Solidarity is needed

Dear congeners,

This problem is a challenge for many of us who are inclined to
ORGANIZE solidarity actions for helping all those of our congeners
who are confronted to simplistic and inhumane interpretations of how
humans should behave.

I dare to suggest that we might send an e-mail message to every
Pakistani Embassy

  Monsieur l'Ambassadeur,

  Je vous prie de demander au President de Pakistan de
  sauver la vie de Zafran Bibi

Merci,

Signature

______________________

Pakistani mother who was raped faces death by stoning for adultery

Rory McCarthy in Kohat

Zafran Bibi walked into the police station in the village of Kerri
Sheikhan, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, and told how
she had been raped by a neighbour.

Medical tests were ordered, witnesses questioned and a trial was
held. Defence lawyers were called in. But Pakistan's archaic legal
system, a mix of secular and Islamic codes, offers little protection
for women.

Bibi, 28, was convicted of adultery under Islamic laws that many
regard as deeply prejudicial. Last month, a year after she reported
the rape, a judge sentenced her to death by stoning. For several
weeks the young mother has lived in solitary confinement in a death
cell in Kohat jail nursing her seven-month-old daughter. An appeal
will be heard before an Islamic court in Islamabad this month.
Her case has exposed the empty promises of Pakistan's military
regime, which has committed itself to improving women's rights and
countering religious extremism. General Pervez Musharraf, the
military ruler, knew nothing of the case until he was questioned by
foreign journalists last week. "Is that the law?" he asked. "Now? I
don't even know." He was asked if he would reform the adultery laws,
introduced in 1979 by the last military dictator, Zia-ul Haq.
"Frankly, I haven't given it such deep thought," he said.

The urbane general, sitting in his lavish office in Islamabad,
insisted that Bibi would not be executed. But hundreds more women who
have reported rapes are held in jail under the same adultery law.
It appears Bibi was used by relatives caught up in a family feud, and
her husband claims she suffered from poor legal advice. Her account
of what happened has never been heard. In remote villages such as
Kerri Sheikhan, the word of a young, uneducated mother counts for
little.

In March last year Bibi went to the village police station with her
father-in-law, Zabita Khan, and said she had been raped while cutting
grass outside the village. She named Akmal Khan, a villager involved
in a long-running dispute with her family, as her attacker. At the
time, her husband was in jail for murder.

She was examined by a doctor and found to be seven to eight weeks
pregnant, which appears to have convinced the judge she was guilty of
adultery. She later insisted that the baby was conceived during a
conjugal visit to her husband in jail.

Last October the trial opened and Bibi appeared in court. She
recorded a statement repeating the claim of rape and again naming
Akmal Khan. But at the next hearing she said her father-in-law had
pressured her into making the accusation. In a new statement she
named her brother-in-law Jamal, 15, as the rapist.

The judge acquitted Akmal Khan. But no investigation was ordered into
the new accusation and Jamal was never arrested. The judge ruled that
the medical evidence showed no signs of force, and that her pregnancy
was evidence of adultery. "Resultantly, I hereby convict and sentence
the accused Zafran Bibi to stoning to death and that she be stoned to
death at a public place," Judge Anwar Ali Khan wrote in his final
judgment.

Her lawyers were stunned. In the court at Kohat last week they were
still arguing over the case. "She has never confessed her guilt.
There is no case against her," said Sardar Ali, one of her original
defence lawyers.

Under the Offence of Zina Ordinance, which covers both rape and
adultery under the Islamic code, a conviction requires either a
confession from the accused or evidence from four witnesses to the
crime who are Muslim men who "abstain from major sins". When rape is
not proven, women are then often charged with adultery. As a result
most rapes are never reported, even though the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan estimates that a woman in the country is raped
every two hours.

In Bibi's case the judge ruled that the fact she changed her
statement to name a new attacker was a confession of adultery. "She
made herself guilty in that statement when she clearly admits she had
committed zina [adultery] with her brother-in-law," said Kurshid
Anwar, a prosecutor in the case. "There was no mark of violence on
her body. It was the right decision as long as the law exists." Later
Anwar admitted that he favoured "modernisation" of the law.

Outside Kohat jail last week Bibi's husband, Naimat Khan, and his two
sons, Israr, nine, and Rehman, six, tried to arrange a visit to his
wife. Only the children were allowed in."The defence lawyers told us
this would be an easy case. Then they told my wife if she didn't
change her statement she would be tied to a pole and soldiers would
throw stones at her," said Naimat Khan, 40, a poor farmer who makes
less than $600 a year from his fields. In an affidavit written for
the appeal hearing, Bibi again pleaded her innocence. "I have not
committed zina with anybody," she said. "I have not confessed any
guilt."
While Bibi's conviction may be overturned on appeal this month, it is
clear the military regime is unwilling to reform Islamic laws for
fear of angering the religious right.

"She is not the first case and she is not going to be the last," said
Afrasiab Khattak, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan. "If General Musharraf really wants to do away with
extremism, then there is no alternative to doing away with the
structures created by Zia, which include the so-called Islamic laws.

"Even if Zafran Bibi returns to her village now, the stigma is so
severe that it will be a very harsh life for her and her children."

The Guardian Weekly 16-5-2002, page 3

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