Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) A group of Pakistani women lobbyists would like to see rigid Islamic "Hudood" laws abolished. Such legislation allows for the stoning of women who have been victims of sexual violence.
"Hudood" laws come from the same radical legal tradition that advocates the cutting off of convicted thieves' hands.
In this case, Islamic law justifies the stoning of women "adulterers", if aggression is not proved on the part of the man.
Since the passing of such legislation in 1979 under General Zia-ul Haq's regime, whose government sought to gain support from the Pakistani Islamic population, 80% of women in jail sit behind bars on charges of adultery.
Aiming for better treatment, now the group of women wants such laws to be struck down from national legislation.
Pakistani member of Parliament, Sherry Rehman, told the AFP news agency, the laws are "so full of holes, poorly written and applied that a modification (to them) would make no sense." In her opinion, it is a case of heavily biased law-making against women. "The object of every law has to be that of promoting justice. But this type of legislation is the total negation of justice."
Injustice has been a constant since the laws were first adopted," said former judge and president of the National Commission for Women, Majida Razvi. The Commission, with 12 votes of its 15 members, backed the position held by Sherry Rehman, the newly elected PPP (Pakistan People's Party) member of Parliament from Benazir Bhutto, a stronghold for Islamic traditionalist parties.
However, other MPs of the same PPP party are more in favor of amending the legislation rather than abolishing the laws altogether.
They are "divinely inspired laws" said Samia Raheel Qazi, an MP representing Jamaat-i-Islami, the oldest and strongest Islamic party. Qazi said such legislation is not amendable since "the Koran does not give man the authority to change them."
"No one can change the Koran," objected Anis Ahmad, a professor of Islamic law and comparative religion at the International Islamic University of Islamabad. "But every man-made law can be improved by man," he said. Ahmad says that in order to prove adultery or rape, one needs the testimony of four Muslim men "of good reputation" while the Koran does not make gender a requirement to be a witness to adultery and does not require any witnesses to prove sexual violence.
Islamic party exponents say the Hudood laws "will never be abolished". Yet at the same time they admit that there have been abuses of the legislation and that "improvements" are possible.
