Rape Victim Retracts Allegation
Ebtihal Mubarak, Arab News
arabnews.com
JEDDAH, 16 August 2006 — The story in yesterday’s Al-Madinah newspaper showed a picture of a woman clad in an abaya caressing the forehead of an older man.
Above the photograph was an eight-column headline in bold Arabic script: “The Azizia Girl Confesses: ‘My Father Is Innocent of Raping and Illegitimately Impregnating Me!!’”
Indeed, Zarni, the 20-year-old Pakistani who became the first non-Saudi woman to receive domestic abuse protection from the National Society for Human Rights, has now retracted the allegations of physical and sexual abuse against her father.
But according to Umm Abdul Aziz, the 28-year-old neighbor who first alerted authorities to the alleged abuse, Zarni’s mother convinced her to retract her allegations in order to get her father out of jail. And now her family has arranged for a marriage to a paternal cousin.
Umm Abdul Aziz said she received information from Zarni’s maternal cousin that, following the marriage, she will be flown back to Pakistan.
“When she reaches Pakistan it will be her end, literally,” said Umm Abdul Aziz. “She comes from a Balochi tribal family and they are known to be very unmerciful in rape situations. The only way they solve it is by killing the woman.” It is generally referred to as honor killing.
In an interview with Arab News in June, Zarni described in detail her reaction the first time she was allegedly abused by her father.
“I cried for three days,” she had said in that interview. “I went directly to my relatives and told them about my father’s action, but they told me to go back to him.”
Zarni had also alleged that her father was mentally unstable, breaking items and “hitting himself.” She said her father became anguished after hearing of the death of an old lover back in Pakistan, and that he told his daughter that she reminded him of the old flame. She also claimed that she had attempted suicide “a number of times” over the course of three years of alleged abuse. The woman said she was afraid to go to the police fearing they wouldn’t believe her. Zarni also alleged that she became pregnant from her father and got a clandestine abortion.
Zarni’s father told Al-Madinah yesterday that his daughter suffers from mental disorders. In the report, Zarni blames Umm Abdul Aziz for conjuring up the allegations of sexual and physical abuse.
“Carrying out a good deed is rewarded with ten slaps on the face,” said Umm Abdul Aziz, adding that she doesn’t blame the woman and fears for her safety; she also says that she has received death threats by phone and SMS from unknown people and that her apartment has been broken into.
Umm Abdul Aziz, who became involved in the case when other neighbors told her that Zarni was seen in late May running in the street near her home crying for help.
Umm Abdul Aziz also met Kashif, a Pakistani man who had expressed a desire to marry Zarni (but was rejected by Zarni’s father) despite knowing about the allegations of sexual abuse. The two claim that Zarni was able to obtain digital video evidence of her father sexually assaulting her.
Umm Abdul Aziz then said she helped Zarni get in contact with the National Society for Human Rights where she became the first non-Saudi alleged victim of domestic abuse to receive shelter in the group’s Jeddah facility.
On June 5, authorities went to arrest the father, but he had fled. He was later arrested and held for about a month until his daughter changed her testimony.
After being visited several times by her mother, Zarni retracted her accusations against her father. She was then arrested for making false statements and then later release into her father’s custody.
Al-Madinah showed pictures yesterday of Zarni embracing her father and seeking forgiveness.
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