The government in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province has unveiled legislation which, if approved, will bring strict Islamic law into force for the first time in the country’s history.
The bill aims to give Sharia law precedence over secular provincial law and stipulates that every Muslim will be bound by it.
Deputies are also considering a bill to establish a new Department of Vice and Virtue.
Both bills are expected to be passed, as religious hardliners run the province with an absolute majority.
Women’s groups and other critics have called the move “creeping Talebanisation” - fearing it will be like the former Taleban regime in neighbourng Afghanistan.
Many people in North-West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, have close ideological ties to the Taleban.
Pakistan’s federal law enforcers have little jurisdiction over the area, which is more strictly conservative than other parts of the country.
Analysts say President Musharraf will be watching events with some discomfort - he is keen to convince his Western allies that Pakistan is an ally in the war against terrorism, nor part of the problem.
‘Supreme law’
Sharia follows the moral and religious codes laid down in the Islamic holy book, the Koran.
The alliance of religious hardliners which runs North-West Frontier Province has been working for months on the bill.
Tuesday’s session in the provincial assembly was adjourned after a first reading.
“In the whole of the North-West Frontier Province, Sharia will be the supreme law in provincial matters, and all courts in the province will be bound to interpret and explain provincial law according to Sharia,” the bill states.
Deputies now have a minimum of three days to consider its contents and consult with colleagues.
The details have been closely guarded, but the bill is expected to cover law and order as well as the social and economic welfare of the province’s people.
**It calls for free education, for example, for all children up to 16.
The BBC’s Paul Anderson in Islamabad says so-called “honour killings”, in which women are killed for adultery or other marital impropriety, are expected to be outlawed. **
The move has been welcomed by members of the Islamic coalition which governs the province.
“This is an historic day, not only for this province but for the whole country because we are setting an example,” said one leading member, Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan.
Women scared
But critics say they are worried provincial leaders are following in the footsteps of the Taleban, the Islamic hardliners who ruled Afghanistan and drove women and girls out of jobs and schools, back into their homes.
“The way Islamic parties have started imposing certain laws in the NWFP we feel will deprive many people of their basic rights,” Kamla Hayyat of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said.
Some women in the provincial capital, Peshawar, fear they may be banned from working for foreign non-governmental organisations.
And the planned creation of a Department of Vice and Virtue has prompted concern among some people who recall pictures of the Taleban vice squads dispensing summary justice in Afghanistan.
Supporters of the move, however, say all they are trying to do is curb obscenity and protect human decency.
1) It’s great that they are making everyone go to school and I would have been happy with just primary education but up till 16? WOW! But I want to know how do they planning to provide such assistance? Is it going to be a public school system like the US? If so they will have to increase their tax ravenues … and how do they plan to do that?
What about the ever increasing private schools? Will they be abolished?
Funding really becomes an issue in the light of the fact that MMA believes in gender-segregated education.
2) I didn’t know that “honor killing” was lawful under current secular law, is it? And would the state be taking over that role, i.e: killing the indecent?
so is relocation..