Joe Ivory Mattingly is interested in showing as much support across the blogs as possible.  If you have posted about Muktaran and would like to be added to the next update of posts, drop a comment below or contact me [here].

IDENTITY THEFT

IDENTITY THEFT
Mukhtaran Bibi is Mukhtaran Mai is Mukhtar Mai. However the woman is named her identity has been stolen by her Pakistani government.  Gang raped in revenge for a crime someone else did not commit, bravely seeking justice for herself without vengeance in a society where rape victims would destroy themselves in shame, Mukhtar found strength in herself.  Her story and identity have been used the Pakistani government as a bright light in the free world. When she spoke out against that government, her attackers were freed and Mukhtar was jailed. Now her government has dropped her into a strange shadow land, free but not free

“On the instruction of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the name of Mukhtaran Mai has been removed from the ECL,” Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sharpao told parliament, referring to an exit control list that prevents overseas travel.

“She is free to go anywhere. She can go wherever she wants,” he said.
...............
REUTERS

Kafka or the Melville of Bartleby the Scrivener could not enscribe so perverse a use of language to say one thing and mean quite another.

But Ms Mai has told the BBC that her passport has been confiscated so the move is meaningless.

The ban has prevented Ms Mai from taking up an invitation from human rights group Amnesty International to travel to the United States.

Officials had said she had to stay in Pakistan until court cases around the rape were resolved.

But critics said the move was a ploy intended to protect Pakistan's international image.
..........

BBC

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• No Capitol [here]

FRIEND OF THE DEVIL

 

 
IF THESE ARE OUR FRIENDS, WHO ARE OUR ENEMIES?
Pakistan is a strange ally.  Seller of nuclear arms across the globe, harbor of terrorists, and an A 1 American friend, this one nation commits a multiplicity of crimes on one  brave woman.  A woman who might have been crushed by injustice to her, who holds out the open hands of a soul free of bitterness may now be crushed by the politics of nations.  This is the story of Mukhtaran Bibi, a saint who forgives small sinners, only again to see great sins visited upon her.

Three years ago, the uneducated Punjabi villager was gang-raped on the orders of her local council of elders, who held that the vile attack was suitable retribution for a sex crime allegedly committed by her 12-year-old brother. That charge later turned out to be hogwash.

Instead of keeping quiet, Mukhtaran Bibi confronted her accusers in court, and six men were sentenced to death. In a country in which most rape victims have to produce four witnesses to secure a conviction, her tear-drenched testimony was practically revolutionary.
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DECLAN WALSH/GUARDIAN UK

Who takes evil and makes good makes the world greater. Mukhtaran took what small money awarded her by Musharraf and opened two schools in her village, one for boys and one for girls, schools open to all.  All is a concept few understand so well. The spirit forgives crimes committed on the body.  Mukhtaran invited the sons and daughters of her attackers to attend these schools.

But this year, the case started to unravel. In March, an appeal court overturned the convictions of the six men. Furious, Ms Mukhtaran launched a supreme court challenge and vigorously publicised her plight in the international media - which was where the ham-fisted government stepped in.

Officially, it said the exit control order was for her own good. "It is a security measure," one official said. "We want her case to be processed and resolved first," the junior interior minister explained.

But the real reason, it would seem, was to prevent Ms Mukhtaran from attending a human rights meeting in the US where she could presumably have highlighted the scandal of an embarrassingly slanted judicial system.
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DECLAN WALSH/GUARDIAN UK

Pakistan is a strange place where the spirit may heal, but the body politic goes sick.  The embodiment of the state will not allow for the voice of the spirit to be heard. She would speak against the embodiment of her nation’s government Musharraf so the voice of the spirits must be silenced.

"This is all because they think they have the support of the U.S. and can get away with murder," Ms. Jahangir said. Indeed, on Friday, just as all this was happening, President Bush received Pakistan's foreign minister in the White House and praised President Musharraf's "bold leadership."
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NICHOLAS KRISTOFF/NY TIMES

Even a strong voice can be gagged.  Someone must speak for the silenced.

THE HERETIK CONTINUES ON WITH MUKHTARAN STORY HERE
 

RECOMMENDED: Tom Watson has some suggestions. This story first came to my attention through Lance Mannion.  MORE HERE: NO CAPITAL