Each week, the Guardian Weekend magazine’s editorial team choose a picture, or set of pictures, that particularly tickle their fancy. This week, their choice is Pakistani women, by Geoff Brokate and Kaye...
Pakistan: A Tipping ...
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A revolution averted: as we prepared to fly to Pakistan, we realized that the country was being held hostage by a charismatic Canada-based cleric, Dr. Tahirul Qadri, chief of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran. He held a march with 40-50,000 of his supporters in Islamabad with the singular objective of...
No More Girl Heroes: Outlawed in Pakistan
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The story of Kainat Soomro is a moving one. Kainat is a Pakistani teenager of 17. When she was 13, she was abducted and gang-raped by four men. Since that time, she has worked tirelessly to bring the rapists to justice; hiring an attorney, making television appearances, appealing court decisions. Her family was ordered to carry out an honor killing as Kainat was declared kari (black virgin) and being a rape victim brings shame to the family, according to parts of Pakistani culture and judiciary. Kainat’s parents refused to kill their daughter. Since then, Kainat and her family were forced to leave the village where they lived. The...
For Shame
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Rashmee Roshan Lall, the former editor of the Sunday Times of India, is now a freelance writer based in the United States. As the world has watched India’s public outrage at December’s fatal gang rape in Delhi, no country has followed the story with a greater sense of pained, if presumed, understanding than its neighbor and rival Pakistan. On New Year’s Day, Pakistani civil rights organizations took to the streets of their capital, Islamabad, for a candlelight vigil in memory of the victim, who died of her injuries in late December. Amid calls for a law against domestic violence in Pakistan, Rehana Hashmi, president of...