Daily Times, March 7, 2006
‘Musharraf weak without uniform’
* Asma blasts ‘corrupt’ judiciary, says women are the victims
By Naik Muhammad Malik
MIANWALI: President Pervez Musharraf is weak without his uniform and he has been unable to tackle corruption in Pakistan’s judiciary, where justice is “for sale”, said Asma Jehangir, the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, on Tuesday.
This corruption in the judiciary has led to the victimisation of thousands of women in particular, Jehangir said at the district press club here a day before the International Women’s Day. Jehangir led an HRCP team to Mianwali to meet alleged victims of vani, a custom whereby families settle feuds by giving their daughters in marriage to their enemies.
She said that women in Pakistan were some of the most poorly treated in the world, suffering cruel and outdated social prejudices that led to honour killings and vani. “Government makes laws not to give relief to women but to please its foreign masters,” she said.
Women are often scared to report crimes against them to the police because the police often humiliate them and they know they are unlikely to get justice through the courts, Jehangir said. She added that the judiciary is “awash with corruption from top to bottom”.
Ms Jehangir said that 6,500 convicts were currently on death row and most of them were from the poor or middle class. She said that the HRCP was against capital punishment, but believed stern punishments were important to deter crime.
However, the judicial system has become so polluted that it is not fulfilling its function of punishing criminals, she said. The common man is suffering a lot from “the gifts of the military government in the shape of the Police Order and Local Government System, she said. A group of women later held a walk to mark Women’s Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment