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Freedom of religion in Pakistan is guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan for individuals of various religions and religious sects.
The Hudood Ordinances are laws in Pakistan that were enacted in 1979 as part of then military ruler Zia-ul-Haq's "Islamisation" process. It replaced parts of the British-era Pakistan Penal Code, adding new criminal offences of adultery and fornication, and new punishments of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death. After much controversy and criticism parts of the law were extensively revised in 2006 by the Women's Protection Bill.
Zināʾ (زِنَاء) or zinā is an Islamic legal term referring to unlawful sexual intercourse. According to traditional jurisprudence, zina can include adultery, fornication, prostitution, rape, sodomy, incest, and bestiality. Zina must be proved by testimony of four Muslim eyewitnesses to the actual act of penetration, or a confession repeated four times and not retracted later. The offenders must have acted of their own free will. Rapists could be prosecuted under different legal categories which used normal evidentiary rules. Making an accusation of zina without presenting the required eyewitnesses is called qadhf (القذف), which is itself a hudud offense.
Asma Jilani Jahangir was a Pakistani human rights lawyer and social activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Jahangir was known for playing a prominent role in the Lawyers' Movement and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and as a trustee at the International Crisis Group.
Hudud is an Arabic word meaning "borders, boundaries, limits". In the religion of Islam it refers to punishments that under Islamic law (sharīʿah) are mandated and fixed by God as per Islam. These punishments were applied in pre-modern Islam, and their use in some modern states has been a source of controversy.
Women in Pakistan make up 48.76% of the population according to the 2017 census of Pakistan. Women in Pakistan have played an important role throughout Pakistan's history and they are allowed to vote in elections since 1956. In Pakistan, women have held high offices including that of the Prime Minister, Speaker of the National Assembly, Leader of the Opposition, as well as federal ministers, judges, and serving commissioned posts in the armed forces. Major General Shahida Malik, attaining the highest military post for a woman. Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan on 2 December 1988.
Sharization or Islamization has a long history in Pakistan since the 1950s, but it became the primary policy, or "centerpiece" of the government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the ruler of Pakistan from 1977 until his death in 1988. Zia has also been called "the person most responsible for turning Pakistan into a global center for political Islam."
The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is a constitutional court of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which has the power to examine and determine whether the laws of the country comply with Sharia law. The court was established in 1980 during the government of the President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. It is located in the federal capital, Islamabad. It hears appeals under the Hudood Ordinances, a religious legislation in the country introduced in 1979.
The Pakistan Penal Code, the main criminal code of Pakistan, penalizes blasphemy against any recognized religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, around 80 people are known to be incarcerated in Pakistan on blasphemy charges—half of those face life in prison or the death penalty. From 1967 to 2014, over 1,300 people were accused of blasphemy, with Muslims constituting most of those accused. According to human rights groups, blasphemy laws in Pakistan have been exploited not only for persecuting minorities but also for settling personal rivalries, often against other Muslims. Though no judicial execution has been carried out under these laws, many of those accused, their lawyers and any persons speaking against blasphemy laws and proceedings have become victims of lynchings or street vigilantism in Pakistan. More than 75 people were murdered for blasphemy between 1987 and 2017.
The Women's Protection Bill which was passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan on 15 November 2006 is an attempt to amend the heavily criticised 1979 Hudood Ordinance laws which govern the punishment for rape and adultery in Pakistan. Critics of the Hudood Ordinance alleged that it made it exceptionally difficult and dangerous to prove an allegation of rape, and thousands of women had been imprisoned as a result of the bill. The bill returned a number of offences from the Zina Ordinance to the Pakistan Penal Code, where they had been before 1979, and created an entirely new set of procedures governing the prosecution of the offences of adultery and fornication, whipping and amputation were removed as punishments. The law meant women would not be jailed if they were unable to prove rape and their complaints of rape would not be seen as confession of adultery.
Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu is a Nigerian woman condemned to death for adultery in 2002. She gave birth to a child as a single woman in Sokoto, a Nigerian state under Sharia law. She was sentenced to be stoned, but was acquitted of all charges in March 2002 after a retrial.
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times.
Honour killings in Pakistan are known locally as karo-kari. Pakistan has the highest number of documented and estimated honour killings per capita of any country in the world; about one-fifth of the world's honour killings are committed in Pakistan. An honour killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the belief the victim has brought dishonour upon the family or community. The death of the victim is viewed as a way to restore the reputation and honour of the family.
Under the government of General Zia-ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988, there was significant political and military repression in Pakistan. Among the complaints against the Muhammad Zia ul-Haq administration were its repression of press and journalists, repression of rape victims imprisoned for zina under its Hudood Ordinances, and its repression of protestors. Protestors were repressed particularly violently after the execution of Pakistan's first democratically elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and during the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy campaign.
Punishment for rape in Pakistan under the Pakistani laws is either death penalty or imprisonment of between ten and twenty-five years. For cases related to gang rape, the punishment is either death penalty or life imprisonment. DNA test and other scientific evidence are used in prosecuting rape cases in Pakistan.
Since the early Islamic states of the eighth and ninth centuries, Sharia always existed alongside other normative systems.
Rape in Saudi Arabia is regulated by Islamic law, which is the basis for the legal system of Saudi Arabia. Under Islamic law, the punishment which a court can impose on the rapist may range from flogging to execution. However, there is no penal code in Saudi Arabia, and there is no written law which specifically criminalizes rape or prescribes its punishment. In addition, there is no prohibition of marital rape.
In Islam, human sexuality is governed by Islamic law (Sharia). Accordingly, sexual violation is regarded as a violation of moral and divine law. Islam divides claims of sexual violation into 'divine rights' and 'interpersonal rights' : the former requiring divine punishment and the latter belonging to the more flexible human realm.
The legislative assembly of Pakistan has enacted a number of measures designed to give women more power in the areas of family, inheritance, revenue, and civil and criminal laws, while also attempting to safeguard their right to freedom of speech and expression without gender discrimination, seeing this as required by the Quran.
References
- 1 2 Khan, Shahid Reman (25 May 1986). "Under Pakistan's Form of Islamic Law, Rape Is a Crime--for the Victims". LA Times.
- 1 2 Robyn Emerton (2005). International Women's Rights Cases. 709: Psychology Press. p. 878. ISBN 9781859419069.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - 1 2 3 Rebecca J. Cook (1994). Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives. 50: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 634. ISBN 9780812215380.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - 1 2 3 4 Sangh Mittra (2004). Encyclopaedia of Women in South Asia: Pakistan. 36. p. 312. ISBN 9788178351896.
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