A brave stance

Dr Ghamdi resigns from CII over women’s bill
By Shahzad Raza
Daily Times, September 21, 2006

ISLAMABAD: Religious scholar Dr Javed Ahmed Ghamdi resigned from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) on Wednesday, saying the government had bypassed the constitutional body on the Protection of Women Bill.

“I put in my resignation during a council meeting. The chairman of the council and all my colleagues asked me not to resign, but my decision is final and irreversible,” Dr Ghamdi told Daily Times. The government formed a separate committee of ulema to review the bill with the stated purpose of ensuring it was in conformity with Islamic injunctions. Dr Ghamdi said this was a breach of the CII’s jurisdiction, since the very purpose of the council is to ensure that Pakistan’s laws do not conflict with the teachings of Islam.

“The CII is a constitutional body. And after this bypassing from the government I don’t want to serve in it anymore,” he said, and urged other CII members to resign too. Dr Ghamdi said the amendments in the bill proposed by the ulema committee were against the injunctions of Islam. By incorporating the ulema’s suggestions in the bill, the government was in fact keeping the status quo on the discriminatory laws against women, he said. The ulema committee’s amendments kill the basic essence of the bill that was passed by a parliamentary select committee, he said.

He said the committee’s proposal to make adultery an offence under the Pakistan Penal Code was against Islamic injunctions. He asserted that the Quran conferred equal weight to evidence given by women and men, but the Protection of Women bill deprived women of that religious right.