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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JPR who wrote (7114)	9/23/1999 10:31:00 AM
From: JPR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

dawn.com Amnesty begins protest against honour killings By Our Staff Reporter KARACHI, Sept 22: Members of the Amnesty International assembled at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday and despite being "harassed" by the police, lit candles to commemorate the women killed in the name of honour-killings (karo-kari). The candle-lighting exercise was part of a three-month-long campaign launched by the AI to condemn the honour killings in the country. As soon as the AI members arrived at the KPC, holding placards and banners, the policemen on duty outside the press club surrounded them. The policemen, who outnumbered the AI team, directed the AI members to leave the site immediately. The police did not listen to the AI members - many of whom were women - that they were not holding any rally and they just wanted to lit candles to commemorate the death of the women killed in the name of karo-kari, a tradition grossly misused by the vested interest. The policemen, however, looking at the large number of the journalists who had come out of the club to witness the AI members congregation, went back and watched the proceedings from a distance. AI coordinator for women affairs Shamsa Harris said a large number of women were killed in the country by their close relatives - husbands, fathers, brothers, merely on suspicion of having illicit relations, or choosing to marry a man of their choice, seeking divorce out of an abusive marriage. She said earlier such incidents were common in remote rural areas, but now these were being reported even in urban centres. She said sometime back a similar incident was reported in the UK where a mother helped her son to kill his sister as they thought that she had humiliated the family. She said "even if killers are arrested, they are not adequately sentenced as many laws, including the Qisas and Diyat, are discriminatory against the women". She said the government which had ratified the UN Convention on Elimination of all kinds of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) should fulfil its obligation and review the relevant laws and make them in conformity with the conventions it had signed. She also urged the government to provide adequate training to the law-enforcement and judicial personnel so that they properly tackled such cases involving the honour killings. She also demanded that all forms of domestic violence be dealt with under the criminal laws. She said now the AI will hold seminars, symposia, and start writing letters to the legislators, public opinion leaders and government functionaries to further highlight the issue. Amnesty begins protest against honour killings