Pakistani clerics add curbs on women
Source: Agencies |
July 21, 2013, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
TRIBAL elders and Islamic clerics in northwest Pakistan have barred women from shopping in bazaars without a male relative, elders and an official said yesterday.
The decision was taken on Friday in the Karak District of conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders the restive tribal areas along the Afghan border.
"We have decided that women will not visit bazaars without a male relative," Maulana Mirzaqeem, a cleric and tribal elder, said by telephone. "Those who will visit markets without male relatives will be handed over to police."
"They spread vulgarity and spoil men's fasting in Ramadan," Mirzaqeem said, adding that the ban would be publicized using local mosques' loudspeakers.
The decision had been taken due to the sanctity of the holy month, the cleric said. It's not clear whether it will be lifted after Ramadan. A senior government official in Karak confirmed the move.
Taliban threats and social taboos have deprived millions of women of their rights in Pakistan. In most parts of the northwestern tribal areas women are confined to their homes and do not go shopping or work outside. Pakistani women in most parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cover their heads and bodies.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, one of President Hamid Karzai's main religious advisers will not overturn a decree issued by clerics in the north reimposing Taliban-style curbs on women, in another sign of returning conservatism as NATO forces leave the country.
Just days after the United States launched a US$200 million program to boost the role of women in Afghanistan, a senior member of the country's top religious leaders' panel said he would not intervene over a draconian edict issued by clerics in the Deh Salah region of Baghlan Province.
Deh Salah, near Panshir, was a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment prior to the ousting of the austere Islamist government by the US-backed Northern Alliance in 2001.
But the eight-article decree, issued late in June, bars women from leaving home without a male relative, while shutting cosmetic shops on the pretext they were being used for prostitution - an accusation residents and police reject.
"There is no way these shops could have stayed open. Shops are for business, not adultery," Enayatullah Baligh, a member of the top religious panel, the Ulema Council, and an adviser to the president, said late on Friday.
The decision was taken on Friday in the Karak District of conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders the restive tribal areas along the Afghan border.
"We have decided that women will not visit bazaars without a male relative," Maulana Mirzaqeem, a cleric and tribal elder, said by telephone. "Those who will visit markets without male relatives will be handed over to police."
"They spread vulgarity and spoil men's fasting in Ramadan," Mirzaqeem said, adding that the ban would be publicized using local mosques' loudspeakers.
The decision had been taken due to the sanctity of the holy month, the cleric said. It's not clear whether it will be lifted after Ramadan. A senior government official in Karak confirmed the move.
Taliban threats and social taboos have deprived millions of women of their rights in Pakistan. In most parts of the northwestern tribal areas women are confined to their homes and do not go shopping or work outside. Pakistani women in most parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cover their heads and bodies.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, one of President Hamid Karzai's main religious advisers will not overturn a decree issued by clerics in the north reimposing Taliban-style curbs on women, in another sign of returning conservatism as NATO forces leave the country.
Just days after the United States launched a US$200 million program to boost the role of women in Afghanistan, a senior member of the country's top religious leaders' panel said he would not intervene over a draconian edict issued by clerics in the Deh Salah region of Baghlan Province.
Deh Salah, near Panshir, was a bastion of anti-Taliban sentiment prior to the ousting of the austere Islamist government by the US-backed Northern Alliance in 2001.
But the eight-article decree, issued late in June, bars women from leaving home without a male relative, while shutting cosmetic shops on the pretext they were being used for prostitution - an accusation residents and police reject.
"There is no way these shops could have stayed open. Shops are for business, not adultery," Enayatullah Baligh, a member of the top religious panel, the Ulema Council, and an adviser to the president, said late on Friday.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
