Gang-rape victim in Pakistan is dealt legal blow

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Things had been improving for Mukhtaran Bibi.

After gaining the attention of the world in June 2002 as the victim of a gang rape ordered by a tribal council in Pakistan's Punjab Province, she had used her government-awarded compensation to set up village schools. Six men convicted for their part in the rape were on death row. The slight 32-year-old was learning to read.

Then last week, a court overturned the convictions of five of the six men. It commuted the sixth man's death sentence to life in prison.

Bibi vowed this week to fight the court's decision.

''The correct judgment was the first one. I want to see those men put to death," she said.

Horror over the ruling in Bibi's case has prompted renewed calls from lawmakers and human rights activists for reform of the web of arcane laws and tribal codes that traps Pakistan's women in a cycle of abuse and impunity.

Local women's activists said on Monday that as many as 4,000 men, women, and children had gathered in Multan, a city in southern Punjab, to show support for Bibi.

Her case also underscores the limits of President Pervez Musharraf's power to promote his agenda of ''enlightened moderation" -- being a moderate, modern Muslim -- in the face of fierce resistance from religious conservatives and feudal tribal leaders.

According to rights activists and political analysts, the same religious and tribal sensitivities that Musharraf has struggled to appease as he cooperates with the US war on terrorism hold the government back from bolder action on reforms that would favor women.

''The state has entirely failed to provide justice to women. These people who advocate enlightened moderation -- this is a huge embarrassment to them," said Naeem Mirza, a director of the Aurat Foundation, a women's rights group based in Islamabad.

First, Bibi was a victim of medieval tribal custom. A panchayat, or council, from a rival tribe ordered that she be raped by four men to settle a dispute in which her brother was accused of engaging in sexual relations with a local girl.

Such rulings are illegal. But the government's wariness of taking on powerful tribal leaders and its inability to control Pakistan's vast hinterlands means they are common.

Hundreds of Pakistani women each year are killed, raped, or given away as brides to compensate for wrongs to another family and restore their own family's honor -- acts often known as honor crimes.

Now, legal and human rights specialists said, Bibi has become a victim of Pakistan's rape and adultery law and its corrupt judicial system.

When it overturned the six sentences last week, the Multan bench of the Lahore High Court said some witness statements were inconsistent and the evidence was insufficient. Its full rationale will not be clear until it publishes its judgment in the coming weeks.

Majida Razvi, a retired judge and chairwoman of the National Commission on the Status of Women, said the court may have received insufficient evidence to satisfy the notorious Hudood Ordinances, a set of Pakistani laws that requires four male witnesses to prove that a rape occurred.

''Under Hudood law, rape is hard to prove. You're not going to rape somebody with four eyewitnesses watching," she said.

Given that hundreds of Bibi's fellow villagers witnessed her humiliation from outside the hut where it occurred and saw her walk, half-naked, back to her house, the decision to overturn the convictions probably stemmed from corruption or impartiality on the part of the police or judges, rights activists and legal specialists said.

The government has sworn to fight the decision. Amid international outcry after Bibi's rape, Musharraf helped secure a swift trial in her case in 2002.

''The government will stand by her and go for an appeal in the Supreme Court," Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed said yesterday.

But women's rights activists are skeptical of the government's ability to ensure a fair judgment or Bibi's safety once her alleged attackers are released from jail. They can be held for up to 90 days after acquittal.

Mirza points to high-profile cases where government expressions of support and offers of protection failed to instill confidence in the victims of honor crimes, who fled the country.

A police detachment has been posted in Bibi's village of Meerwala, in southern Punjab, and she is accompanied by an escort when she travels. She is demanding further protection, but Ahmed said she already has as much as any minister on a terrorist hit-list.

Meanwhile, activists and parliamentarians hope the international attention received by Bibi's case will prod the government to toughen penalties for those who commit honor crimes and push for reform or repeal of the Hudood Ordinances.

Parliament in December passed a government-sponsored bill that raised the maximum penalty for honor killings to life in prison. The ruling Pakistani Muslim League party hailed the bill as a major step toward protecting women, but opposition members and some of its own female lawmakers dismissed it as full of legal loopholes.

Kashmala Tariq, a member of parliament for the ruling party, said the problem does not lie with Musharraf himself but with reactionaries within the ruling party, as well as the conservative Islamist parties.

''Musharraf is a very enlightened man. He's very supportive," she said. ''But our party is full of fundamentalists. A lot of them are feudals and they don't want women to get empowered."

While the government has made headway -- if limited -- to strengthen penalties for honor crimes, it has made no progress toward overhauling the Hudood laws. Musharraf has said they should be ''studied," but reformists argue they are so flawed they must be scrapped.

''The [Hudood] law is defective," Razvi said. ''A law that cannot provide justice to people should be repealed."

Those reformists face an uphill battle. Staunch opposition from Islamist parties has made the issue untouchable, lawmakers and activists say. Qazi Hussein Ahmed, head of the conservative Jamaat-e-Islami party, said the Hudood law could not be changed because it was based on Islam. It was the corrupt judicial machinery that was at fault, not the Hudood law, he said.

While the political debate swirls around Bibi, she has remained in her village. She vows to stay, despite threats from the families of the jailed men. Her schools for boys and girls -- overflowing with about 370 students -- have drawn international support.

Bibi said that ignorance was at the root of the crime committed against her, and it is her duty to fight it.

''What I have suffered, so many other women have suffered," she said. ''This is not just my plight, it is the plight of all Pakistani women."