Pakistan Supreme Court frees 5 accused of gang rape

[High_Gravity]

Pakistan Supreme Court frees 5 accused of gang rape

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan—

In a ruling seen as a setback for women's rights in Pakistan, the country's Supreme Court on Thursday freed five men accused of gang-raping a woman on the orders of a village council.

In 2002, elders in the southern Punjab village of Meerwala decreed that Mukhtar Mai, 30 at the time, should be raped in retaliation for her 13-year-old brother's alleged relationship with a woman from a wealthier family.

Because of the severe social stigma associated with rape in Pakistan, many victims commit suicide or do not file complaints. Mai, however, went public with her case and won worldwide acclaim that helped illuminate the plight of women in the conservative Muslim nation, where conviction rates in cases of rape and domestic violence are disturbingly low.

Six of the 14 suspects charged in Mai's rape were convicted in 2002 and sentenced to death. The eight others were acquitted. In 2005, the Lahore High Court, a provincial appellate panel, acquitted five of the convicted men and commuted the death sentence of the sixth man to life imprisonment. The five men remained in jail while Mai's appeal to the Supreme Court was pending.

The federal high court backed the appellate panel's finding of a lack of evidence to support the case.

Human rights groups criticized the Supreme Court's ruling as a step backward for women's rights in the South Asian nation. Human Rights Watch released a statement calling the ruling "a setback for Mukhtar Mai, the broader struggle to end violence against women, and the cause of an independent rights-respecting judiciary in Pakistan."

Mai said it was "a sad day for Pakistani women."

"I wasn't expecting this," she said in a phone interview from her home in Meerwala. "I've been struggling for nine years for women's rights and was expecting the Supreme Court to give me justice. And it hasn't."

Mai also said she feared the men she accused would seek vengeance against her and her family.

"Absolutely, I feel threatened, and my family feels threatened," she said. "The government of Pakistan and the Supreme Court will be responsible for any kind of violence that occurs against me or my family."

Since the attack, Mai has become a prominent women's rights activist in Pakistan and drawn praise from the United Nations and international rights groups. In 2006, she appeared at the U.N. headquarters in New York to speak on the plight of women in Pakistan. Her autobiography became a bestseller in Europe. She also opened girls and boys schools and started a shelter for battered women in her village.

Pakistan gang rape: Pakistan court frees 5 in gang rape - latimes.com

 

[adeel_sami]

Just can't say anything that this ..

 

[High_Gravity]

Just can't say anything that this ..

I know adeel, I really don't understand what is going on in Pakistan right now.

 

[FuelRod]

Just can't say anything that this ..

I know adeel, I really don't understand what is going on in Pakistan right now.

I just think Pakistan is showing its true colors.

 

[martybegan]

This is why guilt by association as a legal concept has been abandoned by the west. Evidently our middle eastern bretheren cannot seem to leave it behind.

The council should be tried, convicted and hung in a public square.