Pakistan's human rights commission yesterday hailed a landmark Supreme Court ruling that a Muslim woman who married for love had been entitled to choose her husband without her parents' consent.
The woman's father has been fighting a legal battle to invalidate the 1996 marriage which flaunted tradition in Pakistan, where it's rare for people to marry without their parents' permission.
On Friday, the court rejected the final appeal by the father, Hafiz Abdul Waheed, ruling that his daughter Saima Waheed had been at liberty to wed whom she wanted.
"The consent of the wali [guardian] is not required and an adult and sane Muslim female can enter into a valid nikah [marriage contract] of her own free will," the three judges said in a 26-page ruling.
Hundreds of women are killed or maimed each year by close relatives if they take such a step, seen as betraying the family's honor -- particularly in conservative rural areas of this Islamic country.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan -- which had helped protect and give legal support to Saima Waheed after she married -- praised the judgment.
"It is a very good ruling and we welcome it," commission official Zaman Khan said by telephone from the eastern city of Lahore.
Waheed stunned her family in 1996 when she married Arshad Ahmed, an English-language teacher who was hired by Waheed's father to tutor his two young sons.
Waheed and Ahmed soon became friends, but when Ahmed asked Waheed's father for his daughter's hand in marriage, he was rejected.
They married secretly.
A man with considerable standing in Pakistani society, Waheed's father quickly rallied support from religious parties, who argued that "love marriages" were against Islam.
Ahmed spent four months in jail, and Waheed stayed in a women's shelter but a court ruled during 1997 that their marriage was legal. The couple later moved to Norway.
Khan also called Friday for more government action to stop "honor killings."
"Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan just because they choose a husband of their choice," he said. "The practice will only end when the government ensures exemplary punishment to all those indulging in these heinous crimes."
Recently, President Pervez Musharraf ordered an inquiry into a suspected "honor killing.".
The woman, Afshin Musarrat, 23, was allegedly strangled last month after she fled from an arranged marriage to live with the man she loved. Her grandfather and several other men are suspected in the killing. Her father has been arrested.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese