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Woman Minister rejects fatwa

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: A woman Cabinet Minister, who earned the ire of a Sharia court by hugging her male paragliding coach, said she was not scared of the fatwa issued by the "kangaroo court" and would only go by the "people's court."

Nilofar Bakhtiar, Minister for Tourism, is at the receiving end of a fatwa by a "qazi court" set up last week at the Lal Masjid, which demanded that she be sacked after newspapers published pictures of her hugging her coach after a paragliding expedition in France.

"People know the facts"

Ms. Bakhtiar said on Monday that she rejected the fatwa, and pointed out that she went paragliding to raise funds for children affected by the 2005 earthquake. "I did what was right and patriotic, and I fear no one but God," she said, adding that the people knew the facts and her services for women's rights, and they would decide for themselves.

The radical Lal Masjid and its affiliated madrassas have demanded that the Government implement Islamic law within a month.

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