Abolishing ‘honour’ from killing

We’ve been shying away from punishing perpetrators of honour killings and rape

I need not remind you how a great many act, react and forget whenever these honour killings take place. The most vocal segment of our society, the twitter folks and dwellers of Facebook-land, yell their lungs out about the sheer wrongness of it all

While many of us were in sheer anticipation of a full blown war with our neighbour-cum-arch nemesis, our parliament achieved something Herculean by passing a long overdue bill pertaining to honour killings and rapes. Interestingly, the Anti-Honour Killing Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015 and the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015 were passed by joint sitting of parliament that was originally called for highlighting the plight of Kashmiri People.

In Pakistan, the core of Criminal Law rests on three giant tomes, namely Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 1898, Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) 1860 and Qanun-i-Shahadat Order 1984. Both Bills aim to make substantial amends in much-revered tomes in order to make sure that the perpetrators of such heinous acts won’t find solace in loopholes previously unplugged.

Rather than recounting the salient features of the bills, I talked to the individuals who are directly involved with the cause of putting an end to the menace of honour Killings. I did this in as much un-lawmen like manner as possible. As I solemnly believe that puerile pettifogging and digging deep into legal intricacies is the route best left to be tread upon by practicing black coats.

“Even before the passing of these bills, rape and honour-killings were punishable under law. However, this time around, these amendments aim to diffuse pleas such as grave and sudden provocation. The purpose of these amendments is to guide and educate people about the strict views on these issues of higher courts of the land. The Supreme Court has set the precedent by refusing to accept the plea of grave and sudden provocation in honour killing cases, thus plugging the route of taking the plea in honour killing cases citing religious and cultural grounds,” said former Additional District and Session Judge and Senior Associate ABS & Co Mr Majid Bashir.

“Pakistan’s criminal justice system will get a new lease after the passing of these bills. Now the legislature has legislated on the issue, the courts already have ruled out the maintainability of pleas citing ‘honour’ andghairat instinct that is behind these honour killings. Now people must be educated that no matter what they must abstain from taking matters of life and death in their own hand. It is upto the courts of law to decide,” Mr Bashir said.

When asked about the permissibility of DNA tests as evidence, he said that DNA is a new technology and CrPC allows any new form of evidence to be produced before court. “Islamic Ideological Council, however, has different views on this whole DNA thing,” he reminded.

I talked to Haseeb Khawaja, the woman rights activist behind unearthing the Kohistan Video Case. “In our patriarchal society, a woman is seen as a possession and as a commodity. We lag far behind the developed world precisely because we are not willing to give one half of our populace their rights and their due place in the society

I need not remind you how a great many act, react and forget whenever these honour killings take place. The most vocal segment of our society, the twitter folks and dwellers of Facebook-land, yell their lungs out about the sheer wrongness of it all. Statuses like ‘there is no honour in killing’ become ubiquitous and clutter one’s newsfeed for a day or two before vanishing forever.

Take the case of Qandeel Baloch, the social media sensation whose ‘honour’ killing by her brother made it to all major and minor news outlets, be it local or international. For a whole week, Qandeel, whose antics were secretly enjoyed by many who denounced her openly whenever her name was mentioned, had all the limelight to herself even after she died. How do things stand now for her parents? Recently, Mr Zahid Gishkori, a senior journalist did a follow up story documenting that her father Azeem Khan and mother Anwar Bibi have to beg for food after the demise of their sole breadwinner, Fauzia Salim aka Qandeel Baloch.

There is another largely forgotten incident of Kohistan Video Case, when five girls were brutally murdered after a video of them clapping in a wedding function surfaced, a jirga later ordered to murder them as they soiled the tribe’s name.

I talked to Haseeb Khawaja, the woman rights activist behind unearthing the Kohistan Video Case. “In our patriarchal society, a woman is seen as a possession and as a commodity. We lag far behind the developed world precisely because we are not willing to give one half of our populace their rights and their due place in the society. The recent rise in brutal violence against women is a symptom of a deeper malice. In order to curb what is wrong in society, the law has to intervene, this is precisely what our legislators did. I applaud them and expect that these anti-honour killing bills will play role in speeding up the Kohistan Video Case where five girls were slaughtered for so-called honour by jirga. Their souls are in limbo and await justice,” he said.

In the end, dearest sirs and ma’ams, the difference between passing resolutions showing solidarity and passing bills making a difference is that of good intention and solid decision. Our National Assembly, Senate and all provincial assemblies have passed a number of resolutions showing solidarity with downtrodden people from all parts of world, be it Kashmir, Palestine or Syria. The passage of these anti honour killing bills in a session called to show solidarity towards downtrodden, threatened masses of Kashmir is in itself an achievement of government and all opposition parties.