Hudood Ordinance
Geo TV has started a campaign to help us think. Yes, now we need campaigns to even think. The issue that we are being asked to think about is Hudood Ordinance. Hadood Ordinance, a set of laws which have dragged the women of Pakistan by the hair to the darkest and remotest corner of injustice. Imagine a law which has singlehandedly, negated the laws laid down by Allah, which were practised by his Prophet Mohammad PBUH and put a plastic bag over the heads of millions of women of Pakistan.
I have not been able to follow all the programs of this series on GEO TV, but the parts of discussion that I have seen are frustrating and eye opening at the same time. Why I say frustrating is because I see the learned scholars, Muftis, Ulema and Drs. sitting there and everyone of them confessing that there is a flaw in the Huddod Oridnance. The flaw is greatest where consentual sex and rape are given under the same branch of law. The requirement of witnesses is the same. Can any sane or insane person explain to me how 4 pious, practising muslim men can stand around and let a man rape a woman??
Our jails are full of women, teenage girls who have been raped and were booked under the Zina law when they could not hide their pregnancies. They are not waiting for their cases to be heard, because there is no one to hear them. Nobody cares if they rot, as long as they are in full hijab.
The clergy is ready to board trains and have million men marches if the women of Pakistan try to run a marathon but they will not even lift a finger to correct the mistake that they or the likes of them made when Hudood ordinance was made. They are the ones who were advising the General when he was drunk on power and thought of himself as the amir of the Muslim ummah. It is the responsibilty of the clergy to right this wrong. Our I swear I and millions of women will grab their collars on the day of jugdement. So help us God.