[DAWN] KARACHI: "No longer restricted to the rural and tribal areas of Pakistain, but sadly increasing in urban communities as well is a very serious human rights...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
issue that Pakistain faces -- violence in the name of honour," said Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari at the launch of Nafisa Shah’s book Honour Unmasked: Gender Violence, Law, and Power in Pakistain at the Arts Council on Wednesday.
With regard to 2016 alone, he reminded the audience of a few such heinous incidents of young women being murdered in the name of ’honour’. From a jirga in Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
ordering the killing of a teenager, a mother torching to death her own teenage daughter, and even the honour killing of social media activist Qandeel Baloch, Bilawal lamented the reality of how women in the country are falling prey to crimes of ’honour’ perpetrated by those near and dear to them.
In the midst of his speech, Bilawal went off script and decided to engage the audience in a more honest appraisal of the political standing of laws and consequent amendments to prosecute those guilty of honour killings. It was then that the contradictions the country faces came right to the fore.
"It is rightly said that it is up to my generation to find a solution, but the problem is that we cannot do it alone. We know how controversial, how dangerous this topic gets. We, as the PPP, have lost Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
and despite having a UN commission investigate her liquidation, we have not got justice. Then how am I expected to get justice for every woman and child in Pakistain who suffers at the hands of the violence of men?" he questioned.
"The challenge before us is to create a system of justice that will punish the [perpetrators of] violence and not seek out cultural, religious or moral rationales."
The author of Honour Unmasked, Nafisa Shah, also spoke about how the book is primarily academic while incorporating anthropological theories of honour and law. "I have explored connections between practices of violence and ideologies of peace, between victims and perpetrators, between custom and law, between state and society," she explained.