Category Archives: Pakistan

Narowal village: Christian family pleads for justice after child rape, stillbirths

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Found at Jihad Watch:

Pakistan Tribune:

Published: June 4, 2012

The rape victim said they drugged her, took her to the fields and raped her.

LAHORE: Police investigators in Narowal are siding with men accused of gang-raping a 13-year-old Christian girl and then torturing her family and killing her two unborn cousins, say the girl’s family.

Though FIRs of both incidents have been registered, the police have already declared one of the three accused, a retired inspector’s son, innocent in the rape case. In the case for causing two stillbirths, the police are not arresting the accused even though a judge cancelled their interim bails.

The rape victim, a student of class six, told Civil Judge Mansoor Ahmed Warraich that Irfan, his employee Shahid and an unidentified man had kidnapped her as she walked past Irfan’s house on March 29. She said they drugged her, took her to the fields and raped her. She said she had been unable to cry out as her attackers stuffed some cloth in her mouth. She said that she woke up the next morning still in the fields, roused by family members who had been looking for her since she went missing. She said she had not gone to school since the day of the incident and never wanted to return.

Parveen Bibi, the family matriarch, told The Express Tribune that they had tried to lodge a case first at Domal police chowki, then Saddar police station, Narowal, but the police refused to register an FIR and instead urged the family to reach a settlement with the accused. They refused, and around 10 days later an FIR under Section 376 (rape) of the Pakistan Penal Code was finally registered at the police station.

A medical examination of the victim was conducted and established that she had been raped.

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‘Life is such a blessing’: The incredible bravery of Pakistani women who suffered horrific acid attacks in the name of ‘family honour’

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Daily Mail

By Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 16:12 GMT, 2 June 2012 | UPDATED: 16:20 GMT, 2 June 2012

After six years of abuse, Allah Rakhi was walking out of her marriage when her husband struck again. Snatching a knife, he sliced off her nose. ‘You’re no longer beautiful!’ he shouted.

He then slashed at her foot – brutal punishment for leaving the house without his permission.

‘A woman is only a woman inside the home, outside she’s a whore!’ he yelled at Rakhi as she lay bleeding on the dusty street just outside her home.

That was 32 years ago.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

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Years of abuse: Pakistani Allah Rakhi, 51, whose husband sliced off her nose and slashed her right foot with a razor in 1980, when she was 19. After marrying at 13, Rakhi suffered six years of abuse at the hands of her husband, right, she holds a photo of them before the attack

asdfSurvivor: Acid attack survivor, Shamma Maqsood, 24, holds a picture of herself before the vicious assault. Shamma was attacked by her husband on March 20, 2012, following an argument about him being jobless

All that time, Rakhi hid her disfigured face under a veil. Then in March, a surgeon took up her case. He cut flesh from her ribs and fashioned it into a new nose, transforming her life.

While the details of every case of violence against Pakistani woman differ, many are based on a concept of ‘family honor.’

Women can be targeted for suspicion of an affair, wishing to divorce or dressing inappropriately. Hundreds women are murdered each year because of mere suspicions.

asdfVictim: Pakistani acid attack survivor, Naila Farhat, 22, was attacked in 2003 by her teacher’s friend, after her parents refused his marriage proposal. She holds a photo of herself before the attack

 

asdfAcid attack survivor: Naziran Bibi, 25, shows a picture of herself before the attack, at the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF), in Islamabad, Pakistan. Naziran, who was treated badly by her second husband and his first wife, was attacked in 2008, by an unknown person while she was sleeping

 

asdfComing together: Rakhi, 51, fourth left, stands with acid attack survivors, outside Benazir Bhutto hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan

The nose is considered the symbol of family honor in Pakistan – explaining why a woman’s nose is often the target of spousal abuse. A popular plea from parents to children is ‘Please take care of our nose,’ which means, ‘don’t do anything that tarnishes the reputation of the family.’

Rooted in tribal ideas that a woman’s chastity is the property of the man, honor killings are practiced in much of the Arab world and South Asia. They have also been carried out by immigrants from those regions to the West.

Pakistani courts have a history of letting off offenders or giving them only light punishment, assuming the cases get to trial at all.

Pakistani Women Writers Denounce Islamic Clerics’ Fatwas Against Women’s Use Of Cell Phones And Access To Secular Education

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H/T Hermes

MEMRI:

Former Pakistani lawmaker and cleric Maulana Abdul Haleem recently issued a fatwa (Islamic degree) against secular education and justifying honor killings of women.[1]The fatwa was issued in a sermon during a weekly Friday prayer in Kohistan district in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Haleem also threatened that women from secular NGOs who visit Kohistan district may be married off forcibly to local men. In a similar incident, a cleric announced a fatwa in a mosque in Noshki town of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, justifying acid attacks on women who use cell phones.

Both fatwas elicited no condemnation from the main Pakistani media. However, two Pakistani women – an author and a blogger –slammed the clerics’ fatwas, arguing that there is an urgent need to stop such fatwas against women. In an article titled “Fatwas Against Women: From The One Who Wears Bangles,” Fouzia Saeed – an author and a social scientist – stated: “I think it is time for our society to forcefully stop such people who not only violate the dignity and safety of women citizens, but also give a bad name to Islam…”

In another article “Our Stunted Society,” blogger and communications consultant Tazeen Javed argued that such fatwas are breeding narrow-mindedness. She wrote: “A country like ours can ill-afford adventurism of any kind, but most dangerous is the practice of resorting to a fatwa to get a point across. Not only does this breed a narrow and rigid view of issues, it also leaves no room for dialogue, debate, and consultation, making us an increasingly ‘stunted’ and intolerant society.”

 


Fouzia Saeed: “A Fatwa Was Announced In A Mosque On May 11, Stating That Any Woman Using A Cell Phone Will Have Acid Thrown In Her Face”

Following are excerpts from Fouzia Saeed’s article:[2]

“Fatwas against women are becoming common again. In Noshki, Baluchistan, a fatwa was announced in a mosque on May 11, stating that any woman using a cell phone will have acid thrown in her face. Another fatwa was issued in Kohistan about two weeks ago, warning ‘NGO women’ that they would be forcefully married to their local men if they dared to enter the area. There was a time when such fatwas were more common, resulting in serious punishments inflicted on women who dared to venture beyond the four walls of their homes.

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Pakistani Clerics: Women With Cell Phones Can Be Attacked with Acid, Secular NGO Workers Can Be Forcibly ‘Married’ to Local Men

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The Blaze:

h/t Snaphanen.Dk

Pakistani Clerics:Women Who Use Cell Phones Can Be Attacked With Acid, Secular NGO Workers Can Be Forcibly MarriedGirls in Peshawar, Pakistan (Photo: AP)

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is reporting on a particularly disturbing string of events throughout Pakistan that neither the Pakistani government nor the international community seem in a hurry to condemn.

Pakistani Clerics:Women Who Use Cell Phones Can Be Attacked With Acid, Secular NGO Workers Can Be Forcibly MarriedMaulana Abdul Haleem (Photo: MEMRI)

Not content with terrorizing women with the threat of honor killings, it seems, a Pakistani cleric in the Baluchistan province has issued a fatwa declaring that any woman using a cell phone can justifiably be attacked with acid, while former Pakistani lawmaker and prominent cleric Maulana Abdul Haleem announced that secular women working with NGO’s can be captured and forcibly “married” to local men if they dare work on women’s education, health, or welfare projects in the district of Kohistan.

Whether the women would be trapped there indefinitely in the conventional meaning of “marriage,“ or if it would be a ”temporary marriage” that sometimes enables affairs, prostitution, or worse, is unclear.

And according to MEMRI, Maulana Abdul Haleem is not just any cleric and former lawmaker.

“A member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) party, [he] is known to have nurtured a generation of Islamic clerics in Pakistan.  In 2002 he was elected a Member of the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, from the platform of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious-political parties cobbled together at the behest of then-Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.”

Pakistani Clerics:Women Who Use Cell Phones Can Be Attacked With Acid, Secular NGO Workers Can Be Forcibly Married(Photo: AP)

The cleric’s other accomplishments, according to a Pakistani daily, include declaring poppy cultivation in Kohistan to be “in accordance with Islam.”  

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Doctor Who Helped Find Bin Laden Given Jail Term, Official Says

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That is all questions about the loyalty or values of Pakistan answered. Who’s side are they on? Now we know for an unambiguous hard core fact.

New York Times:

By ISMAIL KHAN
Published: May 23, 2012 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden‘s location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.

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A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region. Along with the jail term, the court imposed a fine of $3,500. Dr. Afridi, who may appeal the verdict, was then sent to Central Prison in Peshawar.

He had been charged under a British-era regulation for frontier crimes that unlike the national criminal code does not carry the death penalty for treason. Under Pakistani penal law, he almost certainly would have received the death penalty, a Pakistani lawyer said.

Dr. Afridi’s fate has been an added source of tension between Pakistan and United States, at a time when the two countries remain at loggerheads over reopening supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan.

In January, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta confirmed that the United States had been working with Dr. Afridi while trying to confirm the location of Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in the months before the raid. American officials had previously said that the doctor been running a hepatitis B vaccination program as a ruse to obtain DNA evidence from members of Bin Laden’s family, who were thought to be hiding in the city. American officials say Dr. Afridi did not know the identity of his target.

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Pakistan comedian who poked fun at Taliban militants abducted

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I guess in Pakistan they don’t bother with ‘Human Rights Commissions’ (Pardy v. Earle and Ismail) for politically incorrect comedians…

IBN LIVE:

Islamabad: A comedian who poked fun at the Taliban’s practice of apprehending thieves and meting out summary punishment to them was kidnapped from Peshawar in northwest Pakistan while he was entertaining guests at a wedding, according to a media report today.

Nisar Khan had recently written a comedic song about thieves being caught and punished by the militants with lyrics like: “Shave my head, paint my face black; Mount me on a donkey and make fun of me.”

Khan was entertaining guests at a wedding at Matani, a suburb of Peshawar, on Monday when around 20 militants entered the ‘hujra’ or guesthouse where he was performing and abducted him, The Express Tribune reported.

Pakistan comedian who poked fun at Taliban militants abducted

The militants told the gathering that they “needed an entertainer urgently”. The incident occurred near a police check point. “The militants took Nisar away, saying they too needed an entertainer on an urgent basis,” a person who was present at the hujra told the daily.

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Pakistani Man Receives Death Threats, Forced To Flee Home After Cleric Deems Moustache “Un-Islamic”

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Mustardism at it’s very finest.

Telegraph:

Rob Crilly

Rob Crilly is Pakistan correspondent of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. Before that he spent five years writing about Africa for The Times, The Irish Times, The Daily Mail, The Scotsman and The Christian Science Monitor from his base in Nairobi.

In Pakistan: your moustache or your life

By World Last updated: April 9th, 2012

98 Comments Comment on this article

Amir Muhammad Afridi has braved Islamist death threats and given up his home in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, all for the sake of his giant moustacheAmir Muhammad Afridi has braved Islamist death threats and given up his home in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, all for the sake of his giant moustache

There is no finer mark of a Pakistani man than a fully oiled, waxed and twirled moustache. For 18 years, Amir Muhammad Afridi’s vast handlebar moustache, curling as high as his forehead, made him a celebrity throughout the rugged, tribal lands that border Afghanistan.

But that was until his luxuriant facial hair came to the attention of Lashkar-i-Islam, extremists who are fighting to impose hardline Sharia in the Khyber agency where Mr Afridi lived.

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US OFFERS BOUNTY FOR RAFIZ SAEED FOR ROLE IN 2008 ATTACKS ON MUMBAI

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It’s for this:

US offers bounty for Pakistan militant Hafiz Saeed

The United States has offered a $10 million (£6.2 million) bounty for the founder of the Pakistani militant group blamed for the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people, a move that could complicate US-Pakistan relations at a tense time.

Hafiz Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 1980s, allegedly with Pakistani support to pressure India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Pakistan banned the group in 2002 under pressure from the US, but it operates with relative freedom – even doing charity work using government money.

The US designated Lashkar-e-Taiba a foreign terrorist organisation in December 2001.

But Saeed operates openly in Pakistan, giving public speeches and appearing on TV talk shows. The US also offered up to two million dollars (£1.2 million) for Lashkar-e-Taiba’s deputy leader, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, who is also Saeed’s brother-in-law.

The reward for Saeed is one of the highest offered by the US and is equal to the amount for Taliban chief Mullah Omar. Only Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as al Qaida chief, fetches a higher bounty – $25 million (£15.6 million).

The bounties were posted on the US state department rewards for justice website late on Monday, the US embassy in Islamabad said.

The state department website describes Saeed as a former professor of Arabic and engineering who heads an organisation “dedicated to installing Islamist rule over parts of India and Pakistan”. It also noted that six of the people killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks were American citizens.

Indian external affairs minister SM Krishna welcomed the US announcement, saying it would signal to Lashkar-e-Taiba and its patrons that the international community remains united in fighting terrorism.

“The decision reflects the commitment of India and the United States to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai terrorist attack to justice and continuing efforts to combat terrorism,” he said.

A close aide to Saeed said the group was surprised by the decision and was formulating its response.

More here.

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from Mail Online

Former Pakistani dancing girl commits suicide 12 years after horrific acid attack which left her looking ‘not human’

BEFORE Islam

AFTER Islam

A Pakistani former dancing girl left fighting for life by a ‘horrific’ acid attack has committed suicide a decade after being heavily facially disfigured.

Fakhra Younus, 33, leapt to her death from a sixth floor building in Rome 12 years after the acid attack which she said left her looking ‘not human’.

Cleared: Younus's ex-husband Bilal Khar, the son of a wealthy Pakistani governor, was cleared in 2003 of charges relating to the attack

At the time of her attack in May 2000, her ex-husband Bilal Khar was the man accused of entering her mother’s house and pouring acid over Younus’s face as she slept.

The attack, which took place in front of Younus’s then five-year-old son, left her unable to breathe and fighting for life.

Her nose was almost completely melted and she has since undergone 39 separate surgical procedures to repair her disfigured face over the past decade.

The horrific attack also burned off her hair, fused her lips, blinded her in one eye, destroyed her left ear and melted her breasts.

After being rushed to hospital she said, ‘My face is a prison to me’, while her distraught young son said at the time, ‘This is not my mother’. …click through to read the rest