Fireworks in Senate over women’s rights bill

ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: Religious parties in the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) poured scorn on a new women’s rights bill at the start of a Senate debate on the draft on Wednesday, some Senators calling it “a revolt against God”.

The treasury benches too came out with a vehement defence of the Protection of the Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill after allowing the critics a free hand to vent out their anger in what would be a much longer debate than was held in the National Assembly last week and would continue on Thursday.

The bill, seeking to protect women from the misuse of 27-year-old controversial Hudood decrees to punish sex outside wedlock, was passed by the National Assembly on Nov 15 and must be adopted by the Senate as well to become law — a certainty in view of the comfortable majority of the ruling coalition and support from a major opposition party.

MMA’s Prof Khurshid Ahmed opened the debate and made the longest speech of the day, calling the bill an attempt to change the Islamic Hadd punishments which, he said, was “not only a sin but a rebellion against God”.

He said the new law would harm rather than doing any good to women’s rights and accused President Pervez Musharraf of thrusting it on the ruling party as part of a ‘Western agenda’ against Islam.

The defence of the bill came from leader of the house Wasim Sajjad, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi and Minister of State for Law and Justice Shahid Akram Bhinder, all of whom said the new law was necessary to protect women from wrongs done by the two 1979 Hudood ordinances about Zina (adultery and rape) and Qazf (false allegation of Zina) and that it conformed with the Islamic injunctions. They rejected MMA’s arguments that it was contrary to the Holy Quran and Sunnah.
 
Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro deferred consideration of a privilege motion filed by Awami National Party president Asfandyar Wali that accused authorities of preventing him from visiting a madressah in the Bajaur tribal area where a military missile strike on Oct 30 killed 83 people. The opposition parties are also seeking a debate on the strike.