i agree with you now irem. you say that punishing these five will have some deterrance element and that is the goal of punishing people in an Islamic legal system. and the government should actively undertake other steps in addition, such as ensuring people know that panchayat rulings and acting on them will not have protection of law, making the law cheaper and less complicated for people, arranging for competant state prosecutors etc.. to undermine this stupid culture.
nikhil25 u have to understand how the panchayat system works in villages and what the panchayat means to a common villager to fathom the points i've made above. they can't just "not answer to the panchayat"
i'm not sure abt us army rules. i did hear though that some soldiers had refused to take part in certain army missions of the us govt without punishement.
abt ur last point: i'll answer that in my reply to ravage below
ravage it might have deterrence effect but will it be fair to them? Islam never said punish people unfairly merely for deterrence effect of the crime in society.
and why not? because there will be punishment, na?
what unavoidable and inescapable punishment handed out by the panchayat for insubordination could possibly supersede the weight and guilt of committing a heinous crime like gangrape? i guess you would argue that they may not feel guilty because they have jahil values ingrained in them since birth. in that case, if the pakistani gov’t actually wants to eradicate jahil activities, they must be punished and their punishment publicized across the nation. giving them a “get out of jail free” card just because they honestly and truly subscribe to tribal jahilya is nothing but an official acceptance of that behavior. perhaps its sad that they need to be made example of, but so be it.
Im not necessarily against that. What I was referring to was the fact that the case was not built on facts. The facts were never presented to the court. No proofs were offered. All the prosecution had to say was, hey, it happened, its all over the news, the media says these guys did it, so punish them. The circuit court agreed, and handed out death sentences, but do you really think this is a carriage of justice?
Everyone has a fair idea of the mob mentality, and how it works in Pakistan. People just follow the herd. If a bomb blast takes place somewhere in Larkana, people in Karachi take out processions, torching public buses, smashing cars, forcing people to close their businesses. In all this melee, noone realizes who exactly is at fault.
Thats what happened in the Mukhtar mai case. After she was raped, a melee ensued, and people fingered out anyone they wanted from the opposing tribe, and held them responsible, even though that person may have been against the rape.
It was not a fair decision, and should have been overturned. Now lets hope there is some concrete evidence presented in the Supreme Court, so the ‘real’ culprits can be sent to hell.
Any thoughts of vigilante justice in this scenario put one in the same boat as those men who used the same pretext to order the woman’s gangrape.
