On Monday March 21st, I first wrote about Mukhtaran Mai, the Pakistani woman who was gang raped on order of a village council. Today, the brave woman is back in the news.
   Let me update you first , in case you are unaware of the case. It involves the caste system, bringing a rich, land-owning caste, the Mastois (the rapists' caste) against the much poorer and less privileged Gujars.
   According to police reports, this case began in June 2002, when Mukhtaran's brother, about 12 years old at the time, was kidnapped and sodomized by a group of Mastoi men. Because he said he was going to go the police, he was set up for retribution. He was left alone in a room with a Mastoi woman, and the police were indeed called. When the constabulary arrived, however, it was to find him in that room and be told that he had assaulted the Mastoi woman. A complaint was made to the village council, and those worthies decided that Mukhtaran should be raped as punishment for what her brother had done. (italics my own) After she had been dragged off to a shed and "punished", she was forced to walk home naked, in front of a jeering crowd.
   This atrocity made headlines. Denied the comfortable cover of silence, the local officials were forced into action. Twelve men were arrested, and their victim defied social conventions to testify against them. In August 2002, six of them were sentenced to death by hanging.
   This March, however, five of the convictions were overturned and the sixth was reduced to life imprisonment. All six are presently free on bail. You can certainly expect those nasties to learn a lesson from all this, can't you? If they don't play nice, their comfy little lifestyles will be interrupted by at least one afternoon spent lounging in courtroom chairs.
   Things get still more interesting. The Pakistani government had apparently banned Mukhtaran from travelling abroad. When this came to international attention, especially that of the U.S. government, outrage was expressed to such a degree that the Pakistani government backed down. In their own defense, they tried to claim that they had placed the ban on her in the first place to protect her". If anyone believes that, I have some great real estate out in the swamp to show them. They were afraid she would air the whole sordid tale outside of their muzzling confines, and bring unwanted international attention to their misogynistic system of backwardness.
   This woman is an incredibly brave soul, a source of strength for her family and all those who have been victimized, as she has. She has demonstrated her moral fibre repeatedly. Following the first international airing of her story, she received a flood of donations sent from wellwishers and sympathizers, worldwide. Rather than taking the money and leaving her village, to begin a new life for herself elsewhere, she has stayed and used the money to benefit the people of the village. She has opened two schools, started a shelter for abused women, and purchased a van which is used as an ambulance. Enrolled in the schools are the children of her attackers, and you can be sure the children of those who jeered at her in her humiliation are there as well.
   This is an incredible person. Mukhtaran deserves respect and admiration. She also deserves justice. Why should she have to continue fearing for her life, with her attackers walking free. Why haven't these men been dispatched long ago to meet Allah? Why hasn't a message been sent to the medieval thugs and bullies of that country that the century they are living in belongs to everyone, not just to them and the satisfaction of their lusts?
   Before you turn your attention away from Mukhtaran, before you indulge in the complacency of "that doesn't happen here", think again. The world is a much smaller place now. Such people as the abovementioned perpetrators may have mentalities that dwell in the dark ages, but they have bodies that could board a plane and come to your home town. If such types immigrate to your part of the world, you can bet they will bring their illogic with them. Vituperation against you and yours may be the beginning, but the question you need to ask yourself is, where would it end?
   Unfortunately my country, for instance, has already seen some "honour killings". Citizens of our "true north, strong and free" have found out that the "free" part might not extend to everyone. I know that if anyone can be targeted in such a way, then everyone could be. You need to know the same. Add your voice to the expressions of outrage being heaped on the current conditions of injustice that prevail in Pakistan. Write to your local newspaper, blog about it, mail off a letter of protest to your national government, to the United Nations, to the Pakistani government. Scream loud and long about the outrage visited upon this woman and her sisters in faraway Pakistan. Scream on her behalf so that you may never find yourself, one day, screaming in self-defense.