Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Rape as punishment for attending school

Pack rape in Pakistan can be a punishment for females who attend school. A recent gang rape by local villagers of a girl and her mother occurred because the girl disobeyed the villagers by going to school. Even the local police refused to intervene until the 12th day of the rapes.

This incident brings to mind memories of Mukhtar Mai. Now a heroine not a victim!

In Pakistan a women who is raped faces the prospect of criminal prosecution for having sex outside marriage. And the President of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf is stalling on changing this obviously senseless law because of opposition from hard-line Islamic parties. The Pakistani military won't take the religious fanatics on.

Is this not one of the basic questions Islam needs to address? Along with honor killings of women who disobey their male 'owners'?

6 comments:

hc said...

Of course Islam is hostile to rape - that is not the issue. The issue is the way fundamentalist Islam treats women who have been raped.

Islam as a religion seems actively hostile to women. Women are accepted only in so far as they adhere to its tyrannical, mysogynist rules. No excuses - it must face up mto this flaw.

hc said...

I have no time for Christians who assert the literal truth of the bible.

John Stone said it well in a recent issue of Quadrant. If you have dug a hole for yourself then stop digging.

Christians these days are a mile ahead of Muslims in their attitudes to women. It is the clergy in Pakistam who are opposing reform of the rape laws. Why apologise for these awful people?

Anonymous said...

The simple truth is. Rape in itself, is not a crime in islam. Sex outside marriage is.

I don't see a big deal with rape anyways. How is it a bigger deal than holding someone down for 10mins?

hc said...

IEatCum

If you are serious you are a total moron.

Anonymous said...

"I have no time for Christians who assert the literal truth of the bible."

Didn't see this when you posted it last year.

How do you decide which bits of the handbook to follow and which ones not to?

hc said...

The comment above yours Mark is not mine. I don't recall receiving it - normally I delete such. It is worrying that it got vhere.

I read the bible as a set of stories such of which have spiritual content that inspires ('Sermon on the Mount') but none of which I accept as ultimate truth - I do not regard myself as a Christian but I respect many values that are Christian.

Many of my friends are Christians and I respect their beliefs but I cannot respect beliefs that assert the bible as literal truth. This is foolish - if simply on the basis of consistency.

Moreover my guess is that most educated Christians would not disagree with me. I am not sure that you need to believe in the virgin birth or the divinity of Christ to be a good Christian - not that I aspire to be such.