Pakistani Islamists liked it when rape was dealt with under local Sharia law, which required a rape victim to produce four male witnesses to the crime (isn’t the Stone Age grand?). Well, that’s changed, and rape has been moved out of ‘religious law’ and placed within the penal code. In other words, Pakistan has only now made rape a criminal offence.
What has this tiny move away from barbarity provoked amongst Islamists? Marching and seething, of course.
Pakistani Islamists protest against pro-women law
Thousands of Islamist protesters demonstrated in southern Pakistan on Sunday against a new law that reduces the burden of proof on rape victims by allowing them to seek justice without the need for four male witnesses.
The Women Protection Bill, signed into law last month, was seen as a key test for President Pervez Musharraf’s philosophy of “enlightened moderation” for his predominantly Muslim country.
Some 10,000 supporters of the Islamist parties, most of them bearded, chanted slogans of “Down with Musharraf” and “Down with the Women Protection Law” at the rally and demanded the government scrap the law. The law takes the crime of rape out of the sphere of the religious laws, known as the Hudood Ordinances, and puts it under the penal code.
