SHE WAS GANG-RAPED ON THE ORDERS OF VILLAGE ELDERS. YESTERDAT, MUKHTARAN BIBI'S NIGHTMARE BEGAN AGAIN

March 4, 2005 -(The Guardian) Mukhtaran Bibi thought her nightmare was over when the men who gang-raped her - on orders from village elders - were sentenced to death more than two years ago. But yesterday the nightmare began again.

The victim of Pakistan's most notorious rape case wept bitterly after a court in the southern city of Multan overturned the verdict against three of the four alleged rapists and two tribal elders, and quashed the death sentence against the sixth.

"I am in pain. I will ask my lawyer to challenge this decision," said the 30-year-old woman, who has received several awards for her bravery in testifying against her attackers at a trial in 2002. As five of the men prepared to walk free, dismayed human rights activists said the decision was a blow to the struggle for women's rights in a notoriously male-dominated society.

"Mukhtaran is traumatised, but so are many other people," said IA Rehman of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. Ms Bibi was catapulted to world attention after a panchayat , or tribal council, at the remote Punjabi village of Meerwala in June 2002.

Her 12-year-old brother was accused of having an affair with a woman from the higher-caste Mastoi tribe. In punishment, the elders ordered that Mukhtaran be raped. As several hundred people watched, four men dragged her screaming through a cotton field. Pushing her into a mud-walled house, they assaulted her for more than an hour.

She emerged afterwards with her clothes torn. Her father and brother, who had been forced to wait outside during the ordeal, draped her with a shawl and helped her home.

In the days that followed her first impulse was to commit suicide, she recently told the Guardian. "In this area, there is no law and no justice. A woman is left with one option, and that is to die," she said.

But Ms Bibi took the case to court and, after a tear-filled testimony, six Mastoi men were sentenced to death by hanging in August 2002.

Her plight won international press coverage and promises from government officials for an end to brutal "honour killings" and punishments. It also earned the sympathy of President Pervez Musharraf, who offered her £4,500, 24-hour police protection and a house in the capital, Islamabad.

Government investigators found the accusation against her brother, Shakoor, was false. Instead they found evidence to support his claim that two Mastoi men had sodomised him.

Yesterday a high court judge in Multan overturned the decision against the Mastoi rapists, citing flaws in the prosecution case. Faiz Ahmad, the Mastoi elder who allegedly ordered the rape punishment, and four other men were freed. A sixth man had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

A defence lawyer, Mohammad Salim, told the BBC that justice had been done. "The verdict of the anti-terrorism court in August 2002 was largely influenced by media hype and government pressure," he said.
But Hina Jilani, a supreme court lawyer and women's rights activist, blamed the state for failing to ensure a watertight prosecution.

"The government made tall claims that justice would be done, but the reality has been exposed. Our institutions have allowed impunity to prevail."

Since 2002 Ms Bibi has remained in Meerwala, where she has used President Musharraf's donation to build the village's first primary schools, where about 270 boys and girls are being educated.

She has also become a symbol for women's rights. Foreign groups flew her to Spain, India and Saudi Arabia. An article in the New York Times raised $130,000 (£68,000) in donations, which she intends to spend on health and education services.

But she has maintained the 24-hour police guard at the gate of her remote farmhouse after several death threats. She believed the threats stemmed from her refusal to entertain repeated clemency pleas from the Mastoi, who still live just 100 metres away. The Mastoi said they were the victims of a great injustice. "Nobody is innocent in this affair," said Nazar Hussain, uncle of one of the convicted men.

"Honour" killings and punishments are usually sanctioned through the panchayat system, which has no legal standing but is still prevalent in many rural towns. Last week elders in another Punjabi village ordered that a two-year-old girl be married to a man 33 years her senior. The betrothal was in compensation for an adulterous affair committed by her uncle.

Yesterday the actor Meryl Streep listed Pakistan and Britain among dozens of countries that have reneged on promises to revoke laws discriminating against women, which were made at a UN conference in Beijing 10 years ago.

"A woman cannot vote in Kuwait. She cannot drive in Saudi Arabia. She is barred from working on military submarines in Britain. In Pakistan, if a woman is raped she must have four Muslim adult male witnesses to secure justice, failing which she may herself be considered guilty of fornication," Streep said.

Taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,1430298,00.html