U.S. dismayed at treatment of Pakistani rape victim - Yahoo! News
U.S. dismayed at treatment of Pakistani rape victim - Yahoo! News
This story keeps getting worse.
:(
posted by Suerreal @ 6:34 PM
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
This story keeps getting worse.
:(
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is dismayed at the treatment of a Pakistani gang rape victim who is being prevented from traveling and telling her story, the State Department's top official for South Asia said on Tuesday.
Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang raped on the orders of a traditional village council in 2002, has said police were not allowing her to leave her house and she was on a government list of people barred from traveling abroad.
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday by phone from Meerwala, a Pakistan village, Mai demanded that the government lift restrictions on her movements and allow her to see her lawyer a day after a court ordered the release of 12 men connected to the crime.
Christina Rocca, the assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, told U.S. lawmakers that the U.S. Embassy had been in contact with Mai's friends on Tuesday but had not been able to reach the woman herself.
"We are dismayed at the treatment being meted out to a courageous woman, Mukhtaran Bibi, who is herself a victim of a horrendous crime and is being denied the right to travel and to tell her story," Rocca said in congressional testimony.
"We will pursue this matter during the course of the day," Rocca added.
The case provoked national outcry and focused international attention on the treatment of women in feudal-dominated rural Pakistan. Gang rapes and honor killings are common in rural Pakistan, where brutal tribal customs sometimes hold sway.
The original trial before an anti-terrorism court in 2002 found that Mai had been gang-raped on the orders of a traditional village council after her brother -- who was 12 at the time -- was judged to have offended the honor of a powerful clan by befriending a woman from their tribe.
Six men were originally convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, but five were later acquitted after appealing to the Punjab court, which cited a lack of evidence. A sixth had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
The provincial government later intervened and ordered the six men detained for three months pending the outcome of an appeal by the victim against the acquittal. Another six men who served on the village council were detained at the same time.
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