January 31, 2014 – Pakistan Gender News

January 31, 2014January 31, 2014

Women in the forefront

A festival like Punjab Youth Festival promotes social solidarity and brings peace and enjoyment. To give importance to women in Punjab Youth Festival should be appreciated as more than half of our population consists of women. Housewives are being encouraged in this festival, through different competitions. like dress designing, cooking, kitchen gardening and makeup competition. In this way our traditional housewives are getting a chance to share their expertise in cooking and other activities. No doubt women are capable of great things but to be the best they can is to take part in sports. Our challenge is to motivate women to be more active in sports and other activities.

KASHAF IQBAL,
Rawalpindi,

The Nation

January 31, 2014

Panchayat returns, orders ‘gang-rape’

MUZAFFARGARH: The beasts nurtured in the name of prompt justice were seen to be on the loose again after the surfacing on Thursday of an incident in which a panchayat was accused of ordering gang-rape of a 40-year-old woman in revenge for her brother’s alleged affair.

Witnesses said the woman, a divorcee, was stripped on the orders of a panchayat in Radiwala, a hamlet of some 30 houses located near Ihsanpur town about 80km from Muzaffargarh.

Amid public outrage following the reporting of the incident, six men were arrested out of a total of nine who had been accused.

The entire episode took place a week ago, on Jan 24. A villager, Majeed, sought the formulation of a panchayat after he accused a relative of his, Ajmal, of having an affair with his wife. The accusers cried revenge and forced Ajmal to bring his sister (F Bibi) to the site where the panchayat was held the same day.

Police and witnesses said the panchayat hearing lasted for 10 minutes. The panchayat leader, identified as Nawaz, sentenced F Bibi to be raped by the men from the aggrieved party. F Bibi was taken to a room where a man belonging to the complainant’s side stripped and hit her.

The case was as good as settled, says Ajmal, whose alleged affair had brought it all upon his sister, and he had around him men ready to second him.

“The dispute ended peacefully,” a villager, who gave his name as Akram, told Dawn in Radiwala on Thursday.

“Both the parties are from the same family and nobody felt the need to go to the police.”

If this wasn’t a strong enough display of family bonding in the face of a probe, F Bibi herself was there to deny ‘rape’ and show her concern for her relatives who were now on the run just because the incident had come to light.

Silence ruled Radiwala on Thursday afternoon. Most of the houses, small ones and two-room units, were locked. Only a few villagers, all men, and dozens of media reporters were around.

One of the men accused of the assault admitted F Bibi’s clothes were torn and she was slapped. But this to his mind did not construe rape. “There was no rape,” he maintained.

The reluctance of the ‘affected’ party and the villagers in Radiwala was in sharp contrast to the protests all over Pakistan against the public humiliation of a woman. Voices were raised against the state’s and the society’s failure to come up with an effective system against the occurrence of the inhuman panchayat practices in the name of instant justice.

The incident brought back memories of the Mukhtar Mai gang-rape order passed and carried out in the same Muzaffargarh district in the year 2002.

Mukhtar was there to condemn the Radiwala incident on Thursday, telling a news channel this could have been avoided had justice been done in her case.

The incident occurred in the jurisdiction of Daira Din Panah police, who arrested six of the nine accused by Thursday evening. Cases were registered under sections 354-1, 365B, 376, 511 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took notice soon after the incident was reported on the electronic media and District Coordination Officer Farasat Iqbal and District Police Officer Usman Akram Gondal were on the spot to investigate.

The DCO confirmed to Dawn a local panchayat had been held and F Bibi had been ordered thrashed and stripped.

Station House Officer Daira Din Panah Mohammad Ramzan Shahid said the affected party did not appear interested in pursuing the case, even though he gave no reason for their reluctance.

The SHO said the police had arrested six men while another three were at large.

Dr Nusrat Rehman, who conducted the medical examination on F Bibi, told Dawn the woman “was not raped”, apparently following a definition which requires something ‘more grievous’ than stripping and physical assault for it to be called ‘rape’.

DAWN

January 31, 2014January 31, 2014

Hyderabad jirga settles 2012 couple murder dispute

By: MOHAMMAD HUSSAIN KHAN

HYDERABAD: A tribal court (jirga) held at the Circuit House here on Thursday evening settled a dispute over the honour killing committed in Aug 2012 when a young man and his pregnant wife were murdered by the woman’s family members and relatives.

Presided over by Mohammad Khan Junejo, a former Sanghar MNA and son of late PPP leader Shahnawaz Junejo, the jirga heard representatives of the Detho community on the one side and the Sheikh community on the other.

Ishtiaq Sheikh and Samia Detho (a resident of Mori Mangar village of Tando Hyder area) had married on their free will on Nov 18, 2011 and settled in Karachi after leaving the village on Oct 10, 2011.

The woman’s father, Ahmed Detho, traced them and stayed with them for some days. He persuaded the couple to accompany him to the village as his family had accepted their marriage.

The couple was brought to Hyderabad on August 23, 2012 and a few days later they were found murdered.

An FIR was lodged under sections 302, 364, 201, 109, 34, 120-B PPC and 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Mr Junejo conducted proceedings on the lawns of the Circuit House and then went inside to consult ‘patels’ (representatives) of the two sides before Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz vice chairman Dr Niaz Kalani, who represented the deceased man’s family, announced the decree.

During consultations, Dethos’ representatives led by Haji Mohammad Khan Detho gave a confessional statement on behalf of the killers and said it was honour killing committed under the tradition of Karo-kari.

“The unborn baby was an illegitimate one resulting from adultery as Nikah was performed after the inception,” they argued. Ishtiaq Sheikh committed the crime first, something unacceptable in the Sindhi society’s cultural norms. He didn’t get consent of the parents of the girl, who eloped with him.

The Sheikh family also didn’t approach them to settle the issue amicably, the Dethos argued.

Ghulam Shabbir Detho, pleading his community’s case, said the Sheikh community got police raid conducted on Dethos’ houses.

A senior civil judge, Saleem Qambrani, who lived in the same village, involved himself in the matter and appeared before Mr Junejo.

Brother of deceased Ishtiaq, Ismail Sheikh claimed that Mr Qambrani influenced police investigation besides getting the phone call of the couple traced for Dethos.

“Mr Qambrani asked me to marry two girls of his family off to Dethos”, he claimed and said when the couple left the village, Dethos stormed his (Ismail’s) house and took away his brother’s wife and mother and kept them in wrongful confinement.

He said that Saleem Qambrani obstructed course of the investigation misusing his official position.

Mr Qambrani defended himself, saying that he faced two charges i.e. tracing phone calls of the couple and obstructing police in the discharge of their official duty during the investigation.

He admitted having asked police to show arrest warrant before raiding houses. He said that his son remained in jail for six to seven months for no crime of his.

He denied having told Ismail Sheikh to marry off two girls in Detho community.

Mian Abdullah Sheikh, representing the Sheikh community, insisted that he had conveyed to the judge the demand of two girls to be married to Dethos for reconciliation in the matter.

“Then I told you that I will talk to Sheikhs,” Abdullah said. Mr Junejo ruled that Saleem Qambrani had to face the charges only for his attitude otherwise he had not committed a crime. The judge would not take any action against complainant by filing a suit for damages, he said.

It is worth-mentioning here that the senior civil judge, according to the police, is booked on criminal conspiracy charges and is currently on pre-arrest bail. The case is pending a trial before the Anti-Terrorism Court, Hyderabad.

Announcing the jirga decree on behalf of Mr Junejo, Dr Niaz Kalani said a fine of Rs300,000 each is fixed for two offences on the part of deceased Ishtiaq Sheikh; one for marrying the girl without her parent’s consent, and second for violating social norms.

“This amount of Rs600,000 is settled against Dethos’ act of taking away Ismail’s mother and sister-in-law and keeping them in illegal confinement. A fine of Rs2.5 million each is imposed on the Detho community for murders of Ishtiaq Sheikh and the unborn baby. No penalty is, however, fixed for the woman’s murder as her parents are her heirs, who didn’t accept the marriage solemnised without their consent. The fine money will be paid to Mr Junejo within three months. The two sides will withdraw the cases,” the decree said.

DAWN

January 31, 2014January 31, 2014

Malala to receive Anne Frank courage award

LONDON: Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai is to receive an award for moral courage, it has been announced. The 16-year-old, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012, will be honoured with the Anne Frank Award at a ceremony in London on Thursday.

Malala, who campaigns for girls’ access to education, is studying for her A-levels and cannot attend the event. Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, a UN adviser on education, will accept the award on her behalf. It will be presented by the actress Naomie Harris, who recently starred as Winnie Mandela in the film “Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom”. Co-founder and executive director of the Anne Frank Trust UK, Gillian Walnes said: “Malala is one of the most remarkable people we have encountered, both as a teenager and an educator, and is as inspirational a figure as Anne Frank.”

Malala was seriously injured when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in north-western Pakistan. She was targeted because of her campaign for girls’ education. The schoolgirl was treated in a Pakistani hospital before being transferred to the UK for surgery and rehabilitation at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. She has since written a memoir about her experiences and was last year considered a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize. An event in the Pakistani city of Peshawar to launch the book was on Tuesday cancelled because of security concerns.

The Nation

January 31, 2014January 31, 2014

6 convicted for carrying out jirga orders

By: Muhammad Sadaqat

KOHISTAN: A district court on Thursday handed the death penalty to one man and life imprisonment to five others implicated in the murder of three siblings of the two boys captured on film in the infamous Kohistan video.

The head of the jirga that ordered the murder of the four girls and two boys appearing in the video, however, was acquitted along with several others despite being accused of abetting the triple murder.

The court’s decision came just a day after human rights activist Farzana Bari held a press conference to urge the apex court to reopen the probe into the alleged murder of five girls in connection with the video, giving fresh ground to suspicions that the fact-finding commission had been duped into believing the girls are alive.

An eight-member jirga ordered the murder of all persons filmed in the video in May 2012, after which the boys featured in the video, Bin Yasir and Gul Nazar, took flight in fear of being killed. Their brothers, 37-year-old Shah Faisal, 35-year-old Sher Wali and 32-year-old Rafiuddin were killed January 3, 2013 on the order of the same jirga as per tribal customs that dictate that relatives of those in the video must also be killed. The remaining relatives of those featured in the leaked video are currently hiding in different parts of the country to take shelter from the jirga’s orders.

According to an FIR registered at the Palas police station, at least 12 armed persons from the Azadkhel tribe (from which the girls hailed) barged into a home in Bando Baidar village and gunned down the three brothers.

Police had arrested jirga chief Maulvi Javed, along with Molvi Noorul Haq, Mosam Khan, Sabeer Khan, Jehngir Khan, Mukhtasar Khan, Awal Khan, Jin Tazeer, Taus Khan, Molvi Yadool Khan, Shamsuddin and Munshi Khan.

During the trial of the 12 accused, district judge Sardar Muhammad Irshad Khan handed capital punishment to Mukhtasar Khan – the paternal uncle of one of the women in the video – with a fine of Rs200,000. Five other family members of the women, Awal Khan, Jin Tazeer,Taus Khan, Maulvi Yadool Khan and Shamsuddin have been given 25-year life sentences with fines for the murder of the three brothers of the Salekhel tribe.

The dispute between the Azadkhel and Salekhel tribes of Palas tehsil in Kohistan began in May 2012 when Bin Yasir and Gul Nazar from the Salekhel tribe namely met four Azadkhel women at a wedding ceremony in Bando Baidar village. During the meeting, one of the two brothers danced and the four women later identified as Bazigha, Begum, Sereen Jan and Amina sang cultural songs in their local language and encouraged the two boys by clapping. One of the two brothers stealthily captured the scene on his cell phone, which were later leaked online.

The Azadkhels called a jirga when they learnt of the clip, as they found it to be against their customs.

An eight-member jirga headed by Maulvi Javed and other tribal elders from the Azadkhels, condemned Bin Yasir and Gul Nazir and their entire family to death, along with the four women seen in the film. Another young girl, 12-year-old Shaheen who allegedly facilitated the meeting, was also sentenced to death.

The police booked the jirga members under section 107 of the Pakistan Penal Code, but were later released on bail.

Afzal Kohistani, the elder brother of the two runaway brothers and three deceased, expressed his satisfaction over the punishment handed to the six accused involved in the murder of his three brothers. He added that although he expected death for all the convicts, he had great respect for the court and has no comment to pass against the judgment.

He vowed to challenge the court’s decision to acquit six of the alleged abettors who were also the jirga members that condemned the women, boys and their entire family to death.

Kohistani said he was again going to file an application in the apex court for the reopening of the case. Unless the assassins of the five innocent women and his three brothers are not brought to justice, he said, cruel tribal traditions would continue to claim innocent lives.

Express Tribune