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Demand for repeal of Hudood laws grows

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: A renewed demand for repealing the infamous Hudood laws is gathering strength in Pakistan.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said he will amend the laws under which thousands of women have been jailed since 1979 on charges of adultery.

In July, under a Presidential ordinance that said all offences by women except terrorism and murder were bailable, hundreds of women jailed under the Hudood laws were released.

But at a meeting here on Sunday, speakers said the planned amendments and the release were superficial and insufficient measures.

"Sprinkling water on boiling hot ground will not work," said Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission.

Ms. Jehangir, herself an eminent human rights lawyer who has been at the forefront of the agitation against the Hudood laws since General Zia ul Haq introduced them as ordinances, said nothing would satisfy women in Pakistan except a total repeal.

"If they don't repeal it, we will file a case in the Supreme Court. It will be called "Women of Pakistan vs. the government of Pakistan'," she said.

The conference on Hudood Ordinances: Time for Repeal, organised by Joint Action Committee, a national rights group, was attended by more than 100 women from all parts of the country, and was more a public rally than a seminar.

Earlier, the conference adopted a resolution demanding repeal of the ordinances and compensation for its victims through the years. It also demanded a public apology to these victims.

Several activists and retired judges attended the conference, and recounted their struggle against the laws, which are now widely acknowledged as unjust and discriminatory against women.

The Hudood is a set of five ordinances — against the offences of adultery and rape; drinking and sale of alcohol; theft and robbery; bearing false witness; and a prescription of the correct procedure for whipping.

The most contentious is the one relating to zina or adultery and rape. Human rights activists say that under this, women, and also some men, get caught in false complaints of adultery.

Ms. Jehangir said that from the number of women arrested for zina, outsiders would think Pakistani women did nothing else except for committing adultery.

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