Pakistan bans satire about burqas
POSTED: 8:56 a.m. EDT, April 26, 2007
cnn.com
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) -- Irate Islamist
lawmakers have persuaded the Pakistan government to
stop a theatre group staging a satirical play about
the burqa, the all-covering head-to-toe garment worn
by conservative Muslim women.
"Burqavaganza" played earlier this month during an
arts festival in Lahore, the eastern city regarded as
Pakistan's cultural capital, and home to some of the
most liberal and most puritanical parts of the Muslim
nation's society.
"The burqa is part of our culture. We can't allow
anyone to ridicule our culture," Culture Minister
Sayed Ghazi Gulab Jamal told the National Assembly.
The minister announced Thursday that the government
had barred the play, which had already ended its run
in Lahore, from being performed in other Pakistani
cities.
Veiled female parliamentarians and Islamist lawmakers
cheered Jamal and thumped desks in approval, while
trading barbs with women from both the ruling party
and liberal opposition parties.
Described by critics as a romp, the play sought to
highlight the impact of the veil on society, by
showing how wearers use it as a way to hide what they
want to keep private.
In the play, young men and women wore the burqa to go
out on secret dates, and it featured a character
called Burqa bin Badin.
The play also showed a burqa-clad married couple put
to death for making love in public.
Predictably, religious conservative Pakistanis did not
find it funny, going as far as to describe the play as
blasphemous, a crime in Pakistan that can carry a
death sentence.
"They have committed blasphemy against the Prophet
(Mohammad)," Razia Aziz, a female lawmaker from the
Islamist opposition alliance, told the National
Assembly.
She demanded the government take action against people
responsible for staging "Burqavaganza".
Mehnaz Rafi, a lawmaker for the ruling Pakistan Muslim
League from Lahore, opposed the government giving in
to the Islamists.
"A few people cannot dictate affairs of the state.
Every person has the right to lead his life his own
way. A few people cannot snatch freedom from society,"
Rafi said.
Shahid Nadeem, the director of the play, told the
weekly Friday Times that the play aimed to raise
awareness about a trend to force women to wear the
veil.
Progressive Pakistanis have become increasingly
shocked by how bold religious radicals have become in
spreading their Taliban-style values in society.
Last month, burqa-clad female students from an Islamic
school, or madrasa, raided a brothel in the capital,
Islamabad, and abducted three women. The women were
released only after they were made to repent before
the media.
Students from Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and its
adjoining madrasa have also pressured music and video
shop owners to wind up their businesses as part of
their anti-vice campaign. |
