Pakistani girl gang-raped for 'acquiring education'

[ECH1969]

The News International Saturday reported the case of one Mumtaz Mai and her daughter, Ghazala Shaheen Bathi, who were abducted, held in captivity and gang-raped for 12 days because daughter Ghazala dared to become educated.

While Mukhtaran Mai was a victim of a family feud and an act in retaliation to the rape of a girl her brother Shakur was alleged to have committed, the mother-daughter duo earned the wrath of the Mirali tribesmen when it became known that Ghazala had passed her Master's in Education from Bahauddin Zahariya University on Aug 25.

While three men managed to escape, the local villagers prevented the car carrying the two women from driving away.

The newspaper said authorities in the local hospital confirmed that the two women had been raped.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEW20060916060018&Title=World&Topic=0&?headline=Pak~girl~raped~for~acquiring~education

[AnnieBW]

1. Appalling

And these our our ALLIES? :nuke:

[bluerum]

12. The best of the best. Sir! nt

[Taxloss]

2. Shocking, if true.

It's from an Indian newspaper, and the Indian press rarely misses a chance to attack Pakistan.

[MADem]

10. Poor "Mumtaz Mai" is a soap opera character, damn near

The name must be as common as Jane Smith. Check this out:

Here we have Mumtaz Mai and her son being sold into slavery at a brick factory: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press804.htm

Mumtaz Mai, 23 years, her son Nadeem, 8, presently in the possession of DI Khan bricks kiln contractor Mehrban Ali faced her critical ordeal before selling as she was kept with chains in a locked room and injected high dozes of toxicating injections before shifting from Multan to Dera Ismael Khan in an ambulance, an eye witness Muhammad Hanif said.

It is worth of mentioning that a person can also become a bonded laborer when he or she is tricked into taking a loan. The person is forced to work long hours for little or no pay, often for seven days a week in order to repay the debt. The loan seldom gets paid back mainly due to the high interest rates, and passes from one generation to another....



Mumtaz Mai, the adulteress: http://www.dawn.com/2002/12/20/ed.htm
THIS time it is Mumtaz Mai, mother of four from a Mailsi village, who becomes the latest victim of antediluvian panchayat justice. Accused of adultery, she was subjected to public humiliation carried out under orders from the village panchayat in the hideous form of shaving off of her head and eyebrows. Not only that, in a bid to grant ‘relief’ to her husband and to humiliate her co-accused, Ghulam Mustafa, Mumtaz Mai’s four-year-old son was married off to Ghulam Mustafa’s three-year-old daughter, a maulvi solemnizing the minors’ illegal nikah. The incident again underlines how tribal customs and practices have come to dominate the lives and morals of large sections of the rural populace in total supercession of the law and many of the accepted norms and values. The police, for their part, conveniently arrived on the scene after the panchayat’s ruling had been carried out in full, and booked Mumtaz Mai and Ghulam Mustafa under the Hudood Ordinances....


And in 2004, this drama: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=2004%5C05%5C10%5Cstory_10-5-2004_pg7_33

Gang-rape case takes new turn

MULTAN A medical report has concluded that Mumatz Mai, a 16-year old girl from Kabirwala, was not gang raped. However, the police have instituted a case of adultery against Riaz Ahmed, her brother.

Police have also arrested the chief juror, Haji Afzal, and declared him a prosecution witness in the case. Two women, Mumtaz and her sister-in-law Mudassaran, were reportedly raped at the behest of a panchayat (village council) on April 30. They were allegedly raped by a man called Ghaffar Jeer. He accused Mumtaz’s brother Riaz of having illicit relations with his daughter, Shaheena, and sought revenge by raping Riaz’s sister Mumtaz and his wife. Police have been sent to Karachi to arrest Riaz.

Mumtaz Mai was sent for a gynecological examination at Nishtar Hospital Multan. An initial report revealed that she was not a virgin but there were no apparent signs of torture or sexual assault. She told newsmen that she had not been assaulted, however, her brother’s wife, Mudassan, was raped by Ghaffar Jeer. Shaheena’s swabs were also sent to a medical examiner....

[struggle4progress]

21. Here's a link from a website in Pakistan

Girl gang-raped for ‘acquiring education’
Influential’ accused at large even after 20 days
By Nadeem Shah

MULTAN: .. According to details, Ghazala Shaheen Bathi of a low caste came to her village Chak Sher Khan near Kabirwala to inform her parents that she had passed her Master’s in Education from the Bahauddin Zakariya University on August 25.

The news of her success spread in the village in no time, which instigated the minister’s people and the tribal elders of the upper caste Miralis –- an offshoot of the Hiraj clan.

On the same night, 12 Mirali tribesmen, including five to six armed men of the minister, forced their way into her house and severely beat up her father Muhammad Hussain, a retired militaryman, with boots, iron rods and the butts of guns. Some of the accused were dressed in police uniform ..

The victim family told newsmen that they were receiving threats from the influential landlords and politicians.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=24287

[Taxloss]

22. I stand corrected.

This is really inconceivably savage.

[Henny Penny]

23. Very interesting first few lines...

"MULTAN: The Kabirwala police have failed to arrest the accused of a gang-rape case who are said to be the henchmen of a minister of state.

According to details, Ghazala Shaheen Bathi of a low caste came to her village Chak Sher Khan near Kabirwala to inform her parents that she had passed her Master’s in Education from the Bahauddin Zakariya University on August 25.

The news of her success spread in the village in no time, which instigated the minister’s people and the tribal elders of the upper caste Miralis –- an offshoot of the Hiraj clan."

*************

It seems that the questioning of the caste system may have been as much a motivation as the actual education.

Pakistan is perhaps not the only country where the ruling elite are very fearful of an educated underclass.

[joefree1]

27. You're right, not just Pakistan

INDIA
15 September, 2006
Anti-Dalit discrimination in flood relief
by Nirmala Carvalho
Dalits have been chased out of camps for displaced people and discriminated against in aid delivery. Research has indicated that one Dalit woman is raped every 60 hours and one man killed every nine days.
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=7218

Over 1,000 doctors have stayed away from work, crippling medical services at New Delhi's state-run hospitals, in protest at plans to reserve more university places for low-caste students.
Patients and their families stood in long queues outside hospitals Thursday waiting for attention.
Doctors and medical students under the banner of "Youth For Equality" clashed with police, police and witnesses said.
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/138336.asp

Bangle sellers, popularly called maniharins, are the latest recruits to advise women in rural India against killing their to-be-born female children, says Grassroots Features.

In the process, they risk confronting the rich and powerful. But these frail, impoverished women seem determined to stop female foeticide in rural India.

Female foeticide is big business for unscrupulous doctors and health workers, especially in Haryana, Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=13735

But then I'm highly suspicous of the repukes attempts here to get all of us into religious schools (via the voucher program).

[MichiganVote]

3. Yeah sure...its about getting an education...like that makes sense

Lot of rationalizing bad acts on the part of men in that region of the world.

[azurnoir]

5. In just that region?

Oh, those damn Muslim devils, right?sarcasm:

No you mention but the implication was quite obvious:

[azurnoir]

6. In just that region? Plueeeez

Oh, those damn Muslim devils, right? ::sarcasm:

No you mention but the implication was quite obvious

[MichiganVote]

15. Ok, the whole world over...the article was about this region

but what the hell, you're right, I'm wrong, and clearly I had every nefarious reason (in the world) for posting as I did. Surely I should know better since you have the ability to read my mind and intentions. I don't recall mentioning anything about Muslim men per se but obviously your much more important, totally off the mark insight says it all.

Happy now?

[Evergreen Emerald]

16. I agree...sounds like an excuse

to force sex.

[MichiganVote]

19. Yup.

[MissMillie]

39. I don't know if "makes sense" is the word I would use, but

this is not about sex. Rape never is. It's about a violent way to control someone else.

These men were acting out of fear. They fear that if women learn something, they may take something away from men. So they act out violently to break the will of the women who try to better themselves. They fear that if the women better themselves, then they will not be "better" than the women.

The whole attitude ranges from the thought that life is some zero-sum game. "If someone else does better, that means they're taking something away from me."

[CanonRay]

4. Our best "allies" in the "war on terror". Yeah, right.

[Cornerstone]

7. Yep, our best 'allies.'

Conservatives would love making allies with this sort. By the way, does anyone know how many of them have they flooded onto the shores of America?

[izzie]

8. One has to wonder why it takes so long to change anything.

You know I had a great grandmother who I recall well as a child and she was the first girl to go through high school and it was in modern Mass. I just say this to show you how near we are to being as backward as the people in that country. Please do recall women in this country are nearer to that way of life than you wish to recall. Talk to your grand mother or maybe your mother and for sure we still have not all to say about our own body. For half the pop I would say it is still a mans world but BUT a lot better than it was. I wish that country good luck. It is going to be a long drag.

[kestrel91316]

20. When I was in HS only 33 years ago, a veterinarian refused to hire me

for kennel work (I wanted the experience because I hoped to go to vet school) BECAUSE I WAS A GIRL. "It's a boy's job," he said, explaining that girls only took up space in vet school that should go to males, and then quit practice forever to marry and have kids, so why bother?

THIS WAS ONLY IN 1973. That is how far we are removed from virtual slavery in the US.

[heliarc]

32. And you don't have to go too far back...

in black families to find people who have grandparents who were very real slaves not just virtual slaves (not to downplay the silent slavery of women). It always bugs me how people forget that atrocious behavior has repercussions for decades and even centuries.

[izzie]

37. I was in HS in the 50's and we were two girls and father did this

made us think like boys and we were to have more education than our husbands as we brought up the children and always have a bank account in our own name. Now let me tell you that was a mixed message in our age and we had nothing but trouble. I have friends my age that were brought up this way and it was really hard on them also. We did not make a good wife to the men we knew ans married. It is hard to know your as smart as any man you know and could do just as good as them but you are just in high heels and it will not work. If you know what I mean? But it is better than it was. I lived in Arabia once and it was interesting to see the city women playing the game and women in the country doing the work and driving etc and making sure their girls were getting into schools. One had to wonder just what was going on. My thoughts are that from the ground up women are putting in their own form of democracy and the men like it.. But many of these people are away from being watched by the police ete. who do not wish to up-set the religious police.

[enigma000]

9. Will she have to apologize to her attackers?

Or will the authorities just quietly execute her for pre-marital sex?

[AlamoDemoc]

11. I wonder!

One wonders why incidents such as this are becoming frequent a news worth or headline news in the western media after September 11. !!!!

[AlienGirl]

31. Western media like this Indian newspaper, or the Pakistani one?

On a round Earth, all countries are to the West... eventually...

/still puzzled

[aquart]

13. May their dicks shrivel and their hands fall off.

When they raise their eyes to look at a woman, may they go blind for eternity.

Or just gouge their eyes out, I don't care.

[SoyCat]

29. WOW! You think like I do

:evilgrin:

[anotherdrew]

14. these beliefs must be destroyed, kill however many it takes

that's my first reaction

[Henny Penny]

17. That is the intended reaction...

now take a breath...

[anotherdrew]

24. yeah. true but...

we should have been spending billions over the last few decades to do it peacefully, by funding, supporting and defending civil society organizations and making real work for everyone who's able though public works if necessary. Instead we've done jack and shit and 'the west' had and has abandoned the forces of modernity and decency in Pakistan (and elsewhere) leading to this situation today. Too many people in the world just go toward where they see the power, and "our side" (in that part of the world and the rest) has been visibly powerless and basically defenseless for too long. These bullies must be stood up to somehow. I'm not saying bush is right, his methods are worse than useless, but something up close and personal needs to happen to the perps in this case.

[Henny Penny]

26. You are right. Something does need to be done.

It is natural for people to feel rage and powerlessness at such a crime and to want to fight back. I just think that the use of violence (as W has clearly demonstrated) is akin to Mickey Mouse chopping the menacing mops in two in the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

What can we do?? I think we can stop letting our governments prop up evil dictators or more likely install them in the first place. For this to happen we need to inform people that its going on in the first place.... how many people know why Saddam came to power in Iraq, or what is happening in the Ukraine or Mexico? Very few because they are never told.

We don't have access to the MSM but perhaps through access to the Internet we can influence them indirectly...

We don't need to kill people or chop off appendages...

we just need to get them thinking.

[LeftyMom]

18. That's why the article exists.

Consider the source and the geopolitics of the situation.

[anotherdrew]

25. yeah, initial reaction is past now but I just don't know

there's going to be most likely nothing like justice in this case; it sounds like the local authorities are afraid-of or in-bed-with the kidnappers to some extent. But really it's a matter for Pakistan to deal with, may we hope to find a way to help deal constuctivly

[Henny Penny]

28. It seems that the rapists were henchmen of the

local minister of state.

Perhaps some good can come of the media coverage if instead of covering the story as "Evil Muslims gang rape girl that dared to get an education" and they pushed the "Corrupt regime in Pakistan, propped up by our government, behaves like this!" angle.

As to justice for the woman and her father? I hope its possible but like you I'm not confident.

We can only do our best. Just play your part, however small and think of the butterfly flapping its wings...


Its late here... time for bed before my metaphors get totally out of hand.

[BreweryYardRat]

30. Such a lovely bunch of slavering primitives...

...and I've got a nasty feeling the rapists are the sort of people who support the current Pakistani government.

And so people don't freak out:

Only the rapists are slavering primitives. This is not a blanket condemnation of all Pakistanis.

[heliarc]

33. Please...

I wouldn't insult "primitives" that way. I am loathe to suggest that there is anything "primal" about gang rape that clearly involves the culturation of deeply ingrained social mores and pathology. If anything religion and nationalism are what has created the type of misogyny that this kind of crime employs, NOT primitive human nature.

There are problems at the heart of your definition of primitive, though I generally agree with you that the rapists were assholes and at the very least should be put in jail for a very long time. I might even be ok with putting a few of the people who so fervently preached the subjugation of women to these men behind bars too, but I most certainly don't consider these men primitive. All too civilized I'm afraid.

[meow2u3]

42. All rapists are slavering savages

who ought to have their balls--and pricks--cut off once they're charged with such a horrendous crime (too many "men" get away with rape)!!! :grr::grr:

[JCMach1]

34. as if shite like this doesn't happen in FL, Alabama, or Texas

This was a retaliation attack by ignorant, backwards villagers...

Why is this the only kind of news we ever see out of Pakistan?

Answer: It is the shock and horror lens the media is always casting on this part of the world.

There are much bigger and more important things happening there if the West would just pay attention!

[clyrc]

35. I usually resist doing this, but.....

even from where I stand, as a close friend to some good Pakistanis, I would never say there are "more important things" than the appalling treatment of women by some Pakistani men. I agree that it isn't the only reality that exists, but it is there and it sounds too much like you are just dismissing it. Not smart, especially when you know your wife reads the same forum.

[JCMach1]

36. not dismissing it... It just seems like these are the only type of posts

westerners see...

It is horrible, but we need to understand what is going on in cross-cultural terms.

In the west, we do our persecution of women in DIFFERENT forms. That's all...

No more, or less horrific...

You have to admit the horrific cases of abuse against women that don't make the press... Why? Typically they are buried by the legal process and the press doesn't like to post such stories about American families...

Somehow, it just doesn't follow the script... the one about a happy 'family oriented' America...

[RangerSmith]

40. Self delete... nt

[OKNancy]

38. No excuse for it, no matter the reason for reporting it

I can't help but think if this story were about abuse of animals there would be a lot more outrage. Instead some people say "it's political" and we are hearing these stories to smear Muslims or their culture.

In the first place, these stories have been published long before Bush got into office.
Secondly, criminal behavior and abuse of women is never right. Never.

Stop making excuses for it.

[Henny Penny]

41. Yes Nancy, all such attacks on women are to be condemned

irrespective of who carries them out or where they occur.

But trying to understand the context is not to excuse it.