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| India-Pakistan |
| Woman appeals death by stoning verdict |
| 2002-04-25 |
| A woman, sentenced to death by stoning in public by a trial court, has filed an appeal before the Federal Shariat Court on Tuesday. The appeal was filed on her behalf from Kohat, where she was sentenced by an additional district and sessions judge on April 17 for committing adultery. Barrister Masood Kausar will plead her case before the Shariat Court. The appellant is currently lodged in solitary confinement in a death cell at Kohat prison. The prison officials have not been allowing any individual, including members of different human rights bodies, to meet with her. The suckling female baby, born while she was in prison, is given in custody of some female prisoners. In the appeal, the appellant has claimed that the trial judge had overlooked various important points while convicting her. It is added that there were two basic ingredients without whose fulfilment the punishment of stoning to death could not be awarded. The appellant claimed that she had neither confessed to any guilt nor had four truthful witnesses who abstained from major sins deposed against her. It is added that in the statement recorded under section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code before the trial judge, the appellant had stated she was forcefully raped by her brother-in-law. A fact-finding team was sent to Kohat, which came to know that the woman was in fact trapped by her in-laws. She said her husband was serving a prison term, when she complained to her mother-in-law about her rape by her brother-in-law. However, her father-in-law took her to the police station and charged his rival, Akmal, with the offence. Someone called the present conflict a "clash of civilizations." I thought it took two to clash? It may not be multiculturalist or postmodern or whatever the hell they call it of me, but that's not a civilization on the other side. And furthermore, for being so much holier than us depraved westerners, those people sure spend a lot of time raping each other. Maybe there should be a shariah law that says you should keep your doinker to yourself. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |