Depressing news, if given Musharraf’s weakness unsurprising …
PLANS to reform controversial Islamic laws dealing with rape and adultery, which have attracted condemnation in the West, have been watered down by Pakistan’s Government in a compromise with fundamentalist mullahs.
Hundreds of women have been jailed under the laws which made a rape victim liable to prosecution for adultery if she failed to produce four male witnesses. Known as the Hudood Ordinance, the laws were introduced in 1979 by the then military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq as part of his programme to Islamise the country. They made it almost impossible to prosecute rapists.
Pakistani and international rights groups had long demanded repeal of the laws which criminalised all extra-marital sex. A woman who fails to prove that she was raped could then be charged with adultery under the same legislation.
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