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The following article by Giraldus Cambrensis in Western Resistance Blog (published 25 May 2006) is no longer available since the blog has been shut down.

I provide it as a service to my readers:

We mentioned on April 6 that in 1979, under the Islamification process instigated by the dictator General Zia ul-Haq, a controversial set of laws was introduced, called the Hudood Ordinances. The main controversy of this set of laws was that it made no distinction between rape and adultery.

The Hudood Ordinances had been introduced on February 10, 1979, but have led to gross injustices against women. Particularly in cases of rape where there are few witnesses, a victim of rape often ends up in prison when she has "admitted" she had had illicit intercourse or zina.

As we reported in April, a report, published in March by The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) stated that of the 6,000 women and children being held in prison in Pakistan, the vast majority (80%) were imprisoned because of the Hudood Ordinances, most of these being charged with adultery.

The full text of the Hudood Ordinances can be found here, where the crime of "zina is defined and categorised. Zina is sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to each other.

The law actually allows those men or women who are found guilty of zina to be subjected to Hadd, which is carried out in the form of public stoning to death if the perpetrator is a Muslim. If the perpetrator is not a Muslim, then the perpetrator of zina can be given a public flogging of 100 lashes.

The sin of rape is regarded as zina-bil-jabr and the sentence is the same, except that here too a non-Muslim can be sentenced to death as well as receiving 100 lashes.

If a perpetrator (or victim of) zina-bil-jabr is not an adult, the person is liable to a prison sentence of five years, with the possible addition of 30 lashes and a fine.

The controversial part of Hudood comes in article 8: "Proof of zina or zina-bil-jabr liable to hadd":

Proof of zina-bil-jabr liable to hadd shall be in one of the following forms, namely:-
(a) the accused makes before a Court of competent jurisdiction a confession of the commission of the offence; or
(b) at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the Court is satisfied, having regard to the requirements of tazkiyah al-shuhood, that they are truthful persons and abstain from major sins (kabair), give evidence as eye-widnesses of the act of penetration necessary to the offence:
Provided that, if the accused is a non-Muslim, the eye-witnesses may be non-Muslims.

This is the clause which has created the biggest confusion surrounding the Hudood Ordinances, as by reporting a rape, a Muslimah is therefore confessing to zina, and is thus liable to hadd (stoning). Fortunately, no-one has so far been stoned to death under these unjust rulings.

However, that does not mean that the sentence of stoning to death has not been given out. According to an article which originally appeared in Pakistan's Daily Times on Sept. 12, 2003, up to 1988, a total of 26 sentences of stoning to death had been issued by courts. In all of these cases, appeals to superior courts reversed the death sentences. The article states:

The testimony of women is not considered for hadd punishment even though she may be the victim, as in cases of rape. Since hadd has never been executed, the obvious discrimination in the law gives the impression that the State considers women and non-Muslims to be unreliable citizens......

...A very large number of women have been tortured, molested and raped by the police with impunity. From 1980 to 1987, the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) alone heard 3,399 appeals of zina involving female prisoners. This is only the tip of the iceberg, given the number of women arrested and released before reaching the appeal stage. Once a woman is accused of zina, she stands stigmatised regardless of subsequent acquittals. Apart from a couple of isolated women prisoners, the majority of them come from extremely disadvantaged sections of society. These figures beg some compelling questions: Was there less zina before the promulgation of the hudood law? How is it that once women are made punishable under the law thousands of complaints are filed as against hardly any under the old law which protected women? Why are nearly all women accused of zina poor and illiterate? Are they more promiscuous than the rich and the famous living in our society?

In many cases, women alleging rape have been arrested and convicted of zina. The accused men are given the benefit of the doubt and acquitted by the FSC. The present trend is to arrest all married couples who contract a nikkah (a religious ritual formalising the engagement of a couple before marriage) without the blessings of their families. The female is pressured by the police and by some judges to abandon her husband. She remains in a bind. Denial exposes her to the risk of being prosecuted for zina, and acceptance keeps her from securing bail.

Various groups, such as the Pakistan Women's Commission and Lawyers For Human Rights & Legal Aid have campaigned for the Hudood Ordinances to be repealed. During the premierships of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, commissions investigated the enactment of the Hudood laws. Bith commissions recommended that they should be repealed, but no action was subsequently taken.

A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) states that for witnesses to zina (penetration) the testimony of a woman carries no legal weight for Hadd (death by stoning). In practice, women found guilty have been unable to testify in their own defence.

Most of the rape, adultery and fornication cases invoke the lesser punishments of "tazir" which involve imprisonment, fines, or lashes. HRW states the fear of "hadd" punishments act as a disincentive against women pressing ahead with cases where they have been the victims of rape. They cite a case of five women from Larkana, who were gang-raped in January 1991. They withdrew their accusations when threatened with being charged under the Hudood Ordinances.

Another case from the same year involved a woman called Majeeda Mujid. She had been abducted by a gang of men and had been repeatedly raped over a period of two months. When she went to the police, she was imprisoned, and her rapists were set free.

HRW notes that Pakistani legal aid attorneys have observed that most Hudood cases are brought by the woman's husband or father, with no supporting evidence. In most of these cases, the only "crime" the woman has committed is to refuse to submit to a forced marriage arranged by their families.

Acquittal rates for Hudood stand at only 30% of cases. But HRW states that in the way most Hudood trials are conducted, there is an assumption made that women are automatically guilty until proved innocent.

The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) states that Christians are often made victims of the Hudood Ordinances, according to a report in the July 20, 2004 issue of the Daily Times. Michael Javed, then president of APMA claimed that since 1986, 2,000-2,500 Christians in Sindh and nearly 5,000 in Punjab province had been charged under Hudood Ordinances. Javed said that these were booked by police on false charges of adultery, kidnapping and violating prohibition.

He also cited the 1986 blasphemy laws, which were unfairly applied to Christians, far more frequently than Muslims (even though Chrisians only comprise 3% of the national population.

Now, according to the Pakistan Daily Times the Federal minister for law, justice and human rights, Wasi Zafar (pictured above) said earlier today on Geo TV that the government will repeal the Hudood Ordinance.

He had proposed amendments to the Hudood Ordinance and submitted a draft of his proposed amendments to the appropriate legal department.

Zafar said: "Some clauses in the ordinance will be included in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the ordinance will be automatically repealed when it is included in common law."

In January, Zafar promised that he was committed to reforming the judiciary, and was preparing to introduce quotas for women in the legal professions.

The news appears good, but until it becomes a reality, there is no cause for rejoicing yet. The Islamist opposition parties, the coalition called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or MMA will fiercely contest any amendments to the Hudood Ordinances, let alone their full repeal. The MMA proved during the February riots concerning the Danish cartoons that they have the power to mobilize Muslim mobs to get their own way.