The lawyer in this article claims that the law in Pakistan allows a man to kill his daughter or grand daughter without fear of any penalty. Is this correct? Am I missing something?
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Honour crimes in the Muslim world
Huma Bukhari
Such laws can often be used to hide a crime, especially in the cases of incest where a girl becomes pregnant. The power legally vested in the male members of the family makes it easy for them to get rid of their crime by killing the impregnated woman
Honour in the Muslim world, somehow, is related to women. A slight suspicion about the character of any female relative can lead to her murder. At another level, revenge against a man can lead to dishonouring his women. Both are common phenomena in Pakistan. The recent case of Mukhatarn Bibi in Meerwala Jatoi shows that even collective decision-making, a panchayat in this case, is not free of this malaise. While we are familiar with these dastardly acts against women in Pakistan, sadly, the situation is not very different in other parts of the Muslim world. Also, as in Pakistan, the law in other Muslim states, too, favours the person (male) who commits any offence to “protect his honour”.
A famous case relates to the 1977 execution of Princess Misha’il bint Fahd bin Mohammad of Saudi Arabia. The princess was married to a much older relative against her will. She fell in love with someone of her age, but was caught along with the man she loved while both were trying to escape Saudi Arabia. The princess’s “adultery” had shamed the family and the grandfather, Prince Mohammad ibn Abdul Aziz, demanded her execution to uphold tribal honor. The princess was shot dead and her lover beheaded. The Saudi government tried to keep the execution secret but a foreign visitor caught it on tape. Later, a British television channel based the film, “Death of a Princess” on the incident.
The worst offender in the Arab world with respect to honour killings is Jordan, though Jordanians say the higher statistics are the price for their willingness to recognise the problem and allow such incidents to be recorded and reported. But the Jordanian law, in fact, helps perpetuate this menace. According to article 340 of Jordan’s penal code, judges should consider reduced sentences for any man who kills a female relative who has injured her family’s honor by engaging in premarital or extramarital sex — even if it is against her will. The liberal politicians in Jordan brought a bill to annul this article but the conservatives rejected it on the ground that, “it was a danger to family values and would encourage promiscuity”.
It is a recorded fact that such laws can often be used to hide a crime, especially in the cases of incest where a girl becomes pregnant. The unlimited and unbridled power legally vested in the male members of the family makes it easy for them to get rid of their crime and guilt by killing the impregnated woman.
Syria, another Arab Muslim country, is no exception. The government claims that Syrian legislation does not discriminate between the sexes and according to a government report “women, in the capacity as members of society, enjoy the same constitutional, legal and political rights as men”. But the personal status law of the Muslims and the penal code reveal clear gender discrimination.
Article 548.1 states that he “who surprises his spouse or one of his ascendants or descendants or his sister committing adultery or illegitimate sexual acts with another person and he unintentionally kills or injures one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty.” Article 548.2 states that the “perpetrator of homicide or injury shall benefit from a reduction in penalty if he surprises his spouse or one of his ascendants, descendants or sister in a suspicious state with another.
In Iran, under Khomeni’s rule, men were permitted to kill their wives if they were unfaithful to them. It led to cases of women being killed on mere suspicion.
Pakistan Penal Code also contains gender discriminatory laws. Honour killing was legally permitted/accepted for decades on the pretext of “grave and sudden provocation”. Exception 1 of section 300 of the Pakistan Penal Code (which now stands repealed) laid down that culpable homicide was not murder “if the offender whilst deprived of the power of self control by grave and sudden provocation, causes the death of the person who gave the provocation”. This exception was used when a man had even the slightest suspicion against a female relative. Not only this, the exception was also used as a cover when someone wanted to settle a score against his rival. The modus operandi in such cases was simple. Kill the rival; kill a family member, and then put their dead bodies together as evidence of their illicit relations.
After a series of protests this law was changed, but only to make it worse. This time it was done in the name of Islam. General Zia-ul Haq enforced his brand of Shariah Laws piecemeal. The first part was the enforcement of the controversial Hudood Laws and then it was the Qisas (retaliation) and Diyat (blood money) laws. The law, as it stands now, provides that Qatl-i-Amd (culpable homicide amounting to murder) will not be liable to qisas when, “an offender causes the death of his child or grand child how lowsoever” and also “when any wali (the heir of the victim according to his personal law) of the victim is a direct descendant, how lowsoever, of the offender”.
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In plain words, a father or a grandfather can kill his daughter/grand daughter without the fear of losing his life in retaliation. Ditto in the case of a person who kills his wife where the right of retaliation passes to the children of the deceased woman and the murderer. This is a grave lacuna in the law and has made it very easy for the killer to commit the crime against his womenfolk and get away with it.**
Such crimes are committed in almost all Muslim countries but their frequency is difficult to assess since separate statistics for honour killings are not kept. Clearly, these unjust and discriminatory laws need to be changed even before other measures are taken in the socioeconomic and political spheres to effect the larger, societal change.
The writer is a lawyer