An update on this story. "Pakistan: Girl's account re-opens custody fight for sisters," from Compass Direct News, October 24:
ISTANBUL, Turkey, October 24 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers for two underage Christian sisters who were kidnapped plan to renew a custody fight for the older girl, a 13-year-old allegedly coerced into marrying her captor, based on new statements from her 10-year-old sister that they were raped and forced to convert to Islam.
The plans come after the court last month allowed 13-year-old Saba Masih to decide whether to return to her parents or remain with her husband; apparently still terrified from death threats, she chose to remain with her captor. Amjad Ali married Saba Masih shortly after the girls were kidnapped on June 26.
In the Sept. 9 ruling the court ordered the return of her 10-year-old sister, Aneela Masih, to her parents, a move lawyers hail as a rare and significant victory for human rights in Pakistan.
Since her release Aneela Masih has told her uncle, Khalid Raheel, previously unknown details of the sisters’ capture, including rape and forced conversion to Islam, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS).
Aneela Masih told Raheel that she and her sister were kidnapped when they stopped to buy fruit en route to their uncle’s home. The sisters were taken away by taxi and then raped, she said. After being tied up and locked in a room, she told him, the two were forced to make professions of Islamic faith.
She described how the pistol-toting captors threatened the girls with death. The kidnappers told the girls that their parents would also be killed, she said, if the sisters did not do everything asked of them.
“These poor little kids, they threatened them,” said Akbar Durrani, a lawyer from CLAAS who fought in court on the sisters’ behalf. “They were terrified. She said they were terrified.”
In light of these revelations, Durrani said he plans to file a new custody case for Saba Masih based on their abduction. This move, however, could jeopardize progress gained in the legal quest to free the sisters from their captors.
“The court statement never mentioned kidnapping,” Durrani said. “We are still working on it, because the Supreme Court may say to us, ‘We will reverse the position, get both the girls back and hear the case afresh.’”
Avoiding this scenario while convincing the court to allow further proceedings is the challenge Durrani now faces.
Saba Masih’s insistence that her age is 17 and that her conversion to Islam was real will also make regaining custody of her extremely difficult, according to lawyer Rashid Rehman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Rehman also represented the girls’ family in the case.
Saba Masih’s husband, Ali, had obtained the backing of a medical committee possibly under pressure from Islamic groups in his claim that she was 17 and thus of legal age. He also claimed that her conversion removed her from the jurisdiction of her father.
It was a branch of the Lahore High Court in Multan that ruled on Sept. 9 that Aneela Masih should be handed back to her parents. When Saba Masih, whose birth certificate indicates that she is 13 but who testified that she was 17, said she did not want to return to her parents, she also tried to keep her younger sister from returning to them. Attorneys said the Muslim kidnappers had repeatedly threatened the girls that their parents would harm them if they returned.
Uncle Threatened
Throughout the case the girls’ uncle, Raheel, who has spearheaded the campaign to free the girls, has received death threats from supporters of Ali, he told Compass by telephone this week. With a tired voice, he said that he remains determined to explore every avenue to return Saba Masih to her parents.
“They are threatening me also, because I was proving the case,” he said. “They tell me also that if I keep on doing like this one day they will shoot me. I said, ‘Okay, no problem, you shoot me, but up to now I am alive. I will look after Saba. I will find her someday.’”
Various options remain open to CLAAS. The group’s lawyers are seeking advice from three local deputy inspector generals about how they should proceed.
“[We] can file a private complaint in the court of magistrate if a FIR [First Information Report] about kidnapping is not registered,” Durrani said. “If we are not getting any relief from this side, we will go to the Supreme Court.”
Lawyers told Compass that the court ruling for the return of the younger sister to her Christian parents, despite questions over her conversion to Islam, was an unusual decision and a significant victory for human rights in Pakistan.
“We have two or three cases in Islamabad [where] the judges did not allow minor girls to be given back to their parents,” Durrani said. “So in this context it was very important to at least get Aneela back.”
An awful story.
These are the people who "should" be allowed Asylum in Britain.
If any government officials are reading this (which, as I'm sure, they are) I would heartily recommend you approach whomever is in charge to mount some kind of rescue operation for these girls and their families and get them on a waiting 'plane out of that damn country asap.
THIS is the kind of Asylum that the British people respect and actually WANT.
Not the fake Asylum claimers that we are being forced to intake.
"“We have two or three cases in Islamabad [where] the judges did not allow minor girls to be given back to their parents,” Durrani said. “So in this context it was very important to at least get Aneela back.”"
The very fact that Pakistani society is leaving it entirely up to the courts for 4 months now says a lot about the sub-human state of that culture. Compare that complicit apathy with a recent case in another Muslim country, Morocco, when that Imam issued a fatwa that it was permitted to marry nine years old. The whole country was up in arms, there were demonstrations from human rights groups, the press condemned him unanimously, calling him a pedophile, one lawyer with no personal stake in the case took him to court and won, and the authorities moved swiftly to shut down all his medrasas within days. Of course,I don't know what would have happened had another faith been involved,but this shows that those Muslims who cover-up for Islam-wrapped abuses in their society (or society of origin)or who don't denounce them are just as guilty and just as responsible for low state of their culture.
As to the Pakistani jurisprudence, it seems that it hasn't matured yet. Or should we understand that dhimma laws are applied de facto in Pakistan?
Regardless, it strikes me that even a dog doesn't approach a female unless she is ready, willing, and of age. It is the dog that should refuse to enter a taxi-cab with an Uslamist and not the other way around.
Sorry, but this is infuriating.
These are the people who "should" be allowed Asylum in Britain.
No chance Jack
£86million scheme to prevent Muslim radicalisation is 'gravy train' for local groups
An £86 million scheme designed to prevent the radicalisation of young British Muslims is being used as a "gravy train" by some community groups, it has been claimed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/3255325/86million-scheme-to-prevent-Muslim-radicalisation-is-gravy-train-for-local-groups.html
All Pakistanis are Muslims because their ancestors were compelled at the point of a sword to renounce their faith and convert to Islam. This tragic situation is simply another example of the 1400 year history of jihad.
In light of these revelations, Durrani said he plans to file a new custody case for Saba Masih based on their abduction. This move, however, could jeopardize progress gained in the legal quest to free the sisters from their captors.
..............................
Bland words, yet absolutely horrifying. This is classic dhimmitude--be satisfied with whatever crumbs the Muslim legal system gives you. Be satisfied, then, that 10-year-old Aneela was returned to you. If you push to free her 13-year-old sister, Saba, it may be too much for the sufferance of Muslims.
In other words, abandon Saba to her fate and be glad it wasn't worse. Horrifying.
The girls' uncle is a hero--a very brave man. I agree, if the West offered sanctuary to this family it would be the best thing.
'Christians' in Pakistan are mostly Hindus with Christian names. They do not feel safe with Hindu ones.
Of course JW doesn't bother to report on the Hindus in Pakistan, who are much in a much worse situation than Christians.
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0500/7.html
Surya Sharma turns Peter Joseph, but still doesn`t feel safe in Lahore
LAHORE, MAY 2: Name: Peter Joseph. Father`s name: Shyam Sunder Sharma. Children: Monica and John. No, it is not some Anglo-Indian family living in Lahore`s Kashmiri Gate. Peter Joseph`s name till December 6, 1992, was Surya Prakash Sharma. He changed it when his brother Nand Kishore and cousin Ram Narain were killed in Lahore in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
``I did not convert to Christianity. I just changed my name and it saved my life,`` he says, sitting in his small house in a lane in Kashmiri Gate. He refuses to be photographed. ``I`m very superstitious. It is like challenging fate,`` he says, holding his three-year-old daughter Monica close to him. He did not have the courage of giving Hindu names to his children, and then changed his wife Meera`s name to Mariam.
``I saw my brothers being killed in front of me. Many people in this area, mostly Hindus, have adopted Christian names to protect themselves,`` he adds. There is not even a single temple left in entire Lahore.
There was one Jain temple near Lakshmi chowk and another big one at Shalmi Chowk near Anarkali bazaar but both of them were burnt down after the Babri Masjid demolition. Some smaller ones in Krishna Nagar and Shyam Nagar in Chubhurjhi area where also destroyed, recall the 100-odd Hindus, now mostly living in Kashmiri Gate and Andhroon Bhati Gate.
``We are scared of even putting an idol of Ramchandraji or Krishanji in our houses. Most Hindus have converted to Christianity but we still offer our prayers to Hindu deities,`` says Frank (real name Harish Chandra). Most of the people refer to these Hindus-Christians as Balmikis in the area. Though Thapar Street, Bhatia Street, Bahamant Street and Sehgal Street remain, there is hardly any Hindu there. ``There used to be thousands of Hindus living in Lahore. But after December 6 (1992), most ran away to either Karachi or Kota in Peshawar. There are very few left now,`` says Septuagenarian Ram Pal, who has dared to retain his original name. ``This was the name given to me by my mother and I will be known by the same till I die,`` he says.
Though Christians too complain of ``problems and harassment,`` they are relatively better off. ``There are almost one lakh Christians in Lahore but they don`t really like to mingle much with the majority. We prefer to stay within our community,`` says Francis Louis, a science teacher in Don Bosco School in Lahore.
As if living as a minority in Pakistan is not bad enough, he says, teaching is even worse. Though Don Bosco is a Christian-run school, 70 per cent of the students are Muslims.
``There was a big furore in the school when I tried teaching the students about reproduction. The students went and complained to their parents who came and protested to the principal. I was almost thrown out of the school,`` he says. Louis had to apologise to the parents and assure them that he won`t teach them that subject in future.
``Now I just read what is in the book and cloak it in harmless and often meaningless language,`` he says.
Thomas D`Souza, who organises AIDS awareness programmes in schools and colleges, has to face hostility and ire every day. ``But we have to do our job. My assistant Franklin was beaten up by some students in Lahore University two days ago and has vowed to give up. I am trying to convince him but he is too scared,`` he adds.
The handful of Sikhs in Lahore are limited to the Dera Baba Gurdwara near Lahore Fort. ``There are three other Gurdwaras in Lahore but this is the only functional one,`` explains Harpal Singh, a kar sevak in the gurdwara which houses Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s Samadhi. ``Here, there are two dozen-odd Sikhs. We do the ``paath`` and read the Gurbani everyday even if there is nobody to listen. We will keep this Gurdwara alive,`` he adds.
infidel_hindu wrote:
'Christians' in Pakistan are mostly Hindus with Christian names. They do not feel safe with Hindu ones.
Of course JW doesn't bother to report on the Hindus in Pakistan, who are much in a much worse situation than Christians.
.........................
Thank you for your interesting post. It doesn't completely surprise me that some Hindus might feel even more threatened than Christians--"people of the book"--in some Muslim countries.
Christians *are* at risk throughout the Muslim world, though, whatever the specific case in Pakistan might be--in Mosul, Iraq; in Bethlehem and surrounding villages in the "Palestinian territories"; as Copts in Egypt' as Muslim converts to Christianity ("apostates") in Afghanistan.
You are wrong, though, to imply that JW doesn't cover the threat to Hindus--I've read many features here about violence against Hindus in Kashmir, about Hindu pilgrims being attacked, about discrimination against Hindus in Muslim-majority states in India, about claims that famous Hindus in Indonesia or Malaysia have had dubious death-bed conversions to Islam, unbeknowst to their families.
JW also covers threats against Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and other non-Muslims. If you have more information, please send it to Robert Spencer. Don't assume JW doesn't want to cover it.