Rights group urges Pakistan to push Mukhtar Mai case

Four men, charged in connection with the gang-rape of Mukhtar Mai, sit inside a police lockup at Ali Pur near Multan in this July 16, 2002 file photograph. Mai, a victim of a village council-sanctioned gang-rape who became a symbol of the country's oppressed women, said on April 21, 2011 her life was in danger after the Supreme Court acquitted 14 men accused of the crime. The men are (from L to R) Ramzan Pachar, Faiz Bukhsh Mastoi, Abdul Khaliq and Allah Ditta Mastoi. The death penalty for Abdul Khaliq was commuted to life in prison. –Reuters Photo/Asim Tanveer
WASHINGTON: Human Rights Watch called Friday on Pakistan’s government to seek a review of the acquittal of five men accused of gang raping a woman in order to punish her brother.

Mukhtar Mai, whose case has drawn international outrage, was gang raped in 2002 on orders of a village council after her younger brother — then 12 — was wrongly alleged to have had relations with a woman from a rival clan.

A panel of Pakistan’s Supreme Court dismissed Mai’s appeal against the acquittal of five men and ordered their release on Thursday. But it upheld a life sentence for the main accused, Abdul Khaliq.

Human Rights Watch called on Pakistan’s government to petition the full court to review the case and asked authorities to protect Mai, who has said that she fears for her life after her unusual decision to speak out.

Brad Adams, the Asia director of the New York-based rights group, said Pakistan should send a clear signal on women’s rights and to make clear that local councils cannot take the law into their own hands.

“The failure to ensure justice in what by all accounts was a straightforward prosecution shows the justice system’s appalling disregard for women’s rights,” he said in a statement.

Mai, who now helps protect women facing threats at the hands of influential men, told AFP after the verdict that she would not file any further appeal.

A local anti-terrorism court had initially sentenced all six men to death, but the Lahore High Court later acquitted the five and commuted Khaliq’s sentence to life imprisonment.