ISLAMABAD, 11. Sept.: Pakistans government agreed to a compromise deal with hardline Islamic lawmakers Monday over proposed changes to a law that has long made punishing rapists almost impossible in the country.
The widely criticized Hudood Ordinance law, based on Islamic tenets, requires a woman who claims she has been raped to produce four witnesses. Religious political parties had fiercely criticized an amendment bill that would have dropped the requirement as un-Islamic.
Senator S.M.. Zafar, a prominent ruling-party lawmaker, said Monday the government had agreed to compromise by letting rape victims choose between prosecuting suspects under the four-witness rule or under Pakistans civil penal code.
– It is a compromise which does not make difference in the substance (of the law), but provides two different procedures for prosecuting a rape case, he said.
Pakistan’s law minister, Wasi Zafar, who is not related to the senator, said: – If a woman has four witnesses she can file a case under the Hudood law, or if she does not have witnesses she file a case under the penal code.
But opposition lawmaker Hafiz Hussain Ahmed called it victory for Pakistans coalition of six hard-line religious parties. – Now they have acknowledged that the amendment was in conflict with the Quran, Ahmed said.
Human rights groups have demanded that the Hudood Ordinance be entirely repealed. They say the four-witness requirement makes punishment almost impossible because such attacks are rarely public.
A woman who claims she was raped but fails to prove her case can be convicted of adultery (utroskab), punishable by death.
The governments ruling Muslim League party has a parliamentary majority and could easily pass the bill, but more than 60 hardline lawmakers threatened to vacate their legislative seats in protest.
That could have forced a by-election and a major political crisis for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Kilde: The Push Journal
