Update, via Majikthise and Ezra Klein:
It looks like they’re releasing Mukhtaran Mai. Kristof reports that
on Tuesday evening, the prime minister of Pakistan apparently called Mukhtaran, presumably to say the government was relenting. It has now taken her off the “exit control list,” and she reportedly has been taken to the US embassy, perhaps to get a visa. She still hasn’t been allowed contact with her friends, but some think that the government is now just going to wash its hands of the mess and let her go back to her village or just take her to the airport and put her on a plane out.
And from Yahoo:
A Pakistani gang rape victim, whose case has been highlighted by international media, has been removed from a list of people barred from travelling abroad, the government said on Wednesday […] “On the instruction of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the name of Mukhtaran Mai has been removed from the ECL,” Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sharpao told parliament, referring to an exit control list that prevents overseas travel.
“She is free to go anywhere. She can go wherever she wants,” he said.
Mai’s case provoked national outcry and focused international attention on the treatment of women in rural Pakistan. Human rights workers had wanted Mai to go abroad to speak on the plight of women in her country.
Aziz said last week any security measures were protective as Mai had expressed fears for her safety.
President Pervez Musharraf, who has been trying to project Pakistan as a moderate and progressive Muslim nation, has taken a personal interest in the case, saying it was tarnishing the country’s image overseas.
I’m not sure if that means that Musharraf was concerned that Mai’s detention was tarnishing Pakistan’s image, or that Mai telling her story was tarnishing Pakistan’s image. I’m also not sure if this means that Mukhtaran Mai is really being released, or if this is a smoke screen to avert whatever international attention is being paid to the case.
But, news is news, so I updated.
Please let me know if someone has already posted on this. I don’t want to leave a repetitive diary up.
Does anyone remember Mukhtaran Mai, the Pakistani lady who was gang raped by order of a court? She was expected to commit suicide, but instead she fought for prosecution of her rapists, and then built a school. (That’s not a very good telling of the story; try this Kristof column if you want to hear it told better.)
According to Kristof:
On Thursday, the authorities put Ms. Mukhtaran under house arrest – to stop her from speaking out. In phone conversations in the last few days, she said that when she tried to step outside, police pointed their guns at her. To silence her, the police cut off her land line.
After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate, and apparently was a warning to Ms. Mukhtaran to shut up. Instead, Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cellphone. But at dawn yesterday the police bustled her off, and there’s been no word from her since. Her cellphone doesn’t answer.
The Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women has a page with more information on Mukhtaran Mai. It contains contact information for Pakistani officials and news outlets.
I’d really like to see this issue picked up by the progressive community- the conservative ladies certainly aren’t going to be speaking out. That anyone would be treated this way by one of our allies in the Great Freedom Fight is horrifying. It should be all over the news. It should be the stuff of boiling-hot letters to the editor, massive protests, and raging Congressional speeches.
Mukhtaran Mai shouldn’t be one more person who ‘disappears’ under an amoral regime. Not after how hard she has fought.