Tue, Feb 22, 2005 - Page 5 News List

Pakistani doctor's rape fuels guerilla attacks

THE GUARDIAN , LONDON

Weeks ago Shazia's husband's grandfather said the rape had rendered her kari -- a disgrace to the family honor -- and so she must be divorced, and preferably killed.

Such "honor killings" remain common in rural Pakistan.

But her husband, a pipeline engineer, says he is standing by his wife. His grandfather, he said, "is just a bad man, and this has made my wife even more scared. She cannot sleep at night, so I sit by her bed to take care of her."

For human-rights campaigners, the kari rubs salt in the wound of a case combining politics, violence and regressive traditions.

"In this country a woman has no status," said Shershah Syed, of the Pakistan Medical Association. "She is an object, like a cow or a bucket."

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