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Another minister endorses rapes

Indian minister says rapes happen 'accidentally'

Activists in Kolkata, from the Social Unity Center of India [SUCI), protest against the gang-rape and murder of two girls in the district of Badaun in Uttar Pradesh and recent rapes in West Bengal, on June 7, 2014

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New Delhi (AFP) - A minister from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has said rapes happen "accidentally" in the latest controversial remarks by a politician amid renewed anger over attacks against women.

Ramsevak Paikra, the home minister of central Chhattisgarh state who is responsible for law and order, said late on Saturday that rapes did not happen on purpose.

"Such incidents (rapes) do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally," Paikra, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which also rules at the national level, told reporters.

Paikra, who was asked for his thoughts on the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in a neighbouring state, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks.

The remarks come days after the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state said rapes were "sometimes right, sometimes wrong".

The minister, Babulal Gaur, gave the remarks on Thursday at a time of growing outrage over the gang-rape and murder of the girls, aged 12 and 14, in northern Uttar Pradesh state late last month.

Modi, whose party came to power in a landslide election victory, has so far stayed silent over the rapes and has not addressed the politicians' comments.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav faced severe criticism for his perceived insensitivity over the attacks on the low-caste girls, who were found hanging from a mango tree after being sexually assaulted multiple times.

Yadav's father Mulayam Singh -- leader of the Samajwadi Party -- was also the target of public anger in April when he told an election rally that he opposed the recently introduced death penalty for gang-rapists, saying "boys make mistakes".

Women's groups have slammed the comments, saying they were evidence that politicians were unable to stem sexual violence because they lacked respect for India's women and were ignorant of the issues.

Politicians also came under fire after the fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012, a crime that angered the nation and shone a global spotlight on India's treatment of women.

India brought in tougher rape laws last year after the Delhi attack, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women across the country.

At the time, several politicians sought to blame tight jeans, short skirts and other Western influences for the country's rise in rapes, while the head of a village council pointed to chowmein which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

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PointblankSenior Member

At the time, several politicians sought to blame tight jeans, short skirts and other Western influences for the country's rise in rapes, while the head of a village council pointed to chowmein which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

6/9/148:12 PM

Former Member

http://www.thestar.com/news/wo...r_love_marriage.html

Pakistani teen survives attempted ‘honour killing’ over love marriage

Woman, 18, shot in face, thrown in canal by her father for marrying against family’s wishes.

FRAME GRAB FROM SKY NEWS

Saba Maqsood, of Hafizabad, Pakistan, 18, has survived an ˜honour killing" in which her father shot her twice in the face and threw her into a canal. Maqsood married a man her family did not approve of.

By: Munir Ahmed The Associated Press, Published on Sat Jun 07 2014

ISLAMABAD—An 18-year-old Pakistani woman “miraculously survived” after being shot and thrown into a canal by her father for marrying against the family’s wishes, police said Saturday, describing the latest in a series of such attacks on women in the Muslim-majority country.

The assault on Wednesday came days after a 25-year-old woman was beaten and stoned to death by her family for marrying a man they did not approve of, one of hundreds of so-called “honour killings” carried out every year in Pakistan against women accused of bringing shame to their conservative families through sexual transgressions.

Local police officer Ali Akbar said the teenager’s father, with help from some of his close relatives, attacked her in Hafizabad, a conservative city 200 kilometres southeast of the capital Islamabad.

Akbar said Saba Maqsood was in love with a man from a nearby city and married him last week, but her father Ahmed brought her back to his home, promising she would not be harmed. Akbar said her family members beat her, and the following day Ahmed took her to a deserted area and tried to kill her.

The woman told police her two uncles looked on as her father shot her in the face, put her in a burlap sack and threw her into a canal, Akbar said.

“Saba Maqsood told us that her father and other relatives had assumed that she was dead, but she regained consciousness, opened the sack and came out of the canal,” he said. He said she made her way to a gas station, where she alerted a security guard.

“We are raiding different places in an effort to capture her father and all those who participated in the assault,” he said.

The fatal stoning last month cast a harsh light on violence against women in Pakistan, where human rights activists say perpetrators are often acquitted or given light sentences.

Under Pakistani law, those charged with killing women can see their criminal case dropped if family members of the deceased forgive them or accept so-called “blood money.”

6/9/149:07 PM

Former Member

Associated Press in Lahore
theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 May 2014 08.30 BST

Police collect evidence near the body of Farzana Iqbal outside the Lahore high court building

Police collect evidence near the body of Farzana Parveen outside the Lahore high court building. Photograph: Reuters

A pregnant woman was stoned to death by her own family in front of a Pakistani high court on Tuesday for marrying the man she loved.

Nearly 20 members of the woman's family, including her father and brothers, attacked her and her husband with batons and bricks in broad daylight before a crowd of onlookers in front of the high court of Lahore, the police investigator Rana Mujahid said.

Hundreds of women are murdered every year in Muslim-majority Pakistanin so-called " honour killings" – carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behaviour – but public stoning is extremely rare.

Mujahid said the woman's father has been arrested for murder and that police were working to apprehend all those who participated in the "heinous crime".

Another police officer, Naseem Butt, identified the slain woman as Farzana Parveen, 25, and said she had married Mohammad Iqbal against her family's wishes after being engaged to him for years.

Her father, Mohammad Azeem, had filed an abduction case against Iqbal, which the couple was contesting, her lawyer Mustafa Kharal said. He confirmed that she was three months pregnant.

Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, who view marriage for love as a transgression.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in "honour killings" in 2013.

But even Pakistanis who have tracked violence against women expressed shock at the brutal and public nature of Tuesday's killing.

"I have not heard of any such case in which a woman was stoned to death, and the most shameful and worrying thing is that this woman was killed in front of a court," said Zia Awan, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist.

He said Pakistanis who commit violence against women are often acquitted or handed light sentences because of poor police work and faulty prosecutions.

"Either the family does not pursue such cases or police don't properly investigate. As a result, the courts either award light sentences to the attackers, or they are acquitted," he said.

Parveen's relatives had waited outside the court, which is located on a main downtown thoroughfare. As the couple walked up to the main gate, the family members fired shots in the air and tried to snatch her from Iqbal, her lawyer said.

When she resisted, her father, brothers and other relatives started beating her, eventually pelting her with bricks from a nearby construction site, Iqbal said.

Iqbal, 45, said he started seeing Parveen after the death of his first wife, with whom he had five children.

"We were in love," he told the Associated Press. He alleged that the woman's family wanted to swindle money from him before marrying her off.

"I simply took her to court and registered a marriage," infuriating the family, he said.

Parveen's father surrendered after the incident and called the murder an "honour killing", Butt said.

"I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it," Mujahid, the police investigator, quoted the father as saying.

Mujahid said the woman's body had been handed over to her husband for burial.

6/9/149:12 PM