Mukhtaran Bibi Update

While this is pretty much the story of one courageous woman and a movement of people to support her, I can't help but to be fascinated by the power of the blogosphere in this saga. Since Tuesday afternoon, we've lined up something on the order of 50 blogs supporting Mukhtaran Bibi, who is being held in Pakistan so as not to embarass the corrupt, failed Musharraf government.

And now, I'm getting email updates from inside Pakistan - where, unfortunately, the news is not good. Despite a soothing statement from the U.S. State Department and one from the Pakistani government, Mukhtaran Mai is not free to travel as of this morning. The liberal Pakistani Daily Times reports that although this hero for our times has has been taken off the government's do not travel list, her passport has been confiscated. Here are the details, and it's clear that we must continue to press this case. So please. continue to use the email addresses of the Pakistani U.S. embassy staff, please write members of Congress and the President (politely, Fitz and Alva), and by all means, get as many blogs as possible involved in this. Other than Nick Kristof, this case has been largely ignored by the pontificating piehole class, and that needs to change. From Pakistan:

“I told the prime minister that the government itself should escort her around instead of her getting into the hands of people who might exploit this case and malign Pakistan’s image abroad,” Ahsan told Daily Times. Daily Times sources said that Mai’s Pakistani handler took her to the US embassy and she requested the embassy to return her passport without a visa. Sources said that government authorities seized her passport, saying the government would facilitate Mai if she wished to travel abroad.

Later, Mai spoke to HRCP chairperson Asma Jehangir, and told her that the prime minister called her on the phone and assured her that if she cooperated with the government and handed over her passport, her name would be removed from the ECL. “The prime minister told me that he would personally ensure that I would be able to go to the US in a month,” she was quoted as telling Asma.

Earlier in the National Assembly, Ahsan said the government was violating basic human rights by keeping Mai in custody and not allowing her to meet her lawyer. “It is the basic human right of every Pakistani to appoint a lawyer of his/her choice,” he said. “I am not concerned about her name being on the ECL. I am concerned that she is my client and she is not being allowed to meet me,” he said. He said Mai was also being forced to change her lawyer. “She wanted to meet me in Lahore and then in Islamabad. But she was unable to contact me as Nilofar Bakhtiar did not allow her,” Aitzaz said.

A few housekeeping notes .... I'll be keeping the list of contributing blogs updated, many links came in over night (updates later today). I'm hoping this network of support can hold together and grow over time. Also, I got a small cultural lesson via email as well. Apparently, my references to "Ms. Bibi" essentially translates to "Miss Miss" in Urdu, thereby injecting some (perhaps much-needed) humor at my expense into this story for the Pakistani community. I'll try and get it right.

UPDATE: Mukhtar Mai's situation is still far from clear. Apparently she is still being barred from travel. Amnesty International is all over this now. Its director, Dr. William F. Schulz, issued this statement:

Amnesty International USA is gravely disappointed by reports that gang-rape survivor Mukhtaran Bibi was pressured into withdrawing her visa application for a speaking tour in the United States. That the Pakistani government would bar Ms. Mukhtaran from leaving the country is a testament to the calculated measures it has taken to obscure a human rights record that flies in the face of international standards.

Ms. Mukhtaran, who late last week was in effect put under house arrest and then disappeared, only to show up a day later at a press conference and state her intent to forego her invitation to the United States, was victimized first by her attackers and again by her recent treatment at the hands of her own government. This same government refused to intervene in her case at the time of her rape until it was shamed into action by international pressure.

Despite lifting the travel ban against Ms. Mukhtaran, the government of Pakistan has yet to clarify its role in the cancellation of her trip to the United States. We call on the government of Pakistan to give a public account of what transpired in the time Ms. Mukhtaran was missing and to recommit to protecting women's rights. We urge the United States government to determine whether pressure was indeed exerted on Ms. Mukhtaran to withdraw her visa request.

This just in from Nick Kristof - kind of sad. Looking forward to his column Sunday:

I just had a long talk with Mukhtaran Bibi, who's back in her village (without her passport). I'll write my Sunday column about her, but she wanted her American supporters to know that she really appreciates their help. She's enormously grateful for everyone's help.

Comments

[Lance Mannion]

Tom,

Shakespeare's Sister is another one.

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2005/06/read-ems_15.html

[julie]

I wrote about her on my blog, and I diaried about her on BooMan.

I find myself wishing that she were white and blonde- the American media would pick up on her story in an instant if she were.

[Anon for now]

OK, I'll play devil's advocate. Is Kristof lying, or is someone in Pakistan feeding him a load of hooey?

Look at the facts:

Context: there was enmity between her clan and the tribe of the alleged perps.

She was raped, but not "sentenced to be raped" as Kristof claims.

There is no testimony to support the contention that there was a council in the village.

The rape took place in a dark room late at night

There was no electricity, no lighting in the village. It was a dark outside too.

There were no witnesses to the rape besides Mukhtaran and the perps.

She walked home in the dead of night, not naked, and not in front of hundreds, as Kristof claims.

With 160 million people, more than Russia, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country.

Nevertheless, within two days after she went to the police, the leaders of this huge country, took a personal interest in her case. Would that have happened in here in the US?

The alleged perps were tried by a special court that doesn't respect the reasonable-doubt principle. Their guilt wasn't proven, but it sentenced six people to death. Two of those men were not even accused of touching her. Death for them too! And everybody cheered!

Those who were convicted weren't high-status, as Kristof seems to claim. They were manual laborers, and belonged to one of southeastern Punjab's despised Baloch tribes, stereotyped in Pakistan as troublemakers, dacoits, thieves, and generally no-good people. Pakistanis wanted to hang them high. Try to find a single article in a Pakistani paper that takes their side.

Despite considerable political pressure for a conviction, they were acquitted by an appeals court for lack of evidence. But they're still in prison. I've read several articles in Pakistani papers that basically say, "It's not about guilt or innocence anymore, we need to send a message. Something like this cannot go unpunished!"

Kill the bastards! Get a rope! Hang'em high!

Congratulations, Nicholas Kristof!
You've created the world's first virtual lynch mob.

[Taran]

Anon....

Actually, the goal here is to allow this lady out of Pakistan. Her life could well be in danger, so let me play devil's advocate -

Are lynch mobs in your region of the world so incompetent that they don't try to kill people, they try to put pressure on people to allow them to travel away from where they may be in physical danger? That's counterintuitive. But then, maybe impeaching Bush is a lynch mob mentality - or maybe not impeaching Bush is a lynch mob mentality. That will be argued back and forth...

At the end of the day, do you want this woman to have to stay where she may be in harm's way? If so, then maybe you're as bad as a lynch mob...

[Anon for now]

Dear Taran,

I agree with the goal of allowing Mukhtaran Bibi to leaving Pakistan and travelling freely. Freedom of travel is a basic human right and it was stupid of the Pakistani bureaucrats to deny her that right.

I knew that defending the rights of the accused criminals would not be a popular position to take. But their lives are in danger - they could be executed quietly in the middle of the night, as former PM Z.A.Bhutto was executed. I don't there will be worldwide protests as a result

In contrast, Mukhtaran is protected by a police guard of between nine to forty people - which she herself requested. They dare not kill her - the negative publicity would be catastrophic.

It's the lives of those thirteen people in jail that is endangered. If you believe that human life is sacred, as I do, their lives are as worthy of protection as Mukhtaran's.

Unless we proactively make it clear that executing these people is not an acceptable
solution, we may wake up tomorrow to find that they were hanged.

[Taran]

Dear Anon...

I think that the lives of the accused were always in their own hands. Their lives are in their hands now. Certainly, they too could travel. Wouldn't you agree?

Further, I don't think they can be tried twice for the same crime. I'm no Pakistani lawyer, but I'm betting that even if they went to court again today, they would be released again - because the state doesn't have a strong case. It's her word against their words. But that's normal in rape trials. I expect her father would testify as well, but without physical evidence... well. That doesn't mean that they didn't do it. It doesn't mean that they did either. That's probably the crux of the legal problem.

But the village knows whether these men are guilty or innocent - not in a legal sense that one would consider. But they know. And what happens, happens. If these are fine, upstanding men who would never do this, their village knows. And if not, they know that too.

[Jayanne]

"OK, I'll play devil's advocate. Is Kristof lying, or is someone in Pakistan feeding him a load of hooey?"

Anon for now, I oppose capital punishment. But you ask whether Kristof's lying or has been lied to by someone in Pakistan. I don't know, but if you think that, you also have to think the Pakistan Times is lying or has been lied to; that the BBC (which reports independently of Kristof) is lying or has been lied to by someone in Pakistan -- lied to by, say, Aamer Ahmed Khan ( BBC News, Karachi), who admittedly talks both of rape and of attempted rape, or Paul Anderson ( BBC News, Islamabad), or by people who filed all the other BBC reports. Can you give us sources to rebut the reporting by the Pakistan Times and the BBC and The Guardian and The Independent, on this case?

As I said, I oppose capital punishment for any offence, under any circumstance. It is to me (as it is to many if not most, here in the UK) barbaric. If these men are rapists, still, I would prefer that they go free than that they be subject to judicial murder.

But I also want Ms Mai to be allowed to travel and to be free to do so and fail to see why she is not.

I hope you can understand that.

[Kat Callon]

Anon for Now,

You appear to be almost as misguided as Musharraf. You should take a logic class, because your conclusions are not supportable.

If Mukhtaran is free and protected why was she barred from leaving her country? Why was her passport confiscated? With the stigma attached to rape victims in Pakistan, why would she lie? In one of your posts you stated that some of your information came from Pakistani sources. Perhaps that is the source of your... confusion.

In one of your posts you mentioned "emnity" between clans. Mukhtaran was obviously able to see beyond clan differences as was evidenced by her attempts to enroll the children of her rapists in her schools.

It appears that if you choose to rely on Pakistani sources you should try reading the Pakistan Times.

[reality]

Anon,

I live in pakistan and have followed this story since the day it started; on local as well as international media.

Sorry you are playing advocate to the wrong devil.

The rape was ordered and Kristoff did not discover this. The western media found out about this later, once the local media had reported this including the Urdu dailies.

The rape was sentenced by the village council. This has been clearly stated by all accounts of credible reporters.

Mukhtaran was paraded naked. [ This happens every once in a while in rural settings. with the local strongmen decreeing these sentences.]

You need not be the President of Pakistan or someone powerful to get these things done. Power is a relative thing. Even a small fish is powerful in its own small pond. In this case a village in South Punjab. The clan was the strongest in the village and probably felt it to be their God given right to dole out inhumane punishment.

Mukhtaran has had the courage to stand up against the System and all sections of Pakistani society are with her. Not because "we wanna hang em high"; but because justice be served to someone who has been wronged.

Tune in to the pakistani radio or satellite channels [ not Government sponsored ones] and perhaps that perspective shall change your views.

Reality