This will be an interesting test of Pakistan’s attachment to the Sharia — not the tribe-ordered gang rape, which is some barbaric local custom, but the enforcement of Sharia evidence laws (requiring four Muslim men who saw the act to establish that it actually happened) by the court that overturned the original convictions. Mukhtaran Mai update from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A Pakistani woman gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council said on Monday she hoped the country’s Supreme Court would reimpose death sentences on the men who attacked her.
The Supreme Court began hearing an appeal by the woman, Mukhtaran Mai, against the acquittal of five of six men convicted in the assault.
“I expect the same decision as was given by the special court,” Mai told reporters in the Supreme Court before the session began, referring to the conviction of the men.
Six men were originally convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, but five were later acquitted after appealing to a high court in Punjab province, which cited a lack of evidence. A sixth had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Mai, 33, was gang-raped on the orders of a traditional village council after her brother — who was 12 at the time — was judged to have offended the honor of a powerful clan by befriending a woman from the tribe….