Pakistani lawmaker approved of the honour killings

A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because the women wanted to choose their own husbands. The women, three of whom were teenagers, were abducted at gunpoint by six men, forced into a vehicle and taken to a remote field, where they were beaten, shot, thrown into a previously prepared ditch and then buried alive. They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according media reports and human rights activists, who said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing. The incident occurred one month ago in Baba Kot, a remote village in the Jafferabad district, after the women decided to defy tribal elders and arrange marriages in a civil court, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission.

The lawmaker, Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents the Baluchistan province, said on August 30, 2008. "These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them. Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.”

What immoral acts is this creep speaking of? Marrying a man of your own choosing against the wishes of your father is immoral? Give me a break.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the kind of man who would bury his own daughter alive if she chose to marry someone around her own age and of her own choosing rather than marry some old, worthless man of her father’s choosing.

Zehri told a packed and flabbergasted Parliament on the 29th of August, that his province’s tribal traditions helped stop obscenity and then he had the temerity to ask his fellow lawmakers not to make a big fuss about it. The most of the members of the Pakistani parliament were shocked by his words. Many stood up in protest, saying the executions were "barbaric" and demanding that discussions continue in a couple of days. However, a handful said it was an internal matter of the deeply conservative province.

Lawmaker Nilofar Bakhtiar, who pushed for legislation calling for perpetrators of so-called honour killings to be punished when she served as minister of women's affairs under the last government said, "I was shocked. I feel that we've gone back to the starting point again. It's really sad for me.''

Local authorities tried to hush up the killings. One of perpetrators is related to a top provincial official.

These honour killings were against the law of Pakistan and the village elders who ordered the deaths of the women and the parents of the victims if they gave their approval of the murders should be arrested, tried, and sentenced to life in prison without parole and the six who committed the murders should be hanged. Israr Ullah Zehri should be impeached and thrown out of the Pakistani parliament and forbidden from running for public office in any capacity for the rest of his life. Unless such sentences and the impeachment of the offending lawmaker come about, Pakistan will still be referred to as a backward country.

Severe punishment often acts as a general deterrent and what that country needs is an example that will act as a general deterrent so that others of the same ilk of those I have mentioned, will think twice before acting in such a disgusting manner.