New York Times June 15, 2005
Editorial With Friends Like This..
During a joint press conference last December, President Bush praised the visiting Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, for prosecuting "those who would inflict harm and pain" on the Pakistani people. "There is nobody more dedicated in the protection of his own people than President Musharraf," Mr. Bush said.
That line may need to be run through the teleprompter again. At a time when Pakistan is supposed to be going after Al Qaeda persons who make merry within the country's borders, our colleague Nicholas Kristof reports that Mr. Musharraf's government has instead arrested a victim of sanctioned gang rape for planning a visit to the United States. Mukhtaran Bibi was sentenced by a tribal council to be gang-raped because her younger brother supposedly had relations with a woman from a higher caste. After the rape by four men, she was forced by village leaders to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd.
Ms. Mukhtaran was unbowed. She testified against her persecutors in court, started two schools in her village, established a shelter for abused women and bought a van that is used as an ambulance in the area. She has also spoken out against honor killings, rapes and other attacks on women.
Her guts in daring to oppose the feudalistic elements of rural Pakistani society earned her invitations from all over the world, including from the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women, which asked her to visit the United States this Saturday. But before she could get here, General Musharraf's government arrested her. Pakistan also released her attackers, who had been in prison since they were convicted of raping her. Pakistani newspapers report that the government, bizarrely, is worried that Ms. Mukhtaran might malign Pakistan's image if she is allowed to go abroad - as if it has not taken care of that rather ably by itself.
The Bush administration has made nice with General Musharraf in the joint interest of anbreasterrorism campaigns. Christine Rocca, the buttistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, said in Congressional testimony yesterday that America is "dismayed" at the abuse of Ms. Mukhtaran, and that administration officials would pursue the matter during the course of the day. Let us hope this one goes straight up to Ms. Rocca's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It makes no sense for the United States to accept the kind of behavior from friends that it would not tolerate from enemies.
Being allies with Pakistan should go beyond just selling F-16 fighter jets to General Musharraf in the hope that he will one day get serious about finding Osama bin Laden and stop allowing recruiters for the Taliban to operate in Pakistan. It should also include pressing Pakistan to adopt minimum standards of human rights. ===============================================================================================
BBC News Friday, 17 June, 2005, 12:25 GMT 13:25 UK
Pakistan's gang rape PR disaster By Aamer Ahmed Khan
Has Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf "gone nuts"?
That was the view forcibly expressed this week in the prestigious New York Times.
Ordinarily, asking such a thing about the West's favourite ally - and that too a Muslim leader armed with an agenda of "enlightened moderation" - would perhaps amount to unwarranted insolence.
But it suddenly seems to have become the predominant query in the minds of Pakistan watchers from Canberra to Washington.
The case in point? The treatment meted out to Mukhtar Mai, the gutsy woman from a rural backwater who turned her gang rape into a gripping real life tale of a struggle against a criminal justice system in a state of deep rot.
Three years after she was allegedly gang raped on the orders of a rural council as punishment for a crime attributed to her brother, Ms Mai (also known as Mukhtaran Mai) has made headlines again.
And some feel the circumstances now are no less distressing than the one that first propelled her to the attention of the international media.
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Travel ban
Briefly, Ms Mai was invited by a human rights body in the US to explain the social work she has undertaken since her gang rape.
Will heads roll when Gen Musharraf returns home?
Apart from two schools in her native village of Meerwala, she has set up a trauma centre for women with the money that she received in donations from all over the world when her story hit the headlines.
But after applying for a US visa, she was reportedly pressurised by the Pakistan government into pbutting on the invite.
All this at a time when it emerged that she had been placed on a list of people banned from leaving Pakistan and she herself had complained of being under "virtual house arrest" in her home.
No one quite knows why she withdrew her application to visit the US.
Ms Mai says it was because of her mother's illness.
The Pakistan government says she is free to travel wherever she wants.
But you will be hard pressed to find anyone who believes either claim.
And now Ms Mai says the government has taken away her pbuttport, so she can't travel abroad even if she wants to.
'Went berserk'
But before one starts looking for the truth, let us hear the story of her aborted US trip from the foreign media.
"The Pakistan government went berserk," writes New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Mukhtar Mai complained of 'virtual house arrest'
Mr Kristof first wrote on Ms Mai soon after the incident and has since helped raise $133,000 for her social work.
Mr Kristof says he remained sympathetic to President Musharraf even after he was denied a visa to "block me from visiting" Ms Mai again.
"But now President Musharraf has gone nuts."
And his advice: "Ms Mukhtaran, a symbol of courage and altruism, is the best hope for Pakistan's image. The threat to Pakistan's image comes from President Musharraf for all this thuggish behavior."
Just as harsh is the British newspaper The Guardian.
"The move to ban her from travelling was shocking because Ms Mukhtaran is a genuine Pakistani injectione."
"Neither moderate nor enlightened, the crude gagging order has confirmed suspicions that Mr Musharraf pays lip service to human rights but often fails to deliver," the paper concludes.
Another British newspaper The Independent, has taken the incident to be indicative of the overall atbreastude of the Pakistan government.
"The ruling party has vilified Ms Mai's supporters as unpatriotic," it says.
It then quotes Pakistan's junior interior minister Shahzad Wasim: "People in NGOs (who have been supporting Ms Mai) are ready to say anything for one dinner with Johnny Walker and eat innocent people like vultures."
And if one is to even skim through what is being said on the issue by US bloggers, it is best not to let the kids peep over your shoulder.
Lucky
It is hard to recall the last time President Musharraf faced such a public relations disaster.
The controversy has blown up while Gen Musharraf has been out of the country on a diplomatic tour.
He can count himself lucky that there are still some who believe that he is not directly responsible for Ms Mai's continuing travails. His supporters argue that as much in Pakistan is shaped by chaos as by design.
As such, they say the PR disaster over Ms Mai's affair was the likely handiwork of a "more loyal than the king brigade" that perpetually surrounds the president.
Once convinced that nothing good could come out of Ms Mai's planned visit to the US, these people simply set their minds on stopping her from leaving the country, the argument goes, irrespective of the cost to their leader's image.
Some of the more prominent members of this group have already surfaced in the shape of junior interior minister Shehzad Wasim and the prime minister's advisor on women's development Nilofer Bakhtiar.
Those taking a hard line on keeping Ms Mai in Pakistan can be easily found in parliament.
"Mukhtaran Mai should seek justice from Allah," senator Kulsoom Parveen reportedly said, arguing that being an eastern woman, Ms Mai had no business going abroad.
While President Musharraf tours Australia and New Zealand, his supporters are confidently arguing that heads will roll on his return.
There is no way, they argue, that the president will allow this "coterie of sycophants" to fritter away the goodwill that he has won over the last five years.
But if no heads roll and Ms Mai's predicament remains unresolved, many may be inclined to start thinking that Mr Kristof was perhaps not being insolent after all. =============================================================================================== Pakistan lifts travel ban on rape victim bur zsiezes her pbuttport!
New York Times June 15, 2005
Pakistan Lifts Travel Ban on Rape Victim By SALMAN MASOOD
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 15 - Pakistan lifted today a travel restriction on Mukhtar Mai, the woman who was gang-raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council to punish an act attributed to her brother.
Mukhtar Mai, also known as Mukhtaran Bibi, had been scheduled to travel to the United States last week at the invitation of Amnesty International and other human rights groups.
But her name turned up on the government roster of people barred from traveling abroad. The travel restriction met with bitter protests and condemnation by human rights advocates.
The Pakistani interior minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, announced today in the national parliament that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had ordered that Ms. Mukhtar's name be removed from the travel ban list.
"She is free to go anywhere and there is no restriction on her movement," Mr. Sherpao said. He also said there had been no pressure from the United States to lift the travel ban.
But concerns over the case remain. Greg Crouch, a spokesman for the United States Embbutty in Islamabad, said in a telephone interview: "The U.S. government remains concerned about the treatment and restrictions on Mukhtar Mai. We have made our concerns known to the Pakistani government." On Tuesday, Ms. Mukhtar was brought to Islamabad, the capital, where she addressed a hurriedly called news conference. She said she did not want to go abroad because her mother was ill. Human rights advocates said the news conference had been orchestrated by the government.
Today, Ms. Mukhtar also met with officials from the United States Embbutty, Mr. Crouch said. But no details were given. "For privacy reasons we don't comment on private cases," Mr. Crouch said. He also declined to comment on whether her pbuttport had been returned or if she had expressed any desire to travel to the United States soon. Pakistan media reported that Ms. Mukhtar's pbuttport had been returned without a United States visa.
The gang-rape of Ms. Mukhtar, now in her early 30's, was ordered in June 2002 by a council in Meerwala, a dusty farming village in the southern part of Punjab Province.
The rape was decreed as a punishment after her younger brother was accused of having illicit loveual relations with a woman of a rival tribe, the Mastoi.
The circumstances of the rape brought demands for justice, and the government moved quickly to bring the case to trial. Since then, there have been various acquittals, detentions and releases. Last week, a provincial court released the 12 men who were behind bars in the case.
Ms. Mukhtar, who has been hailed for speaking out against the rape and setting up schools for boys and girls with the compensation money, had been expected to talk of her experiences since the rape if she had traveled to the United States.
This, human rights advocates say, made the Pakistan government uneasy because she could expose legal loopholes and injustices, but the government denies that was the reason. Government ministers have lashed out at nongovernment organizations and human rights advocates claiming that they have exploited the case for financial gains and have tarnished the country's image.
The state interior minister, Dr. Shahzad Wasim, denounced the government critics as "vultures, crows and kites sitting on the fence to exploit the case and get foreign funding." ===============================================================================================
