Saturday, April 04, 2009
By Aisha Masood
Karachi
The incident of lashing a 17-year old girl in Swat has been widely condemned by women’s organisations. The video shown on television channels on Friday came as a shock to everyone who saw the girl flogged by men in front of the crowd for venturing outside her house with someone other than her husband.
Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) Anis Haroon said that it was a heinous act and could not be condoned on any account. “What these people are doing in the name of honour shows the level of extremism. It is not only a women’s issue. Pakistani men also feel ashamed of the incident,” she said.
She said that if the provincial government shows helplessness in doing something about this issue, the federal government must apprehend and punish the culprits since the federal government is responsible for the rights of citizens of Pakistan. “If possible I would like to go to Swat and meet the girl and her family myself”, she added.
“This is a direct consequence of the peace deal signed between the militants and the government to impose Shariah, and this is the way they are imposing Shariah,” said Zohra Yousuf of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)
Yusuf said that the government is capitulating to extremism, and such incidents shocked Pakistan and the world. Earlier these incidents took place in Afghanistan, and now this has happened in Pakistan, she remarked. The government has to step in and exert control, she added.
Chairperson of Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace (PWFP) Nargis Rehman said that this act was below the level of humanity. What has been done is entirely remote from Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam and the teachings of Quran and Sunnah.
She said that the sovereignty of the state has been badly hit with this incident. “This is not a decent Islamic state and shows the weakness of the present government, she added. “The state has surrendered to these blackmailers,” she remarked while emphasising that this is not the Nizaam-e-Adal. The 1973 Constitution does not include any Shariah but tells us to follow the teachings of Holy Quran and Sunnah, she added.
This is an anti-Islamic act since Islam does not give them the right to touch a woman. On the one hand, these people are shutting down girls’ schools and they are putting unnecessary restrictions on women, while touching a woman’s body and flogging her in front of crowd, she said.
Islam does not give them this right, she said. “We have never heard of such a heinous act happening in the times of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The government time and again talks about the increase in the number of women in the parliament but what difference has it made to the women of the country?” she queried. She said that the state should take immediate action on this.
She added that the extremists who were indulging in such acts did not represent the people of Swat. The people of Swat had been living a life of dignity. It is not only a women’s matter; it is violation of a human beings and violation of a citizen of this state. She said that the people all over the country should come forward against this incident. If we succumb to this process, Pakistan would be nowhere, she remarked.
MPA Marvi Rashdi said that this incident was an after-effect of the peace deal, and of making a state within a state. By handing over control of Swat to the extremists, the present government had displayed utter inefficiency. “If the Taliban asked them to give over control of Sindh would they do that as well?” she asked.
She said that the government would have to bring the clauses of the deal within full knowledge of the public. She said that the woman was persecuted because she was vulnerable; “Why was the man who accompanied her not punished as well?” she queried.
While condemning the episode, the provincial Minster for Women’s Development, Tauqeer Fatima, said that it was a shameful incident. The government, she said, was probing the authenticity of the incident and would take action accordingly.
Source:http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=170775
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