How Many More Samias Will Succumb?
While we celebrate again a Revival of Faith this Ramzaan, please ponder over how many more Samias need to die before we wake up.
In the First Daur e Jahiliya the Jaahil Arabs used to bury their daughters. Is today's Pakistan any different?
We may be worse. They were Jaahils, we are literate Jaahils.
In four weeks the nation will celebrate Eid ul Fitr. Much before then, the exhumed bodies of the victims would be reburied and ater making pious declarations and atttestation all would be effectively forgotten. And we will merrily live in the Daur e Jahiliya of 21st century.
***
Beena Sarwar writes: Samia Sarwar wasn't so lucky. The young woman from Peshawar had left her abusive, drug-dependent husband. Her parents accepted that but drew the line at her intention to divorce him and re-marry. She took refuge at a women's shelter in Lahore. In April 1999, her mother asked to meet Saima at AGHS, the office of her attorney Hina Jilani, arriving with a manservant. As Saima entered the room, he pulled out a pistol and shot her dead. Her mother escaped in a rickshaw but a plainclothes policeman at AGHS shot the murderer dead as he left the office. Upstairs, the victim's petite black-clad body lay on the floor by Hina Jilani's desk, a bullet lodged in the wall behind it. What many found astounding was that Saima's parents were not some illiterate people from a remote tribal area, but educated, influential, city dwellers. The father was a businessman who had headed the Peshawar Chamber of Commerce and Industry while the mother was a gynaecologist. Then too, the issue had been raised in the Senate, when former law minister Iqbal Haider initiated a resolution against the murder. Like Israrullah Zehri of the BNP, a secular, nationalist party, Ajmal Khattak, the supposedly progressive leader of the ANP, a party with similar credentials, had shouted Mr Haider down. He held that Samia Sarwar had disgraced her family who had acted according to Pakhtun tradition. Some senators from FATA physically attacked Mr Haider. Only four senators stood in support of the resolution: the PPP's Iqbal Haider, Aitzaz Ahsan, then leader of opposition in the Senate, the late Hussain Shah Rashdi, and the MQM's Jamiluddin Aali. Twenty-four Senators including now-presidential-candidate Mushahid Hussain Syed, and luminaries like Javed Iqbal and Akram Zaki stood to oppose it.
What to do?
Our first immediate demand should be the impartial professional inquiry and investigation of the case and then bringing the culprits to justice. The most stringent punishment should be awarded to those who will be found to be involved in committing this heinous crime. In past experiences when inquiry committees were formed and suo moto notices were taken on the violation of women's rights there were no concrete results. A similar committee was constituted in the case of Samia Imran who was killed with the support of her mother in the office of AGHS in 1991. No one in her case has been given any punishment to-date as her father Sarwar Mohmand was a socially and politically influential man. He was the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Peshawar and thus managed to escape from the grip of the law. Therefore, it is suggested that if the government is serious in making this incident a test case, they must include representatives of women and human rights organisations in the inquiry committee. Also there should be a clear timeframe for this committee to submit its report and the conclusion of the case. Otherwise such inquiry committees have become to be known as delaying mechanisms to kill the matter.
Another important step is to immediately purge both houses of parliament from this misogynist tribal/feudal mindset. People who subscribe to such criminality, should be declared disqualified as they shame all of us. It is vital that the political parties take action against such legislators and cancel their party membership. Civil society organisations should not allow the case to rest, rather they should take it up in a court of law, as the statement made by Israrullah Zahri is in complete violation of article 25 of the Constitution. Both senators, Asrarualla Zahri and Jan Mohd Jamil, should be disqualified from the Senate. Dr Farzana Bari and Sarwar Bari
In the First Daur e Jahiliya the Jaahil Arabs used to bury their daughters. Is today's Pakistan any different?
We may be worse. They were Jaahils, we are literate Jaahils.
In four weeks the nation will celebrate Eid ul Fitr. Much before then, the exhumed bodies of the victims would be reburied and ater making pious declarations and atttestation all would be effectively forgotten. And we will merrily live in the Daur e Jahiliya of 21st century.
***
Beena Sarwar writes: Samia Sarwar wasn't so lucky. The young woman from Peshawar had left her abusive, drug-dependent husband. Her parents accepted that but drew the line at her intention to divorce him and re-marry. She took refuge at a women's shelter in Lahore. In April 1999, her mother asked to meet Saima at AGHS, the office of her attorney Hina Jilani, arriving with a manservant. As Saima entered the room, he pulled out a pistol and shot her dead. Her mother escaped in a rickshaw but a plainclothes policeman at AGHS shot the murderer dead as he left the office. Upstairs, the victim's petite black-clad body lay on the floor by Hina Jilani's desk, a bullet lodged in the wall behind it. What many found astounding was that Saima's parents were not some illiterate people from a remote tribal area, but educated, influential, city dwellers. The father was a businessman who had headed the Peshawar Chamber of Commerce and Industry while the mother was a gynaecologist. Then too, the issue had been raised in the Senate, when former law minister Iqbal Haider initiated a resolution against the murder. Like Israrullah Zehri of the BNP, a secular, nationalist party, Ajmal Khattak, the supposedly progressive leader of the ANP, a party with similar credentials, had shouted Mr Haider down. He held that Samia Sarwar had disgraced her family who had acted according to Pakhtun tradition. Some senators from FATA physically attacked Mr Haider. Only four senators stood in support of the resolution: the PPP's Iqbal Haider, Aitzaz Ahsan, then leader of opposition in the Senate, the late Hussain Shah Rashdi, and the MQM's Jamiluddin Aali. Twenty-four Senators including now-presidential-candidate Mushahid Hussain Syed, and luminaries like Javed Iqbal and Akram Zaki stood to oppose it.
What to do?
Our first immediate demand should be the impartial professional inquiry and investigation of the case and then bringing the culprits to justice. The most stringent punishment should be awarded to those who will be found to be involved in committing this heinous crime. In past experiences when inquiry committees were formed and suo moto notices were taken on the violation of women's rights there were no concrete results. A similar committee was constituted in the case of Samia Imran who was killed with the support of her mother in the office of AGHS in 1991. No one in her case has been given any punishment to-date as her father Sarwar Mohmand was a socially and politically influential man. He was the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Peshawar and thus managed to escape from the grip of the law. Therefore, it is suggested that if the government is serious in making this incident a test case, they must include representatives of women and human rights organisations in the inquiry committee. Also there should be a clear timeframe for this committee to submit its report and the conclusion of the case. Otherwise such inquiry committees have become to be known as delaying mechanisms to kill the matter.
Another important step is to immediately purge both houses of parliament from this misogynist tribal/feudal mindset. People who subscribe to such criminality, should be declared disqualified as they shame all of us. It is vital that the political parties take action against such legislators and cancel their party membership. Civil society organisations should not allow the case to rest, rather they should take it up in a court of law, as the statement made by Israrullah Zahri is in complete violation of article 25 of the Constitution. Both senators, Asrarualla Zahri and Jan Mohd Jamil, should be disqualified from the Senate. Dr Farzana Bari and Sarwar Bari
posted by temporal at 9/04/2008
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home