Women From Pakistan

"..To the women who continue to secularize public spaces with their words and clothes and defiance: you inspire me. On the face of it, it looks merely glitzy and silly, but only those subjected to the heat of abuse know that simply by being - by asserting with our voices and bodies - we are clawing back space from rotten hierarchies of power and control..."

"The number of incidents of violence against women increased by 13 per cent in 2009, says a report by the Aurat Foundation set to be released on Wednesday. The report states that 8,548 incidents of violence against women were reported in 2009 compared to 7,571 incidents reported in 2008. Of these, 5,722 were reported to have occurred in Punjab, followed by 1,762 in Sindh, 655 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 237 in Balochistan. Similarly, 172 cases of violence against women were reported in Islamabad, the report said."

"A study published in June 2006 in the Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, based on interviews with 300 women admitted to hospital for childbirth, said 80 percent reported being subjected to some kind of abuse within marriage. At times, the violence inflicted on women takes on truly horrendous forms. The Islamabad-based Progressive Women's Association (PWA), headed by Shahnaz Bukhari, believes up to 4,000 women are burnt each year, almost always by husbands or in-laws, often as “punishment” for minor “offences” or for failure to bring in a sufficient dowry. The PWA said it had collected details of nearly 8,000 such victims from March 1994 to March 2007, from three hospitals in the Rawalpindi-Islamabad area alone."

"It’s always fascinating to see trolls go nuts under photos of public-facing women in dresses or costumes or anything the trolls deem 'vulgar'....Go home. I don’t dress for you, I don’t dress for anyone or anything other than my own sense of joy and play and expansion. The men of this country are obsessed with policing women, constantly defining their ‘honour’ in relation to women’s bodies and clothing and appearance. It is a smallminded, decayed, hateful thing to do. You want to disempower us because a deep part of you is hurting and angry. I get it. It’s societal and it is ugly."

"The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in its annual report that one woman is raped every three hours in Pakistan and one in two rape victims is a juvenile. According to Women's Action Forum, a woman's rights organization, 72 percent of all women in police custody in Pakistan are physically and sexually abused. Furthermore, 75 percent of all women in jail are there under charges of zina. Many of these women remain in jail awaiting trial for years."

"...Many both inside and outside Pakistan have come to believe that unequal treatment for poor and disadvantaged Pakistani women is a price worth paying for stability and harmony in a country seen as pivotal in the fight against extremism. Yet the world must be clear that this cannot be so. The very women who have paid the heaviest of prices under rising extremism and militancy, from attacks on schools to coping with displacement, must have their rights and concerns placed at the forefront in Pakistan...."

"Today, in Pakistan, respect for women no longer exists, and crimes against them have increased dramatically. They claim to have "Islamized" us. How can you Islamize people who are already Muslim? Ever since Zia gave power to the mullahs, it seems as though every man feels he can get hold of any female and tear her apart."

"And yet one must be thankful for some mercies: in India, Muslim women do not live in a country in which the ulema have the power to enforce their decrees. In Saudi Arabia, in Pakistan since 1977 when Zia ul Haq promulgated the Hudood Ordinances, ... that power derives from and is conjoint with the power of the state.... In either event, the results are tragic. Several of the horrid cases have been much written about. Adultery and rape figured prominently in Zia’s Hudood Ordinances. For adultery, there had to be four, reliable, adult, Muslim, male eyewitnesses to actual, physical penetration—the stated purpose was to protect persons from being falsely accused. In several cases of women, in particular single, unmarried women, who had been raped and had become pregnant, the requisite eyewitnesses could not be produced. But their pregnancy was proof positive that they had had illegal sexual relations. And so, while they had been victims of rape, they became the accused—accused of zina, adultery: their charge that they had been raped became a confession of their having had illegal intercourse; and the fact that they were pregnant became proof positive. In a typical case, fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina was raped by two of her male relatives. She became pregnant. She was sentenced to 100 lashes. A higher court, out of ‘charity’, reduced the sentence to ten lashes. Thirteen-year-old Safia Bibi was blind. She was employed as a maid. Her employer and his son raped her. She became pregnant. The rapists went scot-free. She was sentenced to three years in prison, and thirty lashes— the flogging was limited to thirty lashes, the court said, out of leniency for her being blind. The case became a cause célèbre. Asma Jehangir, Hina Jilani and other human rights activists mounted a vigorous challenge. Pakistan’s Federal Court set the judgment aside—though it concurred that the evidence against the father and son was insufficient. And young Safia survived. But cases that are just as baseless and just as weighed against women, and the extreme fear they generate, have continued—under ‘laws’ that range from rape to divorce to blasphemy. At one time, it was reported that almost 70 to 80 per cent of undertrials languishing in Pakistan’s jails were women who had been charged with offences of this kind."

"Strange are the doings of such mullahs, moulvis and military rulers. Dr. Asrar Ahmed, one of the leading religious scholars, has petitioned the 'Majlis-e-Shoora' (Federal Council) that since women are responsible for the growing rise in sex crimes they should not be appointed to Government posts or selected for the 'Majlis-e-Shoora' and other institutions, but confined to their homes. ... General Zia has further issued a law which fixes a woman's value as half that of a man's."

"In Pakistan, [Oriana Fallaci] has her first painful encounter with Islam. She comes across a wedding procession in Karachi. The crowd carries a figure hidden behind a pile of red fabric, like a package. Who is that? she asks. Nothing — a woman, she is told. Shocked by these words, Oriana asks to interview the bride. The guests oblige, even though they cannot understand what could possibly interest this foreign journalist. They unwrap the bride. She is a young girl with a pale face; her eyes are closed and coated with silver dust. She’s crying. Oriana tries to console her: “I told her there was nothing to cry about. I had seen the groom and he was handsome, and seemed kind.” She is lying. The groom is a smarmy man who has already tried to seduce this Western journalist who goes around with her arms uncovered. But Oriana is deeply moved by the child bride’s sadness and wants to help. The women in the wedding party do not understand her attitude. “All brides cry,” one of them tells her. “I cried for three days.”"

"This strip of land where there are no unmarried women, or love matches, and where mathematics are considered an opinion, includes six hundred million people, half of whom, more or less, are women who live behind the darkness of a veil. More than a veil, it is a sheet that covers her from head to toe like a shroud in order to hide her from the eyes of all but her husband, her children, or a feeble servant. This sheet, which is called purah or burka or pushi or kulle or djellaba, has two holes for the eyes, or a fine mesh opening two centimeters high and six centimeters wide. The wearer gazes out at the sky and her fellow man like a prisoner peering through the bars of her prison.... It is the immense reign of Islam.... These veiled women are the unhappiest women in the world. But the paradox is that they don’t know it because they don’t know what exists beyond this veil that imprisons them."

"In countries such as Pakistan and Iran, and to a lesser extent in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, after the introduction of Islam, a significant regression occurred in individual freedom, the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and the rights of women."

"The first thought a Western woman has when she arrives in a rigorously Muslim country like Pakistan is that she appears to be the only woman to have survived a tsunami that has washed away all the others."

"The right to life of women (in Pakistan) … is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions."

"No one really knows how many thieves had their hands amputated, perhaps none; or how many people were flogged during those years—many, too many. Information was scarce. In the first years of Zia’s regime, floggings and hangings were a public affair in the village square or city stadiums, but within a couple of years, the national outcry forced the authorities to conduct this grim business out of the public view. One thing was certain and documented: women were the biggest losers under Zia. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Pakistan had adopted very progressive laws ensuring a woman’s right to divorce, restricting polygamy, and even prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. National literacy rates were still low, even more so for women, but they were rising steadily for everyone. Enrollment of girls in schools and universities was skyrocketing in cities. Women were beginning to participate in politics, they were rising as judges. This is why, despite the long road ahead for a deeply conservative society, Mehtab had believed she was part of a forward-looking country, where the future of women looked brighter. Neither she nor her friends had been looking for Western-style women’s rights; they did not speak in the radical terms of American feminists. “We have to exist with men,” Mehtab would tell those around her—with men and within their own society and its conventions. The uncompromising attitudes of the “women’s libbers” she had met in America was “an extreme position, confrontation was no good.” Gradual change had paid off. Now Zia was threatening to yank women back into purdah."

"Clerics were gaining influence everywhere: In the bureaucracy, civil servants sought promotions with overt expressions of religiousness; the army now held Quran study groups. Women were banned from playing sports in public; the national women’s hockey team, one of the world’s best, was forbidden from leaving the country. History was also being rewritten. Jinnah, the secular father of the nation, had a makeover: he was no longer shown in Western clothes in official portraits, only in traditional dress. References to pluralism and freedom of faith in Jinnah’s 1947 speech were scrubbed from the record. The methodical, relentless, systemwide changes were akin to a cultural revolution, unparalleled in the history of Islam in the subcontinent but cleaving closely to what was happening in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Although the Jamaat had been in awe of the Iranian Revolution, its leader saw Saudi Arabia as the more perfect model to emulate, with full segregation, banishment of women from the workplace, a ban on women driving, and the male guardianship system. Zia had caused worldwide consternation."

"It has been estimated that 1,000 women and girls from religious minorities are abducted, forcibly converted and then married off to their abductors every year."

"I’ll do everything I can to discourage polygamy—besides it causes no small economic problem. Often the wives are separated in different houses or cities, as in my case. And not everyone can afford it, as I can."

"PAKISTAN HAS the unique distinction of being the only South Asian country where it’s legal to discriminate against women. This was institutionalized via a set of constitutional amendments during the period of General Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship, which brutalized the country’s political culture: there were public hangings and floggings of criminals and dissidents. In 1979 the “Hudood Ordinance” repealed previous laws relating to rape. General Zia was determined to “Islamize” the country, and together with the creation of jihadi groups to fight Charlie Wilson’s war in Afghanistan measures were taken on the domestic front that have proved difficult to reverse. A raped woman could no longer testify against her violator because she was now considered only half a witness. Four adult males were required to corroborate her evidence. By alleging rape, which she was not in a position to prove, the woman admitted to intercourse rendering her liable to prosecution. Add to this the fact that sexual assaults on women are an everyday crime: the Human Rights Commission estimates a rape every three hours. Today, more than 50 percent of women in prison are those accused of adultery (i.e., unproven rape) and are awaiting verdicts. Many of them languish in jail for several months and sometimes years before their case is heard. Acquittals are rare and the most lenient sentence is a year in prison.... Often poor women, who go to a police station and charge a man with rape, are subjected to further sexual abuse by the police, incidents of which multiplied dramatically after the “Islamic laws” were promulgated. Neither Benazir Bhutto nor General Musharraf managed to repeal the anti-women ordinances when they were in power. This gives a carte blanche to honor killers and anyone else. As social and economic conditions deteriorate for a vast majority of the population, women become even more vulnerable.... The treatment of women as subhuman can also be seen in the statistics related to acid and kerosene burn victims. Young girls and women between the ages of fourteen to twenty-five are the usual target of this particular crime. The aim is to disfigure the face and burn the genital region. The reasons vary from case to case: jealousy, imagined infidelity, economic need to get a new bride and dowry, wives refusing sexual favors, and so on."

"From my perspective, it is the responsibility of Mr. Khan to distinguish himself from , from the Muslim Brotherhood, whose treatise is to destroy us from within. If he is a patriotic, loyal, American Muslim, then we want to hear that, that’s great, and we grieve with them over the death of their son. But do not disparage Americans or Donald Trump for having concerns about Muslims in our midst."

"If you are so concerned, Mr. Khan, if you’re an American first, then distinguish yourself and condemn Islamists, condemn the Muslim Brotherhood, then we will listen to you, and stop waving the Constitution. As far as I can tell, Islam, truly, supporters of Islam and the Quran, cannot embrace the Constitution. Now, if you have a different view, then explain that to us and then maybe we can be persuaded, but don’t shame America for having genuine and rightful concerns about Muslims in our midst when we have no idea who they are or what they really believe, and we’re not even sure about you, sir, because we know about taqiyya, which is the practice of lying to the infidel in order to advance the Muslim cause. ... So I’m sorry, we’ll not be shamed. I’m sorry for the loss of their son and I hope he is a loyal American. But I think a loyal American Muslim would be more like , who is very clear about where he stands, who was very patriotic and loyal and totally distances himself from Islamism, so if that’s the case for this gentleman, then he should’ve said that on the platform rather than shaming us for having concerns about Muslim immigration."

"We know that he has written quite a bit about the superiority of sharia law, and sharia law covers every area of life and those who adhere to it do not respect or honor other law, they may pretend to but they don't."

": Do you think that mr. Khan wants to subject or kill americans?"

"America's greatness is built on the principles of liberty and preserved by the men and women who wear the uniform to defend it. As I have said on numerous occasions, a religious test for entering our country is not reflective of these fundamental values. I reject it. Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice—and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan—should always be honored. Period."

"One of the most moving moments of any convention that I've ever been to."

"What The Media Is Not Telling You About The Muslim Who Attacked Donald Trump: He Is A Muslim Brotherhood Agent Who Wants To Advance Sharia Law And Bring Muslims Into The United States."

"The Muslim who attacked Donald Trump, Khizr Muazzam Kahn, is a Muslim Brotherhood agent, working to bring Muslims into the United States. After reading what we discovered so far, it becomes obvious that Khan wanted to ‘trump’ Trump’s Muslim immigration."

"Khan’s fascination with Islamic Sharia stems from his life in Saudi Arabia."

"It is likely that Khan is a Muslim plant working with the Hillary Clinton campaign, probably for the interest of Muslim oil companies as well as Muslim immigration into the U.S. ... It is obvious that Khan is upset, that a Trump victory will eliminate and destroy decades of hard work to bring in Islamic immigration into the United States. ... Is it likely that Khan’s son was killed before his Islamist mission was accomplished? Only another type of investigation will determine that. Do they ever mention how many soldiers have died because of Muslim traitors? Do they ever bring up how many Christians in the US military were killed? Yet the modernists and homosexuals continue to attack Christians. But soon everything we need to know will be uncovered. As we say in the Middle East: the snow always melts and the sh*t under it will soon be revealed."

"The whole reason of us looking into Khan’s writings is that it debunks the notion that Khan was simply a ‘secular Muslim’ who could care less about strict Sharia. But Sharia is Islam and Islam is Sharia. Period. The fact that Khan was Muslim should suffice. However, the fact that Khan is a Sharia scholar and an expert on Islamic jurisprudence makes it even clearer that Khan is an Islamist who thanked Saeed Ramadan, a father of the Muslim Brotherhood for using his sources. ... Shouldn’t this suffice? To the anti-Christian crowds, it doesn’t, nothing will, nothing will ever will. To the Muslim Brotherhood, if the Muslim can produce a suicide bomber, the liberal can produce national suicide. And if in doubt, just see how one man (Khan) caused Donald Trump to decline a notch."

"It is no surprise that the is thrilled about Khizr Khan’s “brutal repudiation of Donald Trump,” even though Khan, not quite accurately, claims that Trump wants to “ban us from this country.” Trump has said nothing about banning Muslim citizens of the U.S. from the country, only about a temporary moratorium on immigration from terror states. In any case, all the effusive praise being showered on Khizr Khan today overlooks one central point: he is one man. His family is one family. There are no doubt many others like his, but this fact does not mean that there is no jihad, or that all Muslims in the U.S. are loyal citizens."

"This is our country too, this is not only Donald Trump’s country. He is an ignorant, divisive manipulator, and through my message I wish to convey to him and to all Muslim Americans: This is our country too."

"All this disinformation and obfuscation he is perpetrating serves the interests of the global umma – but not in any sense those of the United States."

"Khizr Khan is more than just the father of slain Muslim U.S. serviceman Humayun Khan and the mainstream media’s flavor of the moment in its ongoing efforts to demonize and destroy Donald Trump. As far as the Obama administration and Hillary campaign are concerned, he is a living validation of the success of their strategy against “extremism”: by refusing to identify the enemy as having anything to do with Islam, they draw moderate Muslims to their side and move them to fight against terrorism. By contrast, Trump, in their view, alienates these moderates and drives them into the arms of the terrorists."

"That all sounds great. There’s just one catch: Khizr Khan, and the Clinton campaign, have extensive ties to the Saudis – far more extensive than any possible connection that Donald Trump’s campaign may have had to Russia’s alleged involvement in the leak of emails that revealed that the entire Democratic Party presidential nominating process was rigged from the start. Not that the mainstream media will pause from speculating about Trump and the Russians long enough to tell you any facts about Khizr Khan, Hillary and the Saudis."

"The big story of foreign influence in this presidential election is not some vague imaginings about the Russians supposedly hacking Democratic National Committee emails showing the Democrats engaged in indisputably unethical behavior. The real foreign influence story in this election involves the Saudis and the Democrats. Saudi influence in Washington must end. Khizr Khan represents an all-out effort by the mainstream media and the Democratic Party establishment to maintain that influence. In light of that, Donald Trump was right to answer his attacks, and should have been even stronger in his responses. It’s time for the United States of America to regain its independence."

"Mr. Khan more than an aggrieved father of a Muslim son- he's Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary."

"I am dismayed at the attacks Khizr and Ghazala Khan have endured after they spoke about their son's service and sacrifice. There is never enough honor we can show to the families of those whose loved ones have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Service to our country is above politics. I believe that each of us are called every day to show our deepest respect and gratitude to all of those who protect our freedom and their families."

"He doesn't know. He doesn't know that. I saw him. He was, you know, very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. But plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet. And it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that. And personally, I watched him. I wish him the best of luck."

"Well, that sounds - who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write it? ... I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've done, I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot. ... I think they're sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things, even in military. I mean, I was very responsible, along with a group of people, for getting the Vietnam Memorial built in downtown Manhattan, which to this day people thank me for."

"Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm. Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is impossible. While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make America safe again."

"Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same - Nice!"

"This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!"

"The Kahn family has gotten hours and hours of airtime and what's ironic about that was Hillary was the one that left them on the roof in Benghazi. It was Hillary's policy that crippled Libya and Syria and Iraq."

"Khizr is using his son’s memory not to advance the cause of the United States, as his son apparently died trying to do, but to advance a quite different cause: that of the global umma."

"Nowhere but in the United States is it possible that an immigrant who came to the country empty-handed only a few years ago gets to stand in front of patriots and in front of a major political party. ... It is my small share to show the world, by standing there, the goodness of America."

"We always depended on his balanced approach to things."

"They did not call him Captain Khan, they called him 'our captain.'"

"I just can't seem to get my arms around the loss."

"Muslims are American, Muslims are citizens, Muslims participate in the well-being of this country as American citizens. We are proud American citizens. It’s the values of this country that brought us here, not our religion. Trump’s position on these issues do not represent those values."