Look where she landed when the attack came to light in the first place. Would the outcome have been any different if she went straight to the police? No, she would be like the many other Afghan women in jail under similar circumstances: half of the women in Afghan jails are there for alleged "moral crimes."
Even if Gulnaz is pardoned because of the embarrassment her case is now bringing to Afghanistan, there remain all of the other women languishing in Afghan jails, and in the future, there will unfortunately be more cases like hers.
Meaningful reform does not occur without a sense of crisis or some sort of problem, and even in that case, the fact that Sharia is enshrined in the Afghan constitution as the highest law of the land is a major obstacle: proposed reforms to Sharia's provisions will go against Sharia as it has been practiced over the centuries, and will thus be unconstitutional. And as far as Afghanistan is concerned right now, there is no problem, no crisis -- at least not for anyone who counts.
An update on this story. "Jailed Afghan rape victim has sentence reduced, remains in jail," by Nick Paton Walsh for CNN, November 23:
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan prosecutors announced Wednesday that a young rape victim, jailed for adultery after reporting the crime and pushed into marrying her attacker, would have her sentence reduced from twelve to three years. The prosecutor said she would, for now, remain in jail -- with her child -- for not reporting her attack fast enough.
In a remarkable case that is all too common in Afghanistan but has drawn international attention, 21-year-old Gulnaz was attacked by a relative two years ago, but sentenced to 12 years in jail for adultery.
She has since given birth to a girl from the attack. Because of the dishonor of sex outside of wedlock, she had been given the choice of marrying her attacker to get out of jail and legitimize her infant daughter in the eyes of Afghanistan's conservative society.
The child is imprisoned with her at Badambagh Prison on the outskirts of Kabul.
Gulnaz says she at first tried to hide the attack against her because she could be killed for bringing shame on her community. Only her pregnancy exposed the attack and began criminal investigations that led to her conviction for adultery.
The story is changing quickly:
On Wednesday a spokesman for the Afghan attorney general said her sentence had been reduced by another court hearing to three years and that the main remaining charge against her was not reporting her attack early enough. A lawyer for Gulnaz, Kim Motley, said her client was only on Tuesday made aware of the reduced sentence and there had been no official notification of it.
The attorney general spokesman, Rahmatullah Nazari, said their investigation had concluded there was no rape, but instead sex outside of wedlock, resulting in both the male attacker and Gulnaz being convicted of adultery.
"Gulnaz claims that she has been raped. But because she reported the crime four months later, we couldn't find any evidence [of an attack]," Nazari said. "She was convicted for not reporting a crime on time."
Gulnaz's attacker denied having sex with her. He told CNN he was serving jail time because he had been accused of rape. His conviction records show he is in jail for "zina", a Dari word that directly translates as "adultery." Human rights workers note that rape cases are often handled as adultery in Afghanistan's court system.
The spokesman for the prosecutor added, however, that Gulnaz might soon receive a presidential pardon.
"There is a strong possibility that she would be pardoned under a presidential decree in the upcoming important dates like Prophet's birthday or Afghan new year," said Nazari.
Nazari said the Afghan prosecutor's investigation had concluded that Gulnaz and her attacker had had consensual sex several times. Months later, when it emerged she was pregnant he said, their families met to try and settle the issue through a financial payment. When those discussions broke down, Nazari said, the accusation of rape was made.
This explanation does not add up, when the parties would surely know the accusation of rape would be prosecuted as adultery, as is a common practice in Afghanistan, for not meeting Sharia's standards on witnesses (Qur'an 24:13) to the attack.
The courts ultimately found both parties guilty of adultery, Gulnaz receiving two years, and her attacker seven. A later court ruling then increased her sentence to twelve years. A third court hearing, which happened in the past month but about which Gulnaz heard little until Tuesday, decided that she should serve a total of three years -- not for adultery but instead for failing to report a crime quickly enough....
A day late, a dollar short: Afghanistan reduces rape victim's jail sentence, prosecutor says she did not report attack fast enough
Look where she landed when the attack came to light in the first place. Would the outcome have been any different if she went straight to the police? No, she would be like the many other Afghan women in jail under similar circumstances: half of the women in Afghan jails are there for alleged "moral crimes."
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This is absolutely true.
Appallingly, the "best" thing a rape victim can do in Dar-al-Islam is *to keep quiet about her rape*, and hope to God—*not "Allah"*—that she does not become pregnant, since this will be proof of her "Zina".
More:
She has since given birth to a girl from the attack. Because of the dishonor of sex outside of wedlock, she had been given the choice of marrying her attacker to get out of jail and legitimize her infant daughter in the eyes of Afghanistan's conservative society.
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"Conservative"—as though Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich would suggest a rape victim *marry her rapist* or unjustly languish in prison with her baby.
I am *so sick* of Shari'ah societies being referred to as "conservative"—as though Tories or Republicans think this way.
More:
Gulnaz says she at first tried to hide the attack against her because she could be killed for bringing shame on her community. Only her pregnancy exposed the attack and began criminal investigations that led to her conviction for adultery.
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As I said...
More:
The attorney general spokesman, Rahmatullah Nazari, said their investigation had concluded there was no rape, but instead sex outside of wedlock, resulting in both the male attacker and Gulnaz being convicted of adultery.
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How is he a "male attacker" if there was no rape?
More:
Human rights workers note that rape cases are often handled as adultery in Afghanistan's court system.
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Not just in Afghanistan, either. It is the same in neighboring Pakistan, and in such far-flung outposts as Somalia and Nigeria, which have little in common culturally with central Asia. Oh—except for *Islam*, of course...
More:
The spokesman for the prosecutor added, however, that Gulnaz might soon receive a presidential pardon.
"There is a strong possibility that she would be pardoned under a presidential decree in the upcoming important dates like Prophet's birthday or Afghan new year," said Nazari.
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This is Islam. They only do the civilized thing if their is international pressure, and ten only as a presidential "pardon" for some Islamic holiday. Why is this important?
Because it ensures that there is no actual, codified justice under Islam, but just the arbitrary rulings of judges or rulers.
"Their" should be "there", and "ten" should be "then" in my penultimate paragraph...
By allowing both Iraq and Afghanistan to submit and ratify radical, Islamist constitutions that define both countries as 'Islamic States' and enshrine Islamic Sharia Law as the legal framework for society, the USA engaged in a collosal strategic blunder. Far from appeasing Islamist elements in these nations, it has emboldened and empowered them by demonstrating the absolute moral, intellectual and philosophical vacuum from which the USA operates.
That vacuum is now being filled all over the Islamic world, and not in a way conducive to Western interests. The last 10 years, trillion dollars and countless war dead and maimed are the greatest foreign debacle in American history.
From the article: "Because of the dishonor of sex outside of wedlock, she had been given the choice of marrying her attacker to get out of jail and legitimize her infant daughter in the eyes of Afghanistan's conservative society."
For 'conservative' read "sharia-crazed".
Rand Paul would have designated her a non-"person" the moment she conceived by her rapist:
http://co109w.col109.mail.live.com/default.aspx?rru=inbox#fid=1&fav=1&n=1171106096&rru=inbox&mid=dc8aadb5-15d2-11e1-a107-00237de3f4d4&fv=1
No one who supports hate legislation such as this has any right to complain about the Muslims' treatment of women. One is as evil as the other.
As an American this is an outrageous travesty of justice. As a man it is appalling!
She did not want to report the rape for fear of the repercussions but when she found out she was pregnant she had to, hence the report 4 months later. I don't blame her.
However she now appears to have a choice of 3 years in prison or a lifetime of "marriage" to her rapist where she can look forward to being raped on a regular basis. Personally, I'd take prison and hope for a pardon.
Yes, marrying your rapist will make it all better. It is halal.
Yep, Islam IS the religion for the bat-crap crazy segment of humanity.
From the previous article on this
The lot of people were right, and her aunt was a moron!!! How does keeping her child prove squat - one way or another, regardless of whether the society was misogynist or not? The child would resemble her or her rapist, but prove nothing about whether her sex w/ her rapist was consensual on her part, or forced on her against her will by her rapist.Her rapist is in jail as well? How does marrying him solve anything in that case - 'their' kid will either remain in jail, or remain fatherless. Also, what about her cousin, whose husband he is - does she also spend time w/ him, conjugal visits & all? And in Afghanistan, she could not even have an abortion, that would have spared her all this grief.
Gravenimage & DDA
For this story, the label 'conservative' does fit in one aspect - she was denied an abortion even though she was raped, and that's consistent w/ a segment of Conservatives even in the West, who allow for abortions only in cases of life of the mother (which I'm assuming that the Mohammedans don't allow for even then). While Newt & Palin may not endorse it, there are several Conservatives who would, such as Pat Buchanan, Alan Keyes, Bob Dornan, Mike Huckabee. But I will grant that it's not a mainstream view even in the Conservative movement in the US - have no idea about other Western countries.
gravenimage,
I hope you don't mind, but, like many words, "conservatism" has more than one meaning.
From Widipedia(Yeah, I know):
1. Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to preserve")[1] is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to the way things were.[2][3] The first established use of the term in a political context was by François-René de Chateaubriand in 1819, following the French Revolution.[4] The term has since been used to describe a wide range of views.
2. Religious conservatismSee also: Religious right (disambiguation), Christian Right, and Fundamentalist Islam
Religious conservatives principally seek to apply the teachings of particular religions to politics, sometimes by merely proclaiming the value of those teachings, at other times by having those teachings influence laws.[49]
3. Islamic fundamentalism (Arabic: usul, the "fundamentals") is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L. Kettel, it is deemed problematic by those who suggest that Islamic belief requires all Muslims to be fundamentalists,[1] and by others as a term used by outsiders to describe perceived trends within Islam.[2] Exemplary figures of Islamic fundamentalism who are also termed Islamists are Sayyid Qutb, Abul Ala Mawdudi and Israr Ahmad.[3] Economist Eli Berman argues that Radical Islam is a better term for many post-1920s movements starting with The Muslim Brotherhood, because these movements are seen to practice "unprecedented extremism", thus not qualifying as return to historic fundamentals.[4]
Try to magine how many Gulnaz's have suffered the brutality of the Arabic culture which preceeded Islam, and those who've since suffered the additional horrors of Islam's
"divine" laws.
Had if she reported faster, she would have been in prison faster!
OH WHY IS RITISH, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN BLOOD BEING SHED IN AFGHANISTAN. WE CANNOT PROTECT THE POOR MUSLIM WOMEN AND WE CANNOT DEFEAT THE TALIBAN SO LONG AS THEY CAN RETIRE TO PAKISTAN ????
No, they are mimicking Western law that would gather evidence (i.e., rape kit), DNA evidence that needs to be gathered within a certain amount of hours. Sharia law does not recognize such evidence; indeed, Sharia law only considers the testimony of four witnesses, excluding the victim, and the confession (complaint admitting the act of sex, willing or not) of the victim. The standard of U.S. law is reasonableness. The standard of Islamic (Sharia) law is what Mohammad said and did.
PRCS wrote:
gravenimage,
I hope you don't mind, but, like many words, "conservatism" has more than one meaning.
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Of course I don't mind, PRCS. The precise use of words is very important to me—I have have worked in both education and publishing.
I am quite familiar with this meaning, in any case.
You are correct in the most narrow sense—punishing a rape victim for her own rape is indeed "conservative" in a Muslim society.
But the constant conflation in the press of "conservatism" in Dar-al-Islam and in the civilized West is both ludicrous and galling—as though somehow the leader of the Taliban and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper—both "conservatives"—were somehow espousing the same things.