Tuesday, May 07, 2002

THE STONING IS OFF...PUT THE ROCKS DOWN...THE STONING IS OFF!

Remember Zafran Bibi?

Backstory...

Human rights groups in Pakistan have expressed deep concern about a woman who has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. A district court in the town of Kohat in western Pakistan passed the sentence under Islamic Sharia law after police said the woman had confessed.

The woman, Zafran Bibi, went to the police two years ago to register a case of rape against her brother-in-law, but police later charged her and the man of having an adulterous affair.

Police then said she admitted to having an affair with her brother-in-law, who made her pregnant, and it was on the basis of this reported confession that she was found guilty.

THE HAPPY ENDING

A court in Pakistan has suspended the sentence of stoning to death passed against a woman convicted of adultery. On Saturday, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said such a sentence had never been carried out and should never be carried out.

Zafran Bibi originally went to the police two years ago to register a case of rape, but she herself was instead charged with having an adulterous affair. She gave birth to a son while her husband was in prison and a court in the conservative town of Kohat in North-West Frontier Province found her guilty of adultery.

WELL, ALMOST HAPPY ENDING

She is currently in jail in the town with her seven-month-old baby and has not been allowed to meet human-rights groups or journalists.