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Rape Law Reform Lays Bare Pakistan's Political Morass    [

    A Flawed Bill on Rape
    The New York Times / International Herald Tribune

    Monday 25 September 2006

    In recent decades, women's advocates and human rights activists have made huge progress on the issues of rape and sexual assault. In international law, where rape and sexual assault have long been classified as torture and war crimes, the world has begun to accept the importance of enforcement. In 1998, a tribunal convicted a paramilitary chief for watching one of his men rape a woman in Serbia. A year ago, the world rose up in outrage when UN peacekeepers raped women in Congo.

    You'd think this was a settled issue. But it's been opened up again in the bill on jailing, interrogating and trying terror suspects that President George W. Bush is trying to ram through the U.S. Congress in a pre- election rush. Both the White House and Senate versions contain provisions on rape and sexual assault that turn back the clock alarmingly. They are among the many flaws that must be fixed before Congress can responsibly pass this legislation.

    Rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse are mentioned twice in the bill - once as crimes that could be prosecuted before military tribunals if committed by an "illegal enemy combatant," and once as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes if committed by an American against a detainee. But in each case, the wording creates new and disturbing loopholes.

    In the bill, rape is narrowly defined as forced or coerced genital or anal penetration. It utterly leaves out other acts, as well as the notion that sex without consent is also rape, as defined by numerous state laws and federal law. That is the more likely case in a prison, where a helpless inmate would be unlikely to resist the sexual overtures of a guard or interrogator.

    The section on sexual abuse requires that the act include physical contact. Thus it might not include ordering a terrified female prisoner to strip and dance, which happened in Rwanda, or compelling a male prisoner to strip and wear women's underwear on his head, or photographing naked prisoners piled together, both of which happened at Abu Ghraib.

    Rhonda Copelon, a professor of law at the City University of New York who was an author of the international law on rape as a war crime, says the bill also could make it impossible to prosecute rape or sexual assault as torture, because the definition of torture in the legislation requires proof of specific intent to commit the crime. Motive is very hard to prove in cases of rape or sexual assault.

    Experts on sexual violence fear that the intent is to absolve American soldiers and their commanders from prosecution for deeds that have occurred since Sept. 11. Copelon also points out that the United States has been trying for years to write a specific intent requirement into international law on torture. The co-authors of the bill, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, did not respond to questions about the section.

    But it does not really matter. This language simply needs to be changed, and McCain and Graham should do it. If not, Democrats should insist on this among many other changes they should be demanding before agreeing to a vote on the prison measure.

 

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    Rape Law Reform Lays Bare Pakistan's Political Morass
    By Simon Cameron-Moore
    Reuters

    Monday 25 September 2006

    Islamabad - The 24-year-old Pakistani woman has medical reports saying she's been raped. What she hasn't got is four male witnesses that the country's Islamic law says she needs to prove it.

    "Rapists don't bring four witnesses to watch," the university graduate said in a quavering voice as she lay in a hospital where she has been treated for the past week for swelling, inflammation and other injuries.

    If she filed a rape case and lost, she could be tried and jailed for adultery under a set of Islamic laws introduced in 1979 by then military dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

    Just days before the young woman was raped by two men from a gang that abducted her, parliament embarked on a tortuous debate over a bill that proposed putting the crime of rape under the civil criminal code and removing it from the Hudood Ordinances, as Pakistan's parallel Islamic laws are known.

    Under the civil code, a victim would only need the medical reports and other evidence to prove rape.

    The issue highlights a long struggle between progressive and religious conservative forces to set the future course of this turbulent Muslim nation of over 150 million people.

    The bill is the result of lobbying by activists rather than any popular campaign, but it does have widespread support among a public that recognises the injustice of the Hudood law on rape.

    "Common sense doesn't accept it, so I'm sure it won't be in Islam and the Koran," said Beenish Mazhar, a housewife from the northwestern city of Peshawar.

    The bill is backed by President Pervez Musharraf, a general who came to power in a coup seven years ago, but sees himself on the side of the progressives.

    His problem is that in holding onto power he has sidelined the mainstream parties, who represent the constituencies who share his vision for Pakistan, and given Islamist parties - who oppose any change in the Hudood laws - more leverage.

    Stirred Consciences

    Because the scales are loaded against the victim, most rapes go unreported. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the media published reports on 55 cases of rape and 38 of gang rape in the first six months of the year.

    The horrific nature of some has helped raise awareness among Pakistanis. The university graduate's story is the latest to stir consciences.

    She was abducted along with her mother on August 25 from their home in the small town of Kabirwala in central Punjab province by a dozen men she says were wearing police uniforms.

    While her mother was beaten, the woman says she was raped by two men. Dr. Saima Ahsan said the violence inflicted on her was obvious when she was admitted to hospital weeks later.

    "She was brought in in a terrible condition, with pain and burning, on September 13," Ahsan told Reuters.

    Though police caught the perpetrators just days after the abduction, only kidnapping charges have been brought. Non-government organisations that have taken up the case say the alleged rapists have friends in government.

    NGOs have written to Musharraf asking for his help.

    Sincerity Questioned

    When the Women's Protection Bill was first aired last month, rights groups applauded it as a good first step to rolling back the Hudood laws, even though it was later decided that adultery should remain punishable with imprisonment after a compromise with Islamists.

    But the handling of the bill so far has been farcical, local newspapers said.

    The Pakistan Muslim League (PML), which leads the ruling coalition, almost agreed to a further compromise with Islamists that would have hamstrung the reform by keeping rape laws under both penal codes.

    The PML leaders' behaviour, according to party insiders, was explained by fears that the Islamists would paint them as bad Muslims to win votes in elections due next year.

    A more secular-minded coalition partner stopped the pact, and the government is now waiting for Musharraf to return from a visit to the United States at the end of September to sort out the mess.

    The parliamentary session was suspended on September 18 as the government sought a time-out, but Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz says the bill will be passed without changes in the next session.

    Diplomats in Islamabad say, however, that the episode has already shown how Musharraf, despite good intentions, remains hobbled by conservative forces he depends on for support.

    William Milam, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, outlined the conundrum faced by Musharraf if he is sincere in promoting progressive values.

    "It is time - in fact, past time - for the president to choose to make that vision his only objective and to eschew completely the tactical behaviour he is told is necessary to maintain himself and the army in power," Milam wrote in an article in a local newspaper.